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Which sums up my impression of the product as well. I like it, I enjoy playing it, and am glad that I have it as part of my arsenal, but it's got its pluses and its minuses. It's nowhere near as nice as playing the real thing, but then no VST is, and yes, there are sampled VST's that are nicer, but for me I like PT's small footprint and responsiveness. I find that it's great to use for practice, and it has been reliable to use when gigging.

Thanks for sharing your objective opinions on this, and glad that you were able to try out version 6.

I have a question about upgrading. On the site it says that an upgrade of 29 Euros will upgrade any version of Pianoteq to ver. 6. Does that include the Pro version as well as the Pro/Studio bundles? So if I would have bought Pianoteq 5 studio bundle, I could upgrade that to the 6 studio bundle for just 29 Euros?

Have the upgrade prices always been this low? Because that is very reasonable, I think, and could sway me towards buying Pianoteq.

Yes. The upgrade price is just 29 Euros and $39 USA.

It definitely applies to the Stage, Standard and Pro versions, e.g. if you had 5 Pro, the 29 Euro upgrade will get you 6 Pro; the upgrade is always to the equivalent version. Extra instruments are also automatically upgraded within that, so if you had, for example, the PT5 version of the Grotrian, you'll get the PT6 version of the Grotrian included in the upgrade (at no extra cost). I don't know for sure about the Studio bundle, but I'd be surprised if it were different in that regard. PT is arguably quite expensive up front (especially for the Pro and Studio versions), but the upgrades are excellent value. Within the first year of ownership, upgrades are also completely free, i.e. I bought PT5 earlier this year, and got the upgrade to PT6 entirely for free.

Thanks to both of you for the information, that sounds like a great deal. Honestly I'm surprised that the upgrade are so cheap, definitely makes me consider buying Pianoteq.

It's been an interesting afternoon!

I bought Stage. Started to play. Personally I don't want to constantly fiddle with it so I think Stage is the right product for me. I really started to get into it. Love the response and although I could find areas where it is sonically lacking a sense of realism it really didn't bother me. I felt like I was really connecting with it and playing a real instrument.

Then I took the dogs for a walk along the beach, hastened back, eager to get back on it and I couldn't settle down on it at all. All those little issues that I could tolerate less than two hours earlier started to bug me and it started to get in the way of my enjoyment to some extent.

There are some sonic issues that very much remind me of the Physis Piano that I owned. The tenor areas are strangely metallic and get very noticeably and unrealistically so at higher velocities (just like most of the Physis presets). I went back to the onboard sampled sound and it was a fair bit nicer and not all that much less responsive. Less so, yes. But not that much.

It's early days. I don't regret the purchase and, like you, I suspect I'll end up feeling like it's one of the tools in the box. I'll keep playing it. There's a lot to like; the interface, the audio quality seems very good. The low demand on the computer. I've set it to 128 note polyphony and that provides 2.9 ms latency. No glitches or crackles.

Someone recently said that playing PT is a whole lot nicer than listening to it and I've an idea that is where I'll end up. And for a while earlier I really did understand the enthusiasm for it. To just immerse yourself in the playing of it is the key to enjoying it. Even the slightest foray into a forensic assessment of the pure sound of the thing brings disappointment though (to me anyway).

Ok so this has nothing to do with Pianoteq as such but I can confirm that I have this kind of thing with other sample based piano VST instruments as well. I finally manage to make a config that sounds and feels great, save everything, come back to it the next day and it feels to me as if something is missing, and I wonder, how could I like this config yesterday? Then I spend an afternoon configuring it, and the cycle repeats.

I bought the €29 upgrade a few weeks ago and I think it was worth it, if only for the improvements in the D and K models, which I didn't use before because I thought they just sounded pretty bad unless you choose a preset with a whole load of reverb like the Concert Recording setting.

I like Pianoteq for its reliability (it barely ever glitches), fast loading, great UI and recording features, and ease of switching between a bunch of well thought out presets. On the other VSTIs I own, Vintage D and CFX Lite, the factory presets are all crap so you have to make your own, and loading and switching between them is neither easy nor quick. Plus CFX has a tendency to glitch out a lot if I do anything as egregious as switching to a web browser for a bit while having the software open (... and pity the fool who tries to use it after the computer has been to sleep) - which is a shame, because it has the best sound.

Switching between VSTi is quite easy with a DAW : just save a project per VSTi with a single track, the VSTi loaded and the monitoring activated.

With Reaper, I have all my VSTi saved as a template, then a single menu choice (example : File/Template/Vintage D) load my VSTi and also my settings. Loading is easy (but not necessarily fast).

Sounds like a fair assessment. I remember feeling the same about any acoustic I bought; nuthin's perfect. The D4 version 5.8 is mushy mid keyboard; so's my Roland. Grotrian is much better, and is the best choice for listening through the piano speakers imo. The 6.0 D4 is better, but I think I'll leave it. K2 has always been one o' my favourites. I like the wide stereo in one of the voices.
6.0 seems to work without any issues on my laptop and it's easy to pick up on existing settings. I could only load it from a memory stick for some reason (out of date computer?)

I understand what you're saying here. In my experience, a good rule of thumb is that if you like something on its default settings, you'll like it on most other settings, and if you don't like it on its default settings, no amount of fiddling will give a lasting level of satisfaction.

The only electronic piano sound I didn't immediately have an issue with when I first heard it was the Garritan CFX. On that one, I can alter the sound quite a lot through changing settings such as mic perspectives, decay parameters etc.. and while some settings are preferable to others for me, I actually enjoy the sound on almost all of them. By contrast, with most other piano VSTis, including Pianoteq, I can fiddle, get to a point where I think I'm happy, but an hour later and the flaws are all too evident again. I think there is a basic sound that is either right or not right, and no amount of changing the settings can alter that. That applies to sampled VSTis as well as modeled ones.

I agree that a VST should shine for you right out of the box.

I had a chance to play a real Yamaha C5 at Von Maur - this is after months of playing with VST's - and I couldn't believe how loud and resonant it was! No volume control. No knob to turn down sympathetic resonance. I had to be much more careful with my pedal or else everything would sound convoluted. There was no knob for damper duration. I would have to say that it would take me a few weeks to adjust my ears and playing style to a real grand. But when the jazz virtuoso was playing it minutes before, it did sound incredible, but under my inexperienced fingers it was like an untamed horse.

@EssBraceI

I encourage you to get a Std. version. Then a) set the Dynamics slider to at least 60 dB. Next, do something to mask the Pianoteq artificial nature: b) play with a reverb (ratio and duration), don't be shy to add more of it; c) play with microphones positions, set them to somewhat significantly distant.

This generalization just cannot stand:Perhaps that is, indeed, your experience. But do you mean it to apply more broadly? I cannot.

Cases in point:

I bought Galaxy's Vintage D long ago. I did not like the initial sound. It was dull and lifeless. It needed an increase in the colour setting. That fixed it. Much better.

I bought NI's The Grandeur piano a few years later. As with the Vintage D did not like the initial sound. It, too, was dull sounding. The resonance setting had to be tweaked. That did the trick.

On the other hand, I've tried five different versions of Pianoteq and could not tweak any of them to satisfy.
Ditto for Alicia's Keys, Piano in Blue, and two of the 8DIO vintage pianos. No amount of tweaking would satisfy.

So for me ... Your rule is true, when it's true. And false otherwise. So it's not really a rule at all.

Fair enough. It seems to work for me, but it's useful to know that it might not work for everyone.

Yes, I would definitely agree with these. They still don't get PT to sound convincing to me, but they certainly improve the sound more than anything else. The microphone positions in particular (and indeed, microphone types) make a huge difference to the sound, and are often overlooked by people.

I have a question about microphones in Pianoteq.

As I assume everybody here knows, Pianoteq is modelled, or calculated, not sampled. Which obviously means no microphones were used in recording the pianos, simply because they weren't recorded, or were they?

How do they model different microphones never recorded with, or different mic perspectives? Or do they record the pianos which are the sources of the models, and then try to mimic that sound? If not, how do they do it?

I know there must be some trade secrets Modartt understandably will not reveal, but I'm asking about the general procedure.

Modartt haven't said themselves, but I would assume they are modeled. Modartt's general approach is to model known physical characteristics rather than to optimise parameters based on the minimising the distance between produced and recorded sound (which is a valid alternative approach, but quite different). Microphones have a characteristic frequency response which is generally known for each model; Modartt could take that and apply the microphone as a filter based on that response, with an additional spatial filtering component included to reflect the location, direction and reach of the microphone. I would imagine that's what they do.

It's a very good question and one you could ask from the opposite point of view: how often are real michrophones used for sampled pianos such as Vintage D etc etc.?

So called convolution reverb is, afaics, the reverb equivalent of modelling: it uses advanced mathematical algorithms to recreate spaces; often known spaces such as Chatres Cathedral or St Paul's. Actually, all digital reverb is a sort of modelling, I suppose, but 'convolution' is more specific and with more sophisticated algorithms.

So it is totally fitting and logical for Modartt use these kinds of procedures. But my other question still stands: do sampled piano packages do the same after having captured the basics with close michrophones in almost anechoic conditions, or do they actually use concert halls and what-not to create their audience perspectives, and the rest?

.......probably a bit of both.

Sorry, wrong. Well, actually correct to some degree (as you CAN call everything inside a computer an algorithm), but still not in the definitions. There are a convolution reverbs and algorithmic ones, they are technically different. The very approximate comparison will be - the convolution reverb is like a photo, the algorithmic one is like a painting. Both have their pros and cons. For more detailed explanation please google it.

To the microphones question. When you model something virtually inside a computer, be it say, 3d graphics, you'll be amazed how many additional things you actually NEED to be modelled apart from your main focus, just for it to be more or less existent. You need to model a) a lighting conditions b) a video camera c) material the object is made from, etc.

Same with modelled piano, it just need to have a virtual microphones to be modelled so the sound can be simply heard. Regarding the placement and the different types of microphones - it is all based on modelling this parameters virtually, say, for more distant placement the quiet sounds will be masked by the louder ones and some frequencies will behave differently over distance, etc.

Sampled pianos use real microphones in a real places, no mumbo-jumbo here (almost).