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Here are five short excerpts from five pianos, the entire file is under 1 minute:
Comparison

You can comment, compare, rank, praise, bash, try to guess what is what

Sounds like the musical soundtrack for the hit film: “How to properly measure key weight”. This is the scene where they search for the McGuffin. :-)

1. Pianoteq
2. Garritan cfx
3. Pianoteq
4. Garritan cfx
5. Pianoteq

Kind of hard to rank or praise without actual pieces of music.

(I changed it a couple of times, this is my definitive list.)

I have no idea really and just adding the reverb might make it more difficult to tell a difference.

But as a wild guess I could say that the first one is Pianoteq, the last one is a Yamaha digital piano and the others are some sampled VSTis or digital pianos.

The third one is a German grand and the fourth is a Japanese one.

Some of them might be the same one with a different amount of reverb.

None is an acoustic one. None sounded horrible. Also none is Casio's "Hamburg Grand" or Kurzweil's "Triple Strike" Steinway or a 90's Clavinova.

Actually i'm only quite sure about 1 and 2, the rest i'm not so sure about, and I'm not familiar with any internal dp sounds.

Fascinating.

Was this played once to midi and then used to generate the 5 samples, or was it played 5 times separately?

My authoritative (actually nothing of the kind) findings:

• 1: Too metallic.
• 2: A bit too much reverb, but pleasant
• 3: A bit too little reverb, and cold
• 4: Weird
• 5: Ok, but not as nice as 2.

I played 5 times, no MIDI.

My guess:

1. Pianoteq
2. Garritan
3. Another Pianoteq
4. N1X
5. Yet another pianoteq

As others have said, 2 and 4 have considerably more reverb than 1,3,5 and that (plus volume level) makes it more complicated to identify.

When this game is over, please contribute to http://pianosound.wikidot.com/start

Those all sound rather identical to me, at least without headphones. Will have another try with my piano headphones later.

That's the problem with scraggy computer speakers....

Here are the pianos:


Why I decided to to this boring comparison? Because I've read some praises about the NY Steinway in Pianoteq. Downloaded it and immediately realized nothing has changed regarding the three main issues I've always had with Pianoteq and have thoroughly reported during my participation on the Pianoteq beta testing team many years ago:

1. Playing short (almost staccato) alternating notes in the middle octave produces a very distinctive synthetic (nasal) transition between the notes
2. Playing the same in the higher octaves produces an unnatural metallic sound
3. Playing short (pronounced when loud) bass notes produces a very hollow sound, as though the strings are from rubber and not metal

I then played the same with other pianos for comparison. Everybody recognized Pianoteq and that's an eloquent fact for why if you target its apparent weaknesses, everyone will be able to recognize it.

Hm you only had three opinions so far of witch:



So that also proves that the biggest weakness of Garritan CFX is the fact that is was made in Abbey Road studios and everyone is immedeatly able to recognize the sound? I mean O.K, debatable. It sure is a fact that the Abbey Road Studio sound is a distinct part of Garritan, but this weakness is the selling point to a lot of people who buy it.

IMO (and I want to stress this out: IMO) Pianoteq is so recognizable because of its crapiness. Garritan CFX is recognizable because of its greatness. Anyone is free to dispute that 😀 And to have a totally different opinion.

IMO, Garritan CFX sounds very nice but it is too smooth (too forgiving of sloppy touch) compared to a real piano. Pianoteq responsiveness is possibly closest to that of a real piano, though its sound quality is worse than the best VSTs. I think the NY Steinway in Pianoteq 7 is an improvement. I now prefer it to all the others. Still, it does not sound like an acoustic piano. But for my practice it's either that or VSL's Vienna Imperial which is VERY unforgiving of less than perfect touch (alas my touch is far from good, let alone perfect).

BTW, the N1X sound falls short in comparison to Garritan CFX and is rather close to Pianoteq. Not sure if that speaks high of Pianoteq, or low of Yamaha... In any case, the strength of N1X is the keyboard. Not so much the sound. But in any case: N1X is most playable with its own sound, then almost as playable with Garritan CFX, and pretty weird with Pianoteq. Maybe it needs touch response curve and some messing around, I don't know.

Based on the discussion, this test seems to prove that everything sounds like Pianoteq, except when there's a lot of reverb?

Interesting results that can certainly be put to use.

BTW, I may be wrong but I don't think the distant mics in the Garritan CFX should be called "reverb". They are not "added" and are not "reverb". They are the very same piano, recorded beautifully with multiple microphones, both close and distant, it's rather sampling the actual ambience and not "reverb" in the strict sense. Adding "reverb" to Pianoteq or N1X is rather a DSP/algorithm stuff which is why it doesn't help a lot.

I listened to it with headphones, I liked the third option the most, it turned out to be the N1X binarual sound, the most realistic for the player position. Saturated, concentrated, light tone. Pianoteq reveals more in the external audio system, not headphones. Try Blüthner Pianoteq7.
Can't share the love for Garritan. It sounds a little sweet and too pretty, when you play it, it sounds too perfect and ... boring. There is a feeling that someone is playing for you, with limited capabilities. Sound is always in the context of room acoustics. As if listening to a recording. Insufficient sense of string interaction, touch control / sound attack. my IMHO.

And for such great test, I wanted to try even more N1X. =)