Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Pianoteq 7 has now been released

Found some time to test Pianoteq 7.2 today. Well, the issue I had with the upper two octaves is improved. Apparently Modartt are reading this thread and understood what I meant

What can I say... It's not my piano. My main issue is there's some dullness to the sound, and there's lack of perception for space. And I went through all the NY Steinway D presets but there's not this nice real 3D separation of the sound. It's all too boxed and nasal as though coming from another room.

That being said, it's indeed the best Pianoteq so far but is simply not my piano. I also went through all piano models back to the Grotrian and the only two models that I like are the NY and Hamburg Steinways. Many of them have some plasticky bass especially when hit hard. The high octaves are too bell-like.

With the NY Steinway it's the best so far but I realize a big gap is this boxy sound, slightly nasal, slightly dull, slightly mono-like, for lack of better words. I think a particular problem is also that there's no reverb that works good across the patches. It's always artificial. I believe the basic raw sound is just too synthetic to start with.

I also realize sample based libraries, especially modern ones include multi-mic perspectives that add a very realistic ambience. I miss that in Pianoteq where the reverberation sounds like an effect and not like something real.

I didn't want this to be some insulting/bashing post. I see progress in Pianoteq. It's not bad even for my taste. But not great either... Maybe! Maybe it can be made better through better reverberation? I know we speculated that they start with samples and approach them through modeling. If that's true, how about they start with multi-mic samples that include a real studio ambiance and approach that through modeling without resorting to fake algorithmic reverb or convolution reverb?

Hi CyberGene,
first things first, i hope and i think (since you spend some time with Pianoteq) you're are recovering well from that Covid monster.
No problem if you don't like Pianoteq to much. I remember you really didn't like Rolands modelling also.
I hated Pianoteq in version 4 (the one i bought) but now really,really love the current version 7.2 with that NY D grand.
To each his own ? Absolute!
As for reverb, i think we all need Seventh Heaven from Liquidsonics ( Ilok dongle or account needed ) there is a 14 days full functioning trial ). Haven't tried myself (but will do when Ilok is supported for Silicon M1 macs, in my case)

Take care of yourself !

Thanks for the update CG and the positive bit is that you're back on your feet!

Here's another interesting update. Yesterday, I came across this video on Robert Estrin's personal pianos. He was born into a family of piano players and has personally owned many magnificent grands...



What's the surprise? In the comments, he reveals that he uses nothing but Pianoteq for the hybrid action he invented:

CG,

Glad to see you posting and playing with Pianoteq - you must be feeling better.


We, the Pianoteq lovers, will declare victory and move on .

BTW, I am curious if you had a chance to try the 2 FXP I had posted. I would love to hear your take on these (good or bad).

Osho

Osho, no, sorry I forgot to test your patches. I’ll do when I have time.

As to COVID, I think I got lucky and it was rather easy for me: a week of really bad fatigue where I felt totally wasted throughout most of the day. Found it difficult to even hold my iPhone for more than a few minutes. The X-ray showed an initial stage of lung infection and so I had a 10-day course of antibiotics which I finished today. I’ll have to take blood thinners for a month and besides the slight cough I still have, I feel great So, back to PW and regular business.

CyberGene’s point regarding reverb is spot on. I use FabFilter Pro-R or even cheap PSP PianoVerb2.

Do you turn off reverb completely on Pianoteq before piping to the external reverb? Or do you keep some Pianoteq resonance to simulate the cabinet?

I think there are different settings for those. Personally I had the best results when turning the PT reverb off completely, but mix and match might also be a good way.

As from a badly miked grand?
Seriously, i found dramatic improvements in liveliness (for my taste) with adapted mic positions.
For me the most important parameter and reason o upgrade from stage version.

Still, your hassle with reverb might be more specific. I must confess i like it dry...

Keep feeling great!

-Rhodes74

I don't know, these things are hard to describe with words. I think the best description so far of this inherent Pianoteq shortcoming has been "piano sound coming from another room". It's improved indeed, as I said, so in version 7.2 Pianoteq (and only NY Steinway D model) is *almost* usable for me. I can really see how other people might find it excellent though. It's just not according to my taste yet.

To summarize, the things that need improvement:
- Sound that is boxy (nasal? coming from another room? lacking stereo feel?)
- Touch response that is not playable by default and would require detailed note-per-note MIDI editing as well as note-per-note volume/timbre modifications
- Reverberation that is not convincing and sounds more like an effect than real space

This point baffles me completely: how can anything that includes more than two microphone positions lead to a realistic ambience? We only have two ears, and their position relatively to each other is rather fixed. Therefore, a binaural setup should be most realistic, and anything that blends quite different microphone positions together ought to sound very un-realistic.

Unless of course, realistic = sound from professional CD recordings.

That said, I agree that Pianoteq suffers from unrealistic reverb; by now I think it is the major deficiency of Pianoteq.

Again, this whole spacial thing can be addressed by adjusting the mic positions. Did you try that?


C'mon!
I really dig your sophistication, but this one?


-Rodes74

Yes, I experimented with mic presets, as well as moving mics around on the virtual screen. This boxy character stays the same.

Not sure what you mean. Do you suggest that I have to make these modifications rather than complaining? If so, well, yes, I agree but I am not highly motivated. I'd be glad if anyone with a N1X who is more dedicated to Pianoteq does that and I just use it. See, I'm trying all my best here to try and evaluate the latest version of Pianoteq but I don't have too much free time to try my best to prepare Pianoteq behaving good in terms of touch response and timbre. Just for instance, I have no such problems with Garritan CFX which is playable by default.

BTW, I sense kind of passive-aggressiveness I'm OK with that, but I'd like to point out how I also mentioned my issue with the last two octaves and people didn't really believe me, coming up with suggestions to measure volume vs MIDI and whatnot, while at the same time Modartt fixed it for 7.2. What I mean is, once you overcome the reaction to be against me personally (because you might not like my criticism of Pianoteq), you might realize I am trying to be positive here and give an objective evaluation and provide help to Modartt. I believe I am objective here. Besides, I trust my ears and fingers the most because they have rarely misled me.

Thanks, that was my question.


Sense midleading! I'm normally blamed for being direct.
Just take this reverence as written, nothing between the line.



What gives you the impression i'm fighting for any product or even against you?
Will take it as misunderstanding rather than insinuation.

I just tried to help because i found the mic parameters to be a possible solution.
And your comment on touch response really surprised me.


Amen. That's your measure*

*(And i did not pronounce "your"!)

-Rhodes74

All is good! 🍻

That's the best feature in PTq. Must admit it'd be great to d/l the thing and just play it. You can set the velocity curve by touch, but it never comes out right. best to design you own preferred characteristics so you get a great transition from pp to ff. The nkote by note editing is useful for correcting most inbalances due to whatever reason. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate otherwise it'd never sound like an acoustic.
Detune the piano, whack up the triple string width and resonances, and you're in your favourite pub . . .

I just downloaded FabFilter Pro-R (trial) to use with pianoteq. Sounds indeed great but I do get a substantial delay when I add this as an fx in my DAW (Reaper). Pianoteq itself only has minimal latency. Is there a way around this for live playing?

Disregard my question: I found a predelay buttorn somewhere and was happy that I could set it to zero!

Fleer, do you have recommendations with respect to nice settings?

I apologize if my question has already been answered, but it would take me a while to read through 19 pages of this post, so...

I installed the PTQ 7 trial version on my MacBook Pro last week. Now I'm ready to buy the Standard version, but before I do, I just wanted to clarify the procedure.

My understanding is that I'm going to download the installation file from the "user area" on the Modartt site. When I run the install, does it automagically delete (or overwrite) the trial version, or do I wind up with two PTQ installations? Should I delete the trial version before installing the full version?

TIA!

If I understand it correctly (and someone correct me if I'm wrong), there's just one version installed. It's just that the paid version is fully unlocked compared to the trial version.