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Hello you all guys!
I'm having a little trouble to adjust my Pianoteq sound... the bass notes are a little "muffled", the medium register is sounding like through cheap ice-cream-truck speakers, and treble notes sound nice.
I have a quite reasonable sound system, and it works pretty fine with EWQL PMI Bosendorfer 290 and all of my mp3 songs. I think the problem is really the sound output from Pianoteq.
Do you have any suggestions on solvin it? I tried to use EQ, but I made something wrong, the sound became even worse.

Thanks in advance and best regards!!

I came across the same issue. Compared to Ivory, Pianoteq sounds muffled. I imagine it's due to all the sympathetic resonance being implemented. I couldn't fix it by messing with the EQ.

Have you asked here?
http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/viewforum.php?id=1

Well, so I was right about the problem coming from Pianoteq and not form my sound system...

Not really, because there are similar questions in that forum and they didn't solve the problem...

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Make sure you have Pianoteq set for the right output - stereo speakers, mono speaker, headphones.

2. Try raising each of the hammer hardness parameters a bit - the lower the setting, the more muffled the tone.

3. Try downloading some user FXP piano files from http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads.php

4. Try posting on the forum - people are very helpful and it will be worth the effort.

5. Read the manual - unlike sampled libraries, you need to understand how to adjust Parameters in Pianoteq to get the best results.

Good luck!

Jeremy

I have the same exact issue as the OP. Any solutions after all these years?

The velocity curve needs to be the opposite of a ski slope . . . .A convex response is called for!
I get no low note muffling.
The velocity curve will vary from keyboard to keyboard, otherwise it would be a 45 deg straight line from corner to corner.

. . . What are your EQ settings?

. . . What's your "Dynamics" setting ?

. . . What are you playing Pianoteq through -- speakers (what kind?), or headphones?

Reading this (very old) thread, I saw an old post including:


and I thought:

. . . "Then do the opposite changes to the EQ -- does that help ?"

Usually, the opposite of "muffled" (an imprecise term) is "bright" (a less-imprecise term):

. . . that would suggest raising the mid-high frequencies (2 kHz - 5 kHz), to increase what's called "presence" in speech.

If the tone is muffled for some notes, but not consistent across the keyboard, there might be ways to fix that.

If you can adjust "hammer hardness" (possible in some versions of Pianoteq, not in "Stage"), increasing it will make the sound "brighter", and might help.

Acoustic pianos vary a lot, in their tonal balance. There's no reason to expect that one virtual piano should have the same tone as another VP.

Hello,

I recently tested almost all instruments in the Pianoteq 7.4 demo (which I uninstalled yesterday).

I use a good audio interface, amplifiers and speakers with my piano setup and never found the Pianoteq sound muffled. I would rather characterize the sounds as nasal, in particular in the middle registers. Very unpleasant to my ears.

Cheers and happy sound-checking,

HZ

Some Pianoteq pianos sound indeed a bit muted or muffeld, especially in the mid range, for example the Blüthner, the Steinway B and the U4. Others are bright and direct, like the Bechstein and Steingräber, while the Petrof Mistral and Steinway D's (not all presets) sit in the golden middle. Also some presets of the pianos tend to sound muffled due to microphone placements and enabled eq - the presets of the instruments without any extra term sound most direct and unmuffled. If all instruments sound muffled there seem to be a mismatch between MIDI Input and sound output, the velocity curve should made concave then. Or the headphones or speakers are on the muffled, warmer side.

Here's the latest preset that I've created since fiddling yesterday:
https://ufile.io/i238j7mn

It sounds better than the previous presets, however it still does not sound as bright and direct as these Nord samples for instance.

Please note that the speakers sound fine for playing back recorded piano music or sample libraries. So it's the speakers are not to blame.

@eddiepiano: The presets differ in sound quality so some of them sound better. I have the Steinway D and the Petrof and the latter sounds more direct and bright in general, however some of Steinway presets do sound decent as well, with some tweaks. The preset linked above is a Steinway default one with minor tweaks. Still all of them seem to lack character in the mid-range as HZPiano noted too. It's like the timbre is missing something. Could be the hammer hardness, but I can't change it in the stage version and I'm not going to buy the standard version.

@Charles Cohen: Could you please upload one of your presets that sounds good to you, so that I can check it too?

P.S what's the deal with the velocity curve and sound quality? I thought it only should affect the dynamics and not the tonal character? Like, I can hit f and it is still does not sound as bright as direct as a sampled library.

I would say it's imperative you do at least d/l the free trial standard version. If the middle registers are weak, even for room acoustic reasons, you can increase the volume of individual notes to compensate.
When I used stage, it was not satisfying to play, but the recordings were fine.
And after I'd sorted out stuff, I found it sounded less like a digital since the uniformity of a digital piano is what imo kills it.

What use would it be other than perhaps finding out that the stage edition is not up to par?

P.S I tried the hyper bright present and while it did increase the sharpness, it sounded harsh at the same time across the entire range and so it didn't help with the missing liveliness character of the mid register.

I have had this sensation with my Pianoteq. The adjustments that have helped me are:

1. Turn the built in reverb way down. Click on "Effects" button, and use the "Mix" slider in the little "Reverb" window at the bottom. Moving the "Mix" slider to the left reduces the reverb volume and increases the direct-from-the-strings/soundboard volume. This increases the presence and reduces the muffling.

2. In the Standard version, you can increase hammer noise to increase the sensation of being right at the piano. Use very small, single increment adjustments here.

3. In the standard version, you can increase hammer hardness at three dynamic ranges, increasing the sensation fo being right in front of the piano. Use very small, single increment adjustments here.

4. As peterws mentioned above, concave velocity curves also reduce the brightness, leaving you with a muffled experience. I use a straight line velocity graph, starting from around 17,0 and going up and right to 118,127. I think the straight line is best as I anticipate it will cause me to learn how to control the piano with my playing.

5. As peterws mentioned above, use the note editor after the above mentioned adjustments, to get he final volume adjustments where you like them.

As meghdad notes, the sound available from Standard version is substantially more malleable and therefore, better, than the sound available from the Stage version.

I wonder how much your sound equipment affect the sound from Pianoteq. As a personal observation, just this past weekend I connected my laptop with Pianoteq on it to my Roland LX-17 piano console to play through its own internal speakers (using an external pre-amp and local sound in the piano set to off). To my chagrin, the sound is indeed somewhat muffled/nasal (whichever way you want to describe it) and, in the end, you know something sounds “odd”. I haven’t had time to start tweaking the various parameters. Having said that, I played Pianoteq all summer using only my set of studio monitors and a cheap midi keyboard. The sound was immersive and VERY satisfying.

I have read before somewhere that piano manufacturers tweak their sound systems specifically to their own software program. In other words, the piano sounds great with its native sounds but can sound crappy if you use a different app. I also couldn’t help noticing the connection to the piano — my top-of-the-line Roland LX17 sadly uses one single 3.5mm jack for sound input (not even left/right!), for example. My studio monitors use more advanced XLR connectors, so that must surely be another factor. Given my positive experience over the summer, I also wonder if Pianoteq was intended for flat(ish) studio monitors for a great sound experience. My point is one has to account for all these small things that can make a significant difference in sound.

I have seen several videos on YouTube where they play Pianoteq on their DP consoles but almost always there are a couple of studio monitors on each side of the piano. I wonder if internal speakers + external studio monitors is the way to go. I am going to try that next.

An interesting point.
However, if the sound exiting your computer is not HD or sound surround (or whatever they call it now) then even a top flight audio system can only push out stuff based on that which it receives.
My little lappie doesn't seem to do HD audio and only gives a nod towards "theatre" headphone settings. I tried d/l the HD audio (Realtek) and whilst it took it ok, it did strange things with the speaker/headphone set up.

Good point! That’s another factor (sound card) that can greatly influence the sound quality and the whole listening experience.

It is important to look closely at all these other variables before concluding that a certain app (e.g., Pianoteq) produces crappy sounds. It seems that everyone uses a wide array of combinations from software to hardware - computers, VST app, sound systems, pre-amps/interface, connectors, etc. I think the main issue here is compatibility. No wonder some people here love the sound from their VST setup while others scratch their heads wondering why theirs sounds so terrible. Many ultimately (wrongly) blame the VST app. Unfortunately, these things are not so simple. There may be some trial and error before success in a “do-it-yourself” virtual piano setup.

I use a straight line curve and I had the reverb is set to a low value to no avail. Your other suggestions do not apply to my case since I'm using the stage edition.


@Chris Pringle: Considering the OP's description, your point is moot; i.e the speakers sound great for listening to recorded music and Nord's sample library.

For better mutual understanding, here's the Pianoteq Blues demo track, exported from my computer.
Does it sound fine to you?

For comparison, can somebody please feed that Blues demo midi of Pianoteq to a sample library like Nord and then export the track?

Mine sounds a lot sharper; I use a convex curve to convey the sharpness of an acoustic. Yours sounded a tad soft, if you don't mind my saying so.