Pianoteq 4 impressions!. (Page 4 of 5)

In theory pianoteq can do a little "outlaw" for this case...  breaking the laws of physics for few strings, avoiding the 7th harmononic.

But many purists would complain about.

Not with the adjusters avaible to consumer.

But maybe Modartt (company creator of pianoteq) can prepare a altered version of D4 for you, with a different hammer impact point.
If you write to then....  who knows...  they are very nice people...

It changed name , and I failed to remamber the exact function...

You are right:

"The strike point slider allows you to choose the position where the string — or the bar for percussion instruments — is struck by the hammer or the mallet."

It have even have a humanize function.

Well, you use the host to save the midi and the WAV file instead of Pianoteq. In other words, Pianoteq becomes simply the instrument inside a track. The host (Cubase or Logic or Protools or Notion, etc) can then record the midi and\or audio to a single track.

Let me urge you to go carefully, if not slowly, here. Pianoteq is (wonderfully) complex.  In most hosts\sequencers, working with several instruments at once while trying to learn how to do things can get complex. I tend to use the standalone version of Pianoteq, partly because I hate the time it takes to load a host\sequencer and partly because I just like to play, or try to play, the piano.

You are instead wanting to do something more complex with an orchestral library and Pianoteq. (You are about to enter a large amusement park in which very serious work can be done and much fun is to be had.) My impression is that with Notion3 and Pianoteq, one can do wonderful things, and the people at Notion have apparently made things as simple as possible by including their own good library of instruments, preassigned to tracks. Beto-Music and other people who know orchestral libraries know that ultimately you will want to create your own sets of instruments, reassign instruments to different tracks, and experiment with other libraries. I'm hoping that Notion's prearranged setup is great for composition students and for everyone. Ideally, it lets one focus on the music instead of worrying about which instruments to assign to each track. On the other hand, you will now and then get lost. Or at least, for the past 40 years or so, everyone learning a new instrument and a sequencer has gotten lost, so there is a chance that you may follow a similar path.

You may be treading new ground, for this forum, in using Notion to play Pianoteq. And possibly in using Notion3 at all. I hope you will keep us up to date with what you find and post recordings here, and links to posts you make in other forums.

About the hardware knobs and sliders: Do not get one of these yet, but eventually, you may want to investigate one of the separate units that offers these knobs and sliders, and which can be attached to your computer by usb. But that adds another twist to the learning curve and another box beside your computer and concerns with drivers and cables and configuration, so you are right to avoid the Options\Midi window for now.

Looking forward to hearing what you find can be done.

Oddly, I don't think I've heard many recordings of Pianoteq in an orchestral setting. Looking forward to hearing your results. And I've been looking over the Notion3 site. I like its looks. Clean, and designed by adults. If the instrument sounds are good, you may convince me to buy it, too. Seems more like a frontier than a jail.

Well, a fast cpu is the main thing for Pianoteq. (Along with a good sound card and good monitors.) For playing samples, the speed of the hard drive and the amount of RAM come into play, as you've discovered.

Looking forward to hearing what you find Notion3 can do. I like the way it sounds on their site, but it's difficult to imagine how a given piano will sit in the mix.

Just a quick reponse about my opinions on PT4 (stage) after upgrading.

Although I thouroughly enjoyed the playability and nuances in sound that PT3 had to offer, I couldn't help but feel that after a few months of playing that the something that seemed to be missing in the midrange area of all the pianos, I guess a certain sort of depth in the sound. Some preset instruments I felt suffered from this more than others.

Anyhow, as much as I loved to play it, I guess this issue kept sticking out when I listened back on recordings. So I was considering other piano sampling software and so on for recording with, but there's not a lot with that I could get and still retain the memory on my laptop that pianoteq permits.

So to cut a long story short, upgraded yesterday, only got the chance to play on the new D4 (I think thats what it is) piano preset and the various effects and so on for a couple of hours, but I was really impressed with the improvements that have been made to the sound. There seems to be a far greater sesnse of presence, depth and tone from what I was hearing. And the midrange, which I considered a little i guess bland for want of a better word, was hugely improved in this edition.

Looking forward to experimenting and playing more with this software. I do a fair bit of playing about with my own compositions, and it's incredible what a few new sounds can do in the way of encouraging and sparking off new ideas.

Thank you!

I don't hear any "electric piano tones" in the first octave above middle C.

NOTION arrived, and promptly got set up in the new laptop, which had previously been set up with PTQ4. The standalone lives there MOST happily on account of the added power; but the NOTION downside is it's 32-bit, so the VST version it's then stuck with using, as well as NOTION itself, will not recognise 4 of the 8 GB of RAM available, drat. You'd think someone would have a clue, there.

Anyway, have yet to explore the N3 orchestral stuff, focused on the hosted PTQ. Curiously Modartt has declined to include a Minimise button with the GUI.

THAT WORKS LIKE THIS : DISMISS THE PTQ GUI AND IT'S LOST FROM VIEW - and  USE - UNTIL YOU USE THE Menustrip's 'Tools/VSTi Interface', WHEN IT COMES BACK. OR YOU CAN USE THE NEW SHRINK OPTION, WHICH IS ALMOST THE EQUAL OF A MINIMISE, IF YOU ALSO SLIDE MOST OF THE GUI WINDOW OFF THE DESKTOP, HOLSTER-READY FOR YOUR NEXT 'QUICK DRAW'. 

(NOTION's own Child windows minimise to the bottom of the Desktop window. There they are visible only when the Taskbar is hidden, or if like me you run your Taskbar up the side of the screen. Think the better choice here would have been a minimise to the bottom of the Parent window.)

Anyway, the Editor works just as the Tutes say, at least as to PTQ solo. At opening NOTION presents thumbnails of score types, and choosing Blank Score boots you into a Score Setup window, with a bank of general Instruments at right. Choosing VST gives you access to a Pianoteq 4 button, which gives you a single stave with G-clef. Exiting Setup and choosing Tools/Staff Settings gets you to a dialog where you want the Notation tab, from which you pick the "Grand Staff (piano)" setting to get a pageful of  paired staves in proper braced G/F-clef setout. Quite a bit of work to it all. But open the palette of music symbols with View/Show/Show Palette, and you're finally ready to go.

I might say about that palette, I've found no way of undocking it from its place at window-bottom. Short of UN-Viewing it, there it sits, ready to get in the way. And it gets even hungrier for screen if you dare choose an item-type from it. There sits the result, probably as wide and usually taller than the palette. And sits, till you choose a different item-type. Which then sits there. It's plain the writer has never used his work. Had to, that is. On a screen ~750-high. Suggestion, chaps - make it a window. With Minimise.

Now for a fun bit. Import a MID and in a new side-scrolling window you get a colored, side-scrolling piano-roll version of it (the instrument is the Microsoft Grand), with bar-lines as N3 guesses them to be. Presumably you'd get much the same by MIDI input from keyboard, and it'd probably be the more bar-accurate for your timing the play by metronome, but haven't got to trying, yet (and may not till Spring, brrr).

Now choose the new window's 'Tools/Convert to Notation', and it does! Next, 'Edit/Select All' then 'Copy', return to your Pianoteq Staves window and 'Paste. Result is your MID, notated and ready to be redacted, with your own PTQ-settings as output - an endeavour-boost when compared to Microsoft synth.

While the piano-roll version in its window is placed all on the upper stave, the effect of the Paste into your Pianoteq window is to split the notes between the two staves. Handy. In both windows it seems a priority was to guess the bar-lines, well, as N3 does, and so changes of pace across bars are denoted with metronome marks set well above the bar lines, every one showing the pace for its own individual bar. If that result seems dictated by a helpful aim, try this : if the deemed proper status for Pedal marks is 'ornament' (like trill and arpeggio), is it properly-consistent to throw ALL pedal-info out of the otherwise-retained MIDI which now represents the notation, as N3 does? More dictatorial than helpful, THAT decision. The effect is to mandate your marking every Pedal instruction you need into the score, or live without.  Less than handy, very.

Another quirk is that fast-figurations (like the fast triplet-passages featuring, that were posted recently  in the Files Section here as 'Blues_at_Night.mid'), which you'd think of as tuplets in eighth-note representation, are notated in N3 as quarter-note chords, not tuplets. (It's this, BTW, which gives away that the apparent 'replay' of the notes you get via the Play button is actually the original MID with Pedal stripped out, plus or minus whatever note-edits you have made since the Paste-in. For you HEAR the tuplets while you SEE the chords. If you wanted to actually see the tuplets you hear, you'd have to delete the notes from affected bars then insert as-wanted, or maybe Paste-in the tuplets from a  slowed notated-copy of the affected bars, if that's possible.)

A major nuisance is that most settings (like Landscape and A4 page size) don't stick. You'd think US was the only country on Earth. US-letter and Portrait it IS, then. 

The 'engraving' font is very appealing, elegant but loose in its way, as with certain past printed editions. There's a second font like 'handwriting', that I haven't tried.

That's the fruit of a whole lot of trial and error. Nothing like it! Plus I've got other things on the boil too.

Ha, I like that 'soon'. It'd be sooner if I could only lay hands on my long-ago-done AVNER'S THEME and PRAYER FOR PEACE, all ready to roll as I first wanted, but I can't. Hafta start from scratch (and it won't be Twinkle Twinkle or like it; something with appeal).

AVNER has appeal for me, there's the thing, so I want to stick to it just for me. But it remains a challenge on account of not having a score. Fastest way to get what you want to you, I see, is to transcribe one of the variations in P4P, which at least HAS an available score, waiting in the piano-stool out back, go to work on that. The one I like best is father to the variation on it heard at the second piano-entry

HERE ,

while AVNER'S THEME itself is at the first (and gets a reprise at the end). Why the appeal? One of the characters in THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN disses music as 'the half-articulate art', and he's right. Whatever can music 'say'? It's just that some 'say' it better, like here, so he's wrong.

The variation/intermezzo should be ready fast(ish), the vanilla version anyway. Expression will take experiment of course.

Hope that link works!

Yeah I love it too, thanks Modarrt!

I really think the mid range notes are more distinct and expressive and clear than before, it's like I play certain songs and find it much easier to follow -- and thus play -- the various overlapping voices due to their new-found distinctness. A much better instrument! It sounds really nice.

Looking forward to more pianos coming out for PTQ 4...any chance for a Bosendorfer?

Modartt ofers a special price for multiple software instalations of pianoteq for schools.

love this new version.  whatever improvements have been made are obvious, even tho I can't really say as many more "piano oriented" persons are able just what they are.  I love having lots of choices on presets, and the new piano sounds great to me.  From sensitive to obnoxious, a nice continuum. Seems the tremelo is gone however, which I liked.  Also the clavinet warm amp default setting is with auto wah on, apparently.  Really glad I updated.

Hullo Jake! I've uploaded PRAYER FOR PEACE VAR 1  here, as PRAYER 1A.mp3.

Seemed best to restart the previous opus AT the start, so to continue will be natural, whenever there's time to spare. The copy I made was very faithful (much as possible, and almost fully-was) to the given score as to dynamics/bowing. The only part I put extra work of my own into was Harp. Considering that was ALL that went into the deal, I'm pretty impressed with the result. Better than raw, some.

ADDED: Uploaded PRAYER 1B.mp3, which makes modifications. 1) The strings are changed from Sections to Single instruments (though I kept the 'doubled' voicing where I used it before); and PTQ 4 replaces Harp.
2) I really toiled to individuate the String parts, by accent (or not), by differencing the swells and lulls (as to duration and application or not), and by differencing the dynamics. 3) To fight the Suzuki-monotony of pace, I made the tempo wobble, via the trick of marking each bar with its own metronomic, which just can't be drastically-done. The designers of NOTION are eager to hear suggestions, so I'm going to get onto them about it; they might have something up their sleeves about this weakness, but the sheer absence from the palette of any tab including 'rit' and 'a temp' for example, says not.

I didn't just stencil PTQ over Harp, but designed a simple finale with it too. Since I have memories of trying ever so hard to find the AVNER harmonies and finding only misty dissonances instead, there's ALL the passing dissonances I thought I could stuff into it, and lots of apologies to the composer.

But it does settle the question of badly-synchronised instruments.  Not a problem.

I agree with the critique completely, and can track PART of the problems to the MP3-producer I'm using. The buried-piano is a possibly-related matter, fixable crudely at once by upping the PTQ-slider in N3's Mixer, but definitely  trackable to the MP3-maker (Lame, hosted by the Audacity freeware, if you want to know what to avoid). The difference between N3's 32-bit PRAYER 1B.WAV and Lame's MP3 crunch of it is gross, no other word will do.

In direct replay in N3, the difference is even grosser, but not by nearly as much. I'd ask you to believe that in both WAV and direct replay PTQ is not buried, and for example, with the differences in Mixer's Panning I've set, the part-distribution in space is VERY obvious between Violin 1 (extreme left) and Viola (2 o'clock right), though Cello (four o'clock right) seems fairly buried over most bars, not all, for reasons I can't just now follow; perhaps spry movement or not is the cause. Second Violin too (10 o'clock) seems largely missing, maybe from its 'support role' character. Williams saved up the first entry of the Double Bass (extreme right) for the very tail of the second-last bar, while ALL the strings simply die away on the same note in the last, yet at first hearing the Bass and Piano during that entry completely outweighed even the very sharp dissonances I'd put between PTQ and all the other Strings at that point. So I dropped Bass's slider, with result it's hardly there at all, direct WAV or MP3 (wasn't going to lose that dissonance if I could help it, not me, but on repeated hearing I'm now deaf to it). There's a point you have to quit, and that was it.

But before I leave this particular topic, a second part of the buried piano problem (not so evident to me) may be the un-likeness between the piano Panning I set (centre but with full spread), and the strings (spread around in space, but tight individual extent). That's an unreal sonic picture if ever...

Simultaneity doesn't bother me as much as you it seems. To me it seems desirable (I agree it isn't realistic), but I can see it would reinforce any impression of Suzukiness lock-tread going. I'd recommend you listen to that link I posted above, where the first Variation you hear is this very piece, composed, played and recorded by professionals, and presumably played accurate to the bowings indicated, and it's not so different. There's Suzuki there too, part of the very format. Again, at some point in the Menus, there's a 'Randomise' option. Haven't DARED. Yet. Might help fight Suzuki.

But this spills into a new subject. I've mentioned how NOTION doesn't notate PACE, except by the block-y trick of metronome marks above the barlines (you can JUST hear a simulated ritardando in a sudden slowing at the second-last bar, here, survives even MP3). Said I'm going to complain to the writers.

Well now I'm not. Reading the Help File (always an idea) it turns out they approach this in a whole different direction. During the Setup Score phase at the beginning (or later) you can select from a button labeled Special Staffs a stave called 'NTempo'. This is a one-line stave in blue, at the head of each of your notated group of staves. Into it you write notes (think drum scores) that Notion waits for you to 'play' via key-taps, and patiently recording wait-durations into the PREVIOUS tap-point, as you go. It'll also record MIDI velocities if you have set up for an attached keyboard, but I won't go into that, how it develops in this context is pretty obvious.

And what's wrong with that? After all, playing piano you expect to HAFTA rehearse, in order to get
pace-perfect. (Heh. How did that Schirmer's motto go? PER ARDUA AD ASTRA. Too right.) Well what's wrong that *I* see is you don't just tap times, you tap control messages via which key, and combo of keys, and there's a blither of them.

I just quail at the thought of mastering this ad hoc SYSTEM, (some happy backroom key-jock's NOTION), plonked on top of a fair, natural, straight ahead idea. Let alone USING it in real time.

If I can I'll get away with just the taps, thanks.

Anyway, is there any audio software you know, that doesn't crunch MP3s into mush? If Windows could handle it, I'd post FLAC as an MP3 replacer, this exercise has been a perfect lesson.

Hi jfelice88keys, I just wanted to chime in shortly to tell you what can't be done with just voting "5" over at the fxp corner. Your recent additions made my day here. I might hear not too bad and might have found out about 7th harmonics and so on - but I am ages away from using my pro-edition best (I would give lots to be able to talk with someone who builds an own piano for weeks ).
Your additions to our most welcome fxp corner are simply outstanding. And owning the pro version I hope I'll find the time to look into how you did your versions of the mighty D4!
Thanks a lot, tack så hemskt mycket!

Custral,

I'm going to copy and paste your post into a new thread, "Using Pianoteq with Orchestral Libraries," since we've gotten into a very specific discussion, here, and the thread is just about general impressions.

There's a really interesting new feature that I had missed in version 4, (although it's mentioned in section 2.8.4 of the manual), and found out by accident, that is the step by step activation of the MIDI sequencer with the left or right arrow. This really helps in analyzing what's involved in a complex piano piece, as well as showing the actual pedalling in slow motion....nice!

Yep, bloom is new in 4.04.

My wife is trying to use Pianoteq 4.1 as a VST inside Notion 3 (latest demo) to no avail.  It records apparently fine (from displayed score) but playback is completely buggy and crashes Notion within seconds.

We also use PT4 without problem in Sonar X1, Finale and others.  With Notion 3 on PC we have used successfully all our other libraries (Garittan PO4, IO, EastWest symphonic & choirs, VSL instruments, Miroslav, Kontakt instruments, etc.) but no chance with Pianoteq. We even tried older versions and minor updates to no avail.

Note: We also have the iPad 3 version of Notion 3 which is surprisingly good and fun to use to sketch out ideas in the garden but not powerful enough for symphonic works.

FYI: Her composer setup is running on a Core i7 12GB Win7 PC with two Dell 22" touchscreens (for score display/editing) and a Wacom Bamboo BT wireless as a controller.  Keyboards include a PNOscan-fitted Petrof grand and different MIDI controllers.

Any help in making PT and Notion work together would be greatly appreciated as we LOVE PT4 and its pianos with the level of control.  Thanks!!!

Thanks! :-)  We absolutely LOVE the Petrof acoustic sound but Pianoteq offers so many interesting other options, depending on the piece she's working on.  Now if they could create a Petrof P III (or P IV) grand physical model that would be something really cool to be able to adjust subtle details... ;-)

iamnemo, I tried to reproduce this with the Notion 3 demo and everything seems to work fine. If you want to provide further details, I encourage you to contact us via the support web page, http://www.pianoteq.com/support_form?direct

Gladly you don't look petrified (petrofied?) :-)

A few years ago, I was tuning a Petrof grand piano, and noticed something interesting about its nameplate:

Are you aware that, if you spell Petrof backwards, you get ForteP  (as in fortepiano)???  I told this to one of the international Petrof representatives at a recent NAMM show -- he laughed, and stated that no one had said that to him before!

Cheers,

Joe