Good external convolution reverb effect plugin for Pianoteq? (Page 2 of 2)

Yes, I confirm that adding a little reverb when playing live is very nice and gives you the illusion of a certain '' realism '' ... I did it myself, until the day I started to accompany opera singers in my house with Pianoteq.
This is where I realized (in this case) the inconsistency of adding a reverb, because there was a big gap between the voice and the piano, which was very unpleasant for singers. But when you play alone at home, you can’t realize it, and you feel that using reverb is the best thing to do to get realism.

Of course, this doesn’t matter if you play pop or even jazz for example, but for classical music, I strongly recommend turning off the reverb when you're working your piano seriously (in the same way that you don’t add reverb when playing on an acoustic grand piano). For those who will see the interest, I also recommend using a plugin to remove the surplus reverb intrinsic to the modeled instruments (Acon Digital DeVerberate, for example). This is where you'll find that Pianoteq interacts very well with the natural acoustics of your room (even if your room is not the Carnegie Hall).

Cheers

Mickael

PS: If you want to ‘‘simulate’’ case resonance, I think it's better to reduce the Direct sound duration by targeting the area you want in the note editor, rather than using reverb.

we just did a Schubertiade using my custom fxp for the Graf and featured a very accomplished soprano & baritone doing several lieder and no one (not even the soprano! ) had any complaint...

look, i've professionally accompanied for operatic and concert singers over several decades now and fancy that i've got a fairly decent notion of what that interaction is like in a wide variety of spaces and with various instruments, both historic and modern, so i don't believe that the "illusion of realism" has been getting the better of me here...

but i'm not too sure what you mean by "a big gap between the voice and the piano"... if you mean to say that there was a noticeable discrepancy between the piano and the voice in the room then clearly you were overdoing your use of the effect!  "judicious" is the operative word here and delicate application makes or breaks the thing.  but i believe that the apparent absence of case resonance from the modeling process is, despite the individual delay setting which many of the models have, something which contributes to a synthetic quality in the modeled sound to the distraction of the attentive/sensitive listener. 

your suggestion however of tweaking direct sound duration is an interesting one and i'll be curious to see how it plays out with my custom fxps. 

cheers,
dj

I don’t think that the only purpose of Pianoteq is realism. You can even create a 10 meters piano if you want.
Many people use Pianoteq for pop or rock, and are very glad to find the compressor, the amp and all the other effects on pianos, rhodes, clarinet, vibraphone, etc.

Exactly.

No, it seems to me that the Pianoteq reverb is an authentic convolution reverb. I think I've already had confirmation from Modartt if memory serves me right.

Maybe your perception of realism will evolve using Pianoteq, because it must be said that a natural reverb is not always very beautiful, and that's why some producers (even at Deutsche Grammophon) add a slight digital reverb.
In the meantime, I recommend you turn to MConvolutionMB if it sounds good to you.

Thanks for the inspiration, Mickael.  allow me to return the favor...    

of course, because it has one essentially "built in" (more or less, depending on instrument) by way of the material properties involved in its construction...

but i'm guessing that setup is the crucial factor in the discrepancy between our experiences here. 

for live playing i use a rather unorthodox configuration of both software and hardware (in an ongoing effort to, essentially, reproduce soundboard radiation) in my "stations of the cross" toward the apotheosis of having the sense of an actual instrument in the room...

if you're inclined to further experiment in this vein (and haven't already given something like this a go), try this:

in Pianoteq's virtual soundstage, setup four perfect omnis, all with level=+/-0dB and delay=0, & with the following coordinates:

output1: x=0.325, y=1.016, z=1.346, angle=+90, v_angle=+90

output2: x=1.019, y=1.016, z=1.346, angle=+90, v_angle=+90

output3: x=0.325, y=2.016, z=1.346, angle=+90, v_angle=+90

output4: x=1.019, y=2.016, z=1.346, angle=+90, v_angle=+90

[as a side note, i really wished that the z & y coordinates in the interface corresponded to virtual space coordinates and not that of its visual representation] 

level & delay compensation should be off.  stereo width should be equal to the actual width of the physical instrument being modeled.  adjust speed of sound to match that which corresponds to the ambient temperature of the real-world room the setup is located in (i like to use this site's calculator to determine this.)

next, setup four high-quality powered monitors (i use Dynaudios in my config & have been very pleased with them) in the exact position in physical space as that given by the virtual micing arrangement and corresponding output channels, all facing directly upward, and one good&beefy sub on the floor in the middle of the whole thing (placement of the sub is of course not really much of a factor, but it's nice to maintain symmetry ).  note that you'll very likely need to adjust downward (and by a fair amount) your given instrument's volume slider.

having done this, my experience has been that the sound artifact, while certainly amazing, admirable, etc (i can't sing Modartt's praises enough!), has a sort of "synthetic dryness" as though something is missing (ie the resonant properties of a physical instrument beyond what's going on at the level of immediate sound production with hammers (or plectra, or tangents)/strings/soundboard).  in this configuration, a slight, very slight [!] addition of reverb (while I find that the amount and IR used generally vary from instrument to instrument, and it's true that for some instruments it's not even necessary and that the instrument's native delay setting is sufficient, the "Small Wooden Room" IR seems to often yields good results for this purpose) "corrects" this "deficiency" in the sound thus being produced.

finally (and only somewhat tongue in cheek), i'd suggest that singers are universally a notoriously overly-fussy bunch and that perhaps cognitive dissonance at the very fact of using a digitally modeled instrument may have as well been playing a role in their "discomfort"...    certainly, overcoming the inherent prejudice against digital instruments at all is no insignificant hurdle with other professional "classical" musicians and i confess to having been all-too-guilty of it myself until discovering Pianoteq (though, to be fair, Pianoteq really stands in a class by itself and is head&shoulders above any sort of previous sampling technologies, especially with the advent of v6.0).

cheers,
dj

Waves IR1 is currently on sale at $29, if anyone's interested!

It's always interesting to get experienced users' views on plugins. The big attraction of IR1, of course, is its vast library of IRs, including quite a few world-famous venues - but is it even possible to convert them to .wav for use in other reverbs?

Ah yes, I was aware of the 6-second cutoff in IR1, but I'm mostly interested in short-to-medium length reverbs anyway, so that's not really an issue for me.