Definitely love the idea of the Baldwin SF-10 - it would be pretty darn fine. Thanks for the interesting posts Amen - very cool links giving a fantastic idea of why many would love it as I would I'm sure.
Overall, quite the interesting list as it stands:
Bösendorfer - 28
Fazioli - 23
Yamaha - 19
Ravenscroft - 9
Baldwin - 8
Kawai - 6
Erard - 5
Faziolo - 4 ;-)
Mason & Hamlin - 4
Essenfelder - 4
Una Corda - 4
Stuart & Sons - 3
Estonia - 3
No more pianos, more improvements instead - 3
Chickering - 2
Antunes fortepiano - 2
Doppio Borgato - 2
Bechstein (studio size) - 2
Felt Piano - 2
Clavicords in gen. - 2
David Klavins - 2
Stein - 2
Streicher - 2
Boisselot - 2
Wurlitzer - 2
Schimmel - 1
August Förster - 1
Modarrt - it be mentioned but once me hearties! By an aquatic, furry, egg layin' mammal with a beak, aye.. it were a Platypus wot spake it - RRrrrr and shiver me timbres!
The above is o'course the number of times each piano brand is mentioned so far as a singular data point - including where a user quoted another in order to express support for that piano. Minor curatorial touches to eliminate redundancy etc. esp. considering the below - also collated just for fun, convenience and light conversation.
Went back to have another bite at the pianos listed while manually sed-awk-grepping the above list.
Just like to say, as far as evidence in favour of any of these pianos, the superb video link provided by Stephen_Doonan to a Rachmaninov piece (Morceaux de fantaisie Op. 3, 1 Elegie in E-flat min) played marvelously by Armands Abols! on an Estonia Concert Grand 274 piano is entirely out of this world. I can listen on repeat - will have to listen again - excellent recording for a YouTube vid too.. just worth another word of WOW for that one. I feel that it would be an excellent piano to play and the modelling I guess would also be tremendous fun as much as a engaging challenge. I isolation, some harmonics are 'fuzzy' in a dreamy way which I love (different/related/softer than/Alaquot etc and seeming to keep to a full dry 5th or so/? need more time - loving it so much).
Just putting this line as a stopper on that - I could go on - thinking it's my top interest among the list of modern grands for now.
I didn't feel as attached (maybe the audio) but the Essenfelder piano posted by Beto Music is also one I've a new found interest in - thanks! An effortless kind of sound with that one in vid seeming to be swimmingly rich with almost casual stateliness. I'm going to seek more recordings - it would be a lovely sound to play and so alive by the sound of that footage.
And another mention of admiration for the listings and videos for the historic collectors - thanks Davey Jones and others in the support of these wonderful early pianos. They gave humanity such playful vistas down through to the morose - it's a joy to listen to the videos posted.
Talking about a U.S. made piano, I think the idea of Modartt bringing out a McNulty Liszt is an inspired idea @Davey Jones. Old tech, new world, old piano, new version.. latest tech and all. A stack, or actually an avalanche of cool things. Everyone happy across the Atlantic.
...
Venturing beyond the Kuiper belt and hurtling a bit further still.. and in spirit of the love of learning (and in thanks to others here who love to ponder these things!).
@bruno - cheers - excellent ideas. I think that the surfacing of this kind of fleshing out of ideas is way more useful to all than may seem on face value.
New thread worthy (Feel free to copy the settings and begin a thread with explorations - happy to join in or start it in coming days).
I agree now with Amen Ptah Ra that this tangent has exceeded the gravitational forces and needs its own thread in future - but tying up for now below..
Yes, there's always that notion of 'how much needs to be in the model' and "all of it" is always the answer CPU permitting, I don't think Philippe or the team at Modartt will ever stop thinking of new ways to add and optimise. It keeps me awake at times, always tweaking in new ways and discovering just how much has been already thought out and included which can be logically and artistically worked with.
For more inre the wooded tones earlier discussed, here is a 'pushed' wooded Bluethner "Player" preset setting example you may like to work back from (maybe even halve the gain value as a first order thing, and/or make thinner peaks with Q for example). You may also move frequencies wider or narrower (they are here to display closeness to too much ringing - just to clarify, the settings are not finished for any purpose but exemplary in purpose only - although, this does make the basis for a personal preset so I'm also not saying any of it is ultimately wrong either, just pushed. As an FXP it mightn't be really helpful without all this context perhaps - maybe a polished version might though - feel free to use these settings in your own presets! is all I can say in support of that - I keep wanting more time for doing FXPs for other users and should go for it myself too, note to self and all that jazz - I am grateful to those who do this for others and should link to the page for those who might not know about the Pianoteq FXP Corner section - access via the menu at top of page if not sure how to get back there).
Equalizer = [60, 66, 78, 350, 420, 565, 750, 875, 1490, 1770, 2030, 2450, 3300, 4750, 10100, 16000; -25.0, -2.5, 0, -2.0, -5.5, -4.1, -6.5, -2.5, -2.1, -5.0, -1.5, -1.5, +0.5, +1.5, +0.6, -1.5]
and the EQU3 dots:
1st EQU3:
Freq 125
Gain -3.0
Q 0.50
Freq 416
Gain +4.0
Q 3.00
Freq 2100
Gain +3.5
Q 0.66
2nd EQU3:
Freq 110
Gain +3.0
Q 1.00
Freq 754
Gain +4.0
Q 3.00
Freq 3500
Gain +4.0
Q 1.00
I think that's a good starting point with some mid point Piano Room 1 reverb, room size 24.53, duration 1.52, mix +3.2 with +0.05 tone, tail/early refl. -8.8, pre-delay like 0.008 (although if exporting/recording, I might lean to a small hall convolution reverb in Pianoteq instead).
And also a delay effect like this added to this preset for something extra to go with the above:
mix 12
delay 5
feedback 0
tone +0.13
unison width 1.24
unison balance +0.20
impedance 1.09
cutoff 1
Q factor 1
Sympathetic resonance 0.73
Aliquot strings 1.00
Hammers Piano 0.24
Mezzo 0.72
Forte 1.6
I like dynamics at around 50 (but that's because of my own keys, curve, desire for overhead or headroom etc..) - of course keys are going to feel different for anyone else's setup (which is why I strongly advocate to tweak from existing defaults to suit room/style etc - they already work well with many systems).
In the least, just hoping to illustrate something worth taking on board about carving out and pushing back some mid range EQ - ideas to gain some smoky wood resonances without overpowering the rest. Can't be said enough, these things and more are indeed at the heart of many albums we hear, in particularly heavily produced audio. Pianoteq floors us with options!
By adding a mic under the soundboard and raising stereo image to 4.22 it gets quite a natural sound ringing (even so, this still works well with some bombastic playing, speakers and headphones, as much as even-handed pieces IMO - esp. with tweaking to 'lesser' extent down from these initial pushed start points - closer to home defaults - you may like to push only a few things a little to bring forward quite a lot more wooded timbre).
Still confident, over time, more will be coming to knock our collective socks off.
Someone recently commented IRL while I was playing this preset tweak "What's that piano, it sounds like Tom Waits" (from "The Piano Has Been Drinking). I get it, there's something they heard and I didn't aim for that piano sound, but it gave them this. That was with pushed settings - the extra character - I might feel it needs less but there may be plenty of people who want more character than I sometimes guess too.
Again, worth saying I'm thrilled that Pianoteq progresses by default in time with even further progress into more realism.
Taking that as a given, always looking forward with appreciation to the next piano and the next. [pre edit to add - no time left to edit - may be some glaring errors - hope not]
Pianoteq Studio Bundle (Pro plus all instruments) - Kawai MP11 digital piano - Yamaha HS8 monitors