When I listen to pretty much any DGG classical piano recording, the sound is fantastic. The piano sound is not harsh or clattery but is also not dull. The reverb is always just right.
Just read this thread last night . Your comment about the sound is spot on .( Scarlatti recording) . The room plays a pivotal role in the sound here . After investigating a little bit as I was not so familiar with the venue the BeethovenSaal in Hannover which now called the Leibniz period , is not necessarily the most famous halls , but was praised for baroque and early classical solo piano recordings because of the moderate size , with not to long decay , early reflections and low noise . Kempff legendary Beethoven sonatas full cycle was recorded there . Valentina Lititsa also regarded her full Beethoven cycle in the same venue . Here are the dimensions of the room :
According to some analysis done in the hall, decay is about 1.8-2 secs and pre delay is between 15-20 ms .
The reason the hall is good for baroque and early classical is the that individual notes stay very clear and sharp with a warmth tone .
The hall is always used empty for recordings ( some other venues have better sound character when the venue a full)
https://www.hcc.de/raum/leibnizsaal/
So regarding the adjustments using pianoteq parameters, the process is different from usual tinkering if you want to approach this particular sound precisely . In this case you need to do some sound reverse engineering to find the right EQ , find not only the right position of microphones but as important find the right ones etc. I think pro version is needed because , you will want to adjust some parameters such as hammer hardness depending on the region , low register , mid register , undamped strings . There are tools than assis you in the process to notes . Scarlatti piano recordings are not difficult to translate to midi using tools such as piano2notes or similar , because there aren’t a lot of chords . Then after selecting a reverb more or less similar ( medium hall with 1.5 a duration and 15ms delay ) you can generate an initial recording with pianoteq Steinway HB D classical preset , load the original recording of the sonata and the pianoteq rendering using. Tools such as Fabfilter pro q4 to analyse and generate corrective EQ to apply to pianoteq rendering , and then adjust mic placement and hammer hardness to tweak ( the process here is iterative , once you tweak , you need to regenerate EQ and so on so forth) there just ideas , I know it works for sure , but it is a long process that need to be run as a project . It is not simply a matter of tinkering . Also A/B comparisons have to be done on short samples and compared very quickly as instant audio memory doesn’t exceed 4 seconds . Good luck with it , hope that helps . PS: The tools here are just indicative , there plenty of similar tools that provide equivalent functionality.
]]>Notes played on a piano that has a warm, softer tone can seem blurred and indistinct within a prominent field of reverberation, where a piano with a crisp tone might sound fine within the same reverberation field, although perhaps a little too strident if miked (mic'd) too closely.
An "ideal" sound seems to vary from person to person, performer to performer, recording engineer to recording engineer, and from day to day, mood to mood, condition of one's hearing, etc. It's nice that Pianoteq offers such a vast array of sound-shaping parameters that can be adjusted in minute detail to suit one's individual preferences.
]]>This sounds like very close mics over the hammers. Please listen to that first example I posted, then please try about 8 feet away toward the end of the paino, only a little higher than the rim.
more like this
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4GTNKzywRw&ra=m
davealtos wrote:Pianoteq 9 is sounding pretty good! But where is a Steinway D concert hall example à la DGG?
Still hoping/waiting for some action on this!
I don't know what the DGG (Deutsche Grammophon) sound consists of exactly, or what you hear in it that you like, but the following example sounds good to my ears, using a slightly modified Hamburg Steinway D in Pianoteq 9 (soundboard impedance shifted downward to 0.90, direct sound duration value increased to 1.12), with the free "St. Nicolaes Church" impulse response by Voxengo (https://www.voxengo.com/impulses/) imported into Pianoteq to supply the convolution reverb (Effects --> Reverb --> Use WAV impulse).
In addition, many commercial MIDI-controller keyboards have a strong bias, often toward the upper midrange of MIDI velocity values, so in addition to adjusting the velocity curve in Pianoteq to compensate, it can help to lower the maximum velocity level in Pianoteq's velocity-curve panel from 127 to about 112-114.
]]>Pianoteq 9 is sounding pretty good! But where is a Steinway D concert hall example à la DGG?
Still hoping/waiting for some action on this!
]]>The problem I've noticed since version 8 is the pianos sound brighter especially in the treble compared to the older versions of Pianoteq. The NY Steinway D for example lost its "Steinway sound" and became flatter and boring without that twinkle and overtone the real Steinway has and the earlier models captured somewhat. Comparing the NY Steinway D to the Steingraeber or other pianos and the same change is there as well. I wonder if the changes made in 8.x.x to fix some of the anomalies we had before flattened the sound overall for all the pianos.
This change has taken the individuality out of the pianos and made them all the same as this has flattened the overtones and timbre that each of the different piano builders offer.
]]>dazric wrote:@davealtos: are you willing to prepare some mic placements to upload to fxp corner? I'm always keen to try settings from people with real-world recording experience.
I don’t have any to offer. Everything I’ve tried is unsatisfying. My hope was/is that there is someone here who has something interesting.
Oh, that is so disappointing, but somehow it doesn't surprise me. I've given up trying to do my own mic settings because I got so frustrated over the fine adjustments. I came to the conclusion that my time was better spent making music rather than messing around with virtual mics.
]]>dazric wrote:@davealtos: are you willing to prepare some mic placements to upload to fxp corner? I'm always keen to try settings from people with real-world recording experience.
I don’t have any to offer. Everything I’ve tried is unsatisfying. My hope was/is that there is someone here who has something interesting.
Sigh. I hope that Modartt looks hard at your "tiny microphones" comment, after your nudge from contacting them and perhaps uses that clue to improve the sound leaps and bounds beyond what they have done so far (as I wrote earlier, not that the current sound is bad, but the improvements have been marginal and the main problems -- for those who can hear them -- have remained unchanged for years)
]]>@davealtos: are you willing to prepare some mic placements to upload to fxp corner? I'm always keen to try settings from people with real-world recording experience.
I don’t have any to offer. Everything I’ve tried is unsatisfying. My hope was/is that there is someone here who has something interesting.
]]>Anyway whether you EQ the input to the reverb or the reverb’s output (which is what I think the video tries to prove) isn’t the point.
The point is one shouldn’t apply reverb to the whole frequency spectrum all the time - that’s the essence of the “trick”.
Not necessarily something I'd recommend for a fidelity situation but I also find that reverbs will sit better with a dry track if I put the reverb on a separate channel and do weird transformations on the way in that skew toward adventurous. You get two benefits: quite weird effects but kind of hiding which is sort of like a best of two extremes, and the transformations pre-reverb seem to get the reverb and the dry signal out of each others' way. If I do weird stuff on the way into a reverb, the reverb channel end up 100% wet or rather close to 100% wet. This was like the one use I had for Waves Enigma for example. The normal issue with reverb is it's a copy of a timing-blender version of the same frequencies and then you just add them back together. EQing helps but modulation effects, things that tweak the frequencies, can also help them be complimentary textures.
]]>When you look at default Pianoteq mic placements any general advice on adjustments compared to what you're seeing in presets?
I think I pretty much covered my understanding in my post that you replied to.
]]>Actually, I think it comes down to the sound of the piano and the room. Mic placement is relatively easy:
- avoid being close, especially
- close to the action (clattering)
- under the soundboard (just horrible)
- over the soundboard (thudding and/or clattering)
- avoid messing with the mic frequency response with cardioid etc.
- avoid mics with artifacts, like dynamic and ribbon mics
I notice a lot of the preset mic positions include ones placed right in the piano, often cardioids. Pulling them out seems to declog the thickness a bit. Shortened up the reverb as well, a mixed little drier and I liked it better. When you look at default Pianoteq mic placements any general advice on adjustments compared to what you're seeing in presets?
]]>