Just discovered this update:

8.2.0 (15/01/2024)
Revoicing of all 11 modern grand pianos.

Fret buzz sound added to the Classical Guitar instrument.
Two new tunings for the guitar: EADF#BE and DADGAD.

MIDI sequence transposition added in the sequence context menu.

New midimapping for changing the tuning root key.

Awesome! Excited to check that out after the kids go to bed tonight. Thanks for the heads up!

8.2.0 (15/01/2024)
Revoicing of all 11 modern grand pianos.

Fret buzz sound added to the Classical Guitar instrument.
Two new tunings for the guitar: EADF#BE and DADGAD.

MIDI sequence transposition added in the sequence context menu.

New midimapping for changing the tuning root key.

Piet De Ridder wrote:

I can only work with them if I accept and even embrace their artificiality and their many limitations. Any other approach, especially one seeking realism, is inevitably doomed to be deeply frustrating and dissatisfying to me. So I most certainly never ever consider them close to the real thing. I like to think of them, and also treat them, as inhabiting a parallel reality. The reality where plastic flowers live.

Ha! It reminds me a bit of watching computer graphics evolve through the 80s/90s/00s. I remember being blown away by the realism time and again, and now I get a kick out of showing my kids those same movies and they laugh at how poorly they compare by today's standards.

Pianoteq is such a neat intersection of two things that interest me -- pianos and synthesizers. I have the most fun with it when I play it as such. You can morph it and modulate parameters based on expression and do all kinds of things you can't do with either a sample library or a real acoustic grand, and plays so responsively! Really amazing technology by today's standards, and I'm excited to watch it evolve.

Yes I'm  into using synths first and foremost here too.
I'm not too precious with trying to make the piano sounds ultra realistic to the live experience, nonetheless I feel Pianoteq just feels more like an instrument than it's sample based competition. The realism is remarkable. The relationship between playing the sounds and hearing the sounds produced is so much closer than with samples. That's more important to me than having a single key press being say perhaps 0.5% closer to the tonality of a real key because it's just a recording. The relationship between multiple notes quickly shows the advantages of Pianoteq system. A Pianoteq instrument may be ever so slightly more synthetic sounding than the best samples but actually sounding like it is an instrument in its own right rather than stitched together recordings.
Interestingly I don't find this not feeling like an instrument with all sampled instruments. Piano's resonant structure and polyphony perhaps presents greater hurdles to clear than say more monophonic wind instruments and typical solo strings. That's not to say those are realistic virtual instruments, just that I like virtual instruments to feel like an instrument when used with controllers.

I can only work with them if I accept and even embrace their artificiality and their many limitations. Any other approach, especially one seeking realism, is inevitably doomed to be deeply frustrating and dissatisfying to me. So I most certainly never ever consider them close to the real thing. I like to think of them, and also treat them, as inhabiting a parallel reality. The reality where plastic flowers live.

Ha! It reminds me a bit of watching computer graphics evolve through the 80s/90s/00s. I remember being blown away by the realism time and again, and now I get a kick out of showing my kids those same movies and they laugh at how poorly they compare by today's standards.

Pianoteq is such a neat intersection of two things that interest me -- pianos and synthesizers. I have the most fun with it when I play it as such. You can morph it and modulate parameters based on expression and do all kinds of things you can't do with either a sample library or a real acoustic grand, and plays so responsively! Really amazing technology by today's standards, and I'm excited to watch it evolve.

dikrek wrote:

Pianistically wrote:

thanks ! I will try this one too .  There are so many plugins and IR files  to try . The process is actually very time consuming , as you have to spend a lot of time adjusting the reverb to sound good as I have realised that using an IR file is not a simple plug and play and compare A/B exercise , specifically with piano given the wide range of frequencies the instrument produce , so you need to adjust and tune the reverb quite a lot before the sound is good , find the right mixing parameters and then re- adjust some parameters in Pianoteq , like hardness , unisson , and EQ to make it work .Then what works for a preset , won’t work for another . Bottom line, it’s a full time job !

Samplicity has updated files - BTW I used the quad ones only, and they seemed to work well

https://samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impu...nse-files/

I will the new updated files . The quad wav files were the one I have tried in the past . Tank you .

Maybe they updated the quad ones too / anyway check it out

Pianistically wrote:

dikrek wrote:

For free algorithmic try Acon Verberate Basic - same “vivid hall” algo as the full verberate. Not many controls in the free version but still.

https://acondigital.com/products/verberate-basic

thanks ! I will try this one too .  There are so many plugins and IR files  to try . The process is actually very time consuming , as you have to spend a lot of time adjusting the reverb to sound good as I have realised that using an IR file is not a simple plug and play and compare A/B exercise , specifically with piano given the wide range of frequencies the instrument produce , so you need to adjust and tune the reverb quite a lot before the sound is good , find the right mixing parameters and then re- adjust some parameters in Pianoteq , like hardness , unisson , and EQ to make it work .Then what works for a preset , won’t work for another . Bottom line, it’s a full time job !

Samplicity has updated files - BTW I used the quad ones only, and they seemed to work well

https://samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impu...nse-files/

I will the new updated files . The quad wav files were the one I have tried in the past . Tank you .

Hi all,

Convolution is the name of the process which applies a reverb impulse to a dry signal. But it does not mean that the impulse has been recorded from a real room, the impulse could be computed via physical modelling of the room. We do not claim to have a physically modeled reverb because it would be an overstatement. Still,  the impulses in Pianoteq are computed from the parameters, they are not pre-recorded impulses.

Thank you, Julien.
You said exactly what I was hoping to hear.

dikrek wrote:

Pianistically wrote:

Thks I have already the Simplicity files but had issues in the past with the stereo balance , but I will give another go.

For free algorithmic try Acon Verberate Basic - same “vivid hall” algo as the full verberate. Not many controls in the free version but still.

https://acondigital.com/products/verberate-basic

thanks ! I will try this one too .  There are so many plugins and IR files  to try . The process is actually very time consuming , as you have to spend a lot of time adjusting the reverb to sound good as I have realised that using an IR file is not a simple plug and play and compare A/B exercise , specifically with piano given the wide range of frequencies the instrument produce , so you need to adjust and tune the reverb quite a lot before the sound is good , find the right mixing parameters and then re- adjust some parameters in Pianoteq , like hardness , unisson , and EQ to make it work .Then what works for a preset , won’t work for another . Bottom line, it’s a full time job !

Samplicity has updated files - BTW I used the quad ones only, and they seemed to work well

https://samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impu...nse-files/

Pianistically wrote:

dikrek wrote:

Many good impulses around - here’s this thread

https://gearspace.com/board/music-compu...verbs.html

And this crazy long one

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=107337

You can find online free Bricasti M7 impulses, Lexicon 480L… tons of options if one doesn’t want to spend the extra money for Tai Chi, Seventh Heaven or Cinematic Rooms Pro, Symphony 3D, Verberate, etc etc.

Thks I have already the Simplicity files but had issues in the past with the stereo balance , but I will give another go.

For free algorithmic try Acon Verberate Basic - same “vivid hall” algo as the full verberate. Not many controls in the free version but still.

https://acondigital.com/products/verberate-basic

thanks ! I will try this one too .  There are so many plugins and IR files  to try . The process is actually very time consuming , as you have to spend a lot of time adjusting the reverb to sound good as I have realised that using an IR file is not a simple plug and play and compare A/B exercise , specifically with piano given the wide range of frequencies the instrument produce , so you need to adjust and tune the reverb quite a lot before the sound is good , find the right mixing parameters and then re- adjust some parameters in Pianoteq , like hardness , unisson , and EQ to make it work .Then what works for a preset , won’t work for another . Bottom line, it’s a full time job !

dikrek wrote:

Pianistically wrote:

In the subject of convolution reverb, I had lot of free time this week end and tried many free impulse files available online . I have to say the quality varies from ‘awful’ to ‘so so’ . A few  of them work ok  for some frequencies but completely ruins other frequencies so it seems to me ( just an opinion) that the best strategy is either to use pianoteq convolution presets ( some of them are really nice ) or to use a very good external plugin running pianoteq as VST ( altiverb is apparently well regarded and also Logic Pro Space designer is very good as well with many options to adjust the reverb ) I was for a long time under the false impression than convolution was better than algorithmic reverb, but a bad impulse file or bad sound used for the impulse model could lead to crappy sound .

Many good impulses around - here’s this thread

https://gearspace.com/board/music-compu...verbs.html

And this crazy long one

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=107337

You can find online free Bricasti M7 impulses, Lexicon 480L… tons of options if one doesn’t want to spend the extra money for Tai Chi, Seventh Heaven or Cinematic Rooms Pro, Symphony 3D, Verberate, etc etc.

Thks I have already the Simplicity files but had issues in the past with the stereo balance , but I will give another go.

For free algorithmic try Acon Verberate Basic - same “vivid hall” algo as the full verberate. Not many controls in the free version but still.

https://acondigital.com/products/verberate-basic

Pianistically wrote:

Professor Leandro Duarte wrote:

Hello, dear friends!
I read here on this forum about importing "reverb pulses" in WAV format into Pianoteq Standard. However, I would like to know if the reverb presets that are already native to Pianoteq are also based on samples, captured in environments. In this case, could we say that Pianoteq is not 100% Physical Modeling, since the reverb is based on sampling?

In the subject of convolution reverb, I had lot of free time this week end and tried many free impulse files available online . I have to say the quality varies from ‘awful’ to ‘so so’ . A few  of them work ok  for some frequencies but completely ruins other frequencies so it seems to me ( just an opinion) that the best strategy is either to use pianoteq convolution presets ( some of them are really nice ) or to use a very good external plugin running pianoteq as VST ( altiverb is apparently well regarded and also Logic Pro Space designer is very good as well with many options to adjust the reverb ) I was for a long time under the false impression than convolution was better than algorithmic reverb, but a bad impulse file or bad sound used for the impulse model could lead to crappy sound .

Many good impulses around - here’s this thread

https://gearspace.com/board/music-compu...verbs.html

And this crazy long one

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=107337

You can find online free Bricasti M7 impulses, Lexicon 480L… tons of options if one doesn’t want to spend the extra money for Tai Chi, Seventh Heaven or Cinematic Rooms Pro, Symphony 3D, Verberate, etc etc.

Thks I have already the Simplicity files but had issues in the past with the stereo balance , but I will give another go.

Professor Leandro Duarte wrote:

Hello, dear friends!
I read here on this forum about importing "reverb pulses" in WAV format into Pianoteq Standard. However, I would like to know if the reverb presets that are already native to Pianoteq are also based on samples, captured in environments. In this case, could we say that Pianoteq is not 100% Physical Modeling, since the reverb is based on sampling?

In the subject of convolution reverb, I had lot of free time this week end and tried many free impulse files available online . I have to say the quality varies from ‘awful’ to ‘so so’ . A few  of them work ok  for some frequencies but completely ruins other frequencies so it seems to me ( just an opinion) that the best strategy is either to use pianoteq convolution presets ( some of them are really nice ) or to use a very good external plugin running pianoteq as VST ( altiverb is apparently well regarded and also Logic Pro Space designer is very good as well with many options to adjust the reverb ) I was for a long time under the false impression than convolution was better than algorithmic reverb, but a bad impulse file or bad sound used for the impulse model could lead to crappy sound .

Many good impulses around - here’s this thread

https://gearspace.com/board/music-compu...verbs.html

And this crazy long one

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=107337

You can find online free Bricasti M7 impulses, Lexicon 480L… tons of options if one doesn’t want to spend the extra money for Tai Chi, Seventh Heaven or Cinematic Rooms Pro, Symphony 3D, Verberate, etc etc.

Hello, dear friends!
I read here on this forum about importing "reverb pulses" in WAV format into Pianoteq Standard. However, I would like to know if the reverb presets that are already native to Pianoteq are also based on samples, captured in environments. In this case, could we say that Pianoteq is not 100% Physical Modeling, since the reverb is based on sampling?

In the subject of convolution reverb, I had lot of free time this week end and tried many free impulse files available online . I have to say the quality varies from ‘awful’ to ‘so so’ . A few  of them work ok  for some frequencies but completely ruins other frequencies so it seems to me ( just an opinion) that the best strategy is either to use pianoteq convolution presets ( some of them are really nice ) or to use a very good external plugin running pianoteq as VST ( altiverb is apparently well regarded and also Logic Pro Space designer is very good as well with many options to adjust the reverb ) I was for a long time under the false impression than convolution was better than algorithmic reverb, but a bad impulse file or bad sound used for the impulse model could lead to crappy sound .

Perhaps I didn’t word my views very well. What I was trying to say, is this: people tend to think too quickly, in my view, that we’re there, or nearly there, simply because a virtual instrument manages, in some production or other, to suggest a particular presence of the real thing to an effective degree. You get that a lot with orchestral sounds too. And with drums. Well, with all instruments, really. And, not surprisingly but quite puzzling to me nonetheless, with pianos too.

But it’s not because a capably handled orchestral library can replace what a real orchestra would contribute to a particular musical situation — which, in specific situations, is perfectly possible these days — that we can conclude that samples are ready to replace orchestras in every possible situation. Samples, at this point in time, are still only capable of simulating only the tiniest slice of what an orchestra is capable of, to a more or less believable degree. That tiny slice already covers quite some ground, sure, but it’s still nothing more than a miniscule fraction of a real orchestra’s sonic universe.
Given what most people like or have to use samples for, it’s no suprise that samples can be used most effectively to simulate what may be called the cinematic variant of the orchestral idiom. That’s also the idiom which nearly all developers aim for when creating orchestral sample libraries. But move outside that cinematic world, and you quickly find that samples are next to impotent to render most of the timbres, articulations, textures, blends, expressions, dynamics and overal presence of an orchestra. Try, for example, mocking up this recording, even with the best libraries and mock-up tools available these days, and see how far you get. Nowhere is where, as will (or should, anyway) already become painfully clear halfway through the first bar.

Sampled drums: same thing. They can do many things very well and they suit many contemporary stylings wonderfully. No discussion. But try to summon the ghost of, say, a Max Roach, a Dannie Richmond or a Tony Williams with even the best virtual drums, and you’re — again — nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. Sampled drums simply can not sound like (a recording of) a real kit played with talent, skill and passion. That’s still totally impossible today.

And I am of the strongest conviction that the same holds true for virtual pianos as well. They’re a great and musically wholly satisfying solution in many circumstances — partly because, to begin with, most of these circumstances only require one or two of the many personalities that a (real) piano can assume — and the finest ones can give us countless hours of profound musical pleasure, I don’t dispute any of that, but even so, I’m nowhere near ready or prepared to call them “pretty damn close” to the real thing. And by ‘real thing’ I mean a recording of the real thing, obviously.

And it’s not just a matter of the right timbres, mechanically and/or physically correct resonances or the right dynamic colours and levels at the right (= desired) time, there’s also a rather wide and very problematic range of more technical aspects that virtual instruments struggle unsuccessfully with: frequency build-ups, imaging issues, dynamic differentiations, phase issues and — finally returning to the original topic — spatial issues. To name just a few.

Here’s some audio. Listen to this on whatever playback system you happen to have available — audophile speakers, earbuds, a smartphone, your studio monitors, an iPad, … it doesn’t matter — and you should always hear what can’t be mistaken for anything other than a great sounding recording of a(n equally great sounding) real piano. This is a soundworld that is a million miles beyond the territory available to us through virtual means.
As is this. It’s unfortunately impossible to list everything I would like to point out in this recording — and this post is already long enough as it is anyway —, let me just say that nearly every note, every attack, every release, every chord, every consonance and dissonance, every pedal move (take particular note of the pedal action in this performance), and the almost tangible presence of all the materials that go into the building of a grand piano, is something I haven’t heard yet in any virtualization of the instrument.

It’s not that I don’t like virtual instruments. I love ‘em. Seriously. Much of my musical activity revolves around them. But I can only work with them if I accept and even embrace their artificiality and their many limitations. Any other approach, especially one seeking realism, is inevitably doomed to be deeply frustrating and dissatisfying to me. So I most certainly never ever consider them close to the real thing. I like to think of them, and also treat them, as inhabiting a parallel reality. The reality where plastic flowers live.

- - -

Audio example 1: Franz Schubert, Symphony nr. 4 in C minor - IV. Allegro / Freiburger Barockorchester (Harmonia Mundi)
Audio example 2: "Parvaneh" / Thomas Rückert, piano (ECM)
Audio example 3: Igor Stravinsky, "Epitáfio / Erika Ribeiro, piano (Rocinante)

_

I want to make it clear that I do not believe virtual pianos are ready to actually replace the real thing. I do however feel they are much, much closer to put it mildly in terms of being able to replace a real piano on a recording compared to the equivalent for a full orchestra - and the intimate nature of expression within a Quartet is probably even harder to fake.
Should virtual pianos do so now or ever if they actually achieve that sonic and performance fidelity? - probably no. People always want the real deal, even if in many circumstances they wouldn't tell the difference. So even if they do achieve that technically it's always going to be treated with suspicion.

However emulating the rigid mechanical nature of a piano (an instrument with extremely close copies within controllers) is completely and utterly different to an orchestra with all the massive amount of articulations, especially amongst the string instruments.

Even if we had perfect virtual instruments these are unlikely to be in the hands of equivalent quality musicians that are simultaneously virtuoso performers and grade A Midi musicians - and certainly not for every instrument.

I've never fancied trying one of those head-tracking headphone apps. For me, one of the advantages of headphone listening is that the sound doesn't change when you move your head. But then, we're all different...

It might be cool for video games.

The in your head sound is very different to the natural HRTF experience - I can imagine small flat dwellers that always wanted loudspeakers preferring the experience - if it's done really well.

In reality from a commercial perspective I doubt it would ever get beyond special interest.

Gaming with VR - if they can manage convincing vertical height dimensions too it might be cool. Surround from headphones has always been flaky at best.