Well...  What would you say about an option to allow morphing between 8.2 and previous versions of pianoteq?

I've had little time to dedicate to this lately. But here is my update on this thread.

Regarding Beto-Music's idea, I have considered downgrading from 8.2 back to 8.1. But this is not an ideal solution, and it seems a shame to go back in time.

The Egyptian gods, Amen, Ptah and Ra have recommended using a limiter, and attack velocity adjustment in PRO to soften the initial force of the note. I have tried adjusting attack velocity with PRO, and using the compression filter presets. Decreasing hammer hardness and increasing string length also have softened the initial sound.
It has been particularly helpful to move the strike point. I have changed the strike point on the Blüthner Model One from the default of 1/10.2, to 1/3.6.

But really to soften the initial strike by these methods is not solving the problem, but just compensating for it. Since large adjustments are needed to bring the sound into comfortable bounds, I am sure that there is an issue with the sound being produced by Pianoteq. Specifically the initial strike sounds harsh like striking metallic glass. So the problem is that the piano string is modelled too hard. It sounds like the string is made of an unrealistically hard material, and this cannot be adjusted.

My preferred solution, hence proposal, is to have an option to adjust string hardness. The guitar for instance has softer strings, so clearly it is possible for this to exist. It would be great to have a slider for string hardness. It would be great to be able to move the modelled hardness down from the very high level it has now.

(After a shift-cursory click to the limiter you get a pane on which you can make your adjustments to Sharpness, Threshold and Gain in it.)

Let me know if what you observe is contrary to any of this...

I'm always looking for new ways to mess with good enough in PT. That shift click will be fun to try later today!

Also, I like how OP generally said where in the tone's timeline the sound happens, whats going on with velocity at the time, and what kind of sound it is.

To the point, I made a mental summary of things affecting  quiet play, early tone hardness. I'm just starting with 8.21 so I'm being general rather than specific.

1. Equipment. Condition or design. Test on different configurations with different physical equipment where possible.

2. Piano (soft) hammer hardness, anything else labeled with hammer, not excluding mezzo (or occasionally forte) hammer hardness. Hammer sound doesn't necessarily go to "off," I believe, since its an essentially part of striking the string if I had to guess.

3. If I understand OPs question, anything else affecting either brightness, which I define as noise plus loudness of tone, or hardness of a soft, early tone (many, many settings in and out of PT!). A couple of things come to mind: Dynamics, Direct sound duration, Damper duration, but these are just examples.

I wish you luck. Have fun stormin' the castle!

Unfortunately I still hear the bite sound in 8.2. It's really audible on good heaphones, especially In Bechstein. I wish there was some way to control it in stage as well.

If you are using old presets from pre 8.2 I suggest you throw those in the bin and start over. I hade similar problems at the start of 8.2.

Also, the freeze parameters for volume and valume-dynamics and possibly other settings are sometimes messing with the sound of the pianos in unwanted ways when swapping between presets. I only use the freeze for velocity curve and condition slider for this reason.

Hope this helps.

Just as perhaps you were unfortunate I’d been reluctant to ever try and mess with Spectrum profile even though I have PIANOTEQ PRO!

Incidentally, I find if sometime you switch off Peak Limiter you loose a lot of initial amplitude or attack.  Which is what some reference to an extra edge that so-called bite.

(After a shift-cursory click to the limiter you get a pane on which you can make your adjustments to Sharpness, Threshold and Gain in it.)

Let me know if what you observe is contrary to any of this...

Thank you for the tip.

I do have the pro version, and the attack envelope is indeed interesting. Pulling it up - while it makes some of this "thunk" go away, it also gives this stringy / fade in effect - which is expected. Overall this doesn't work for me.

It seems to me that it is impossible now to get the pure string sound, even when pulling the hammer noise all the way down, and placing the microphones far from the piano. There is always this hammer noise.

Amen Ptah Ra wrote:

You get no sympathy with a pun or otherwise from me! 

(Get a copy of PIANOTEQ PRO 8.2 instead.)

Already I got one!

If you do find however unacceptable the recent update to PIANOTEQ STANDARD 8.2 you received from MODARTT, anybody else who'd just also upgrade to PIANOTEQ PRO 8.2 possibly could point out several advantages to you, those it has primarily over the PIANOTEQ STANDARD 8.2 edition.  They might include among others the Attack Envelope from the additional parameters available on a note per note basis; within that edition and which you can adjust personally to your very own liking.

Although, no demo of PIANOTEQ PRO is offered. 

You have really to commit to it and towards professional uses, probably.

Personally I’m of the opinion nothing is impossible with a full glass tumbler or either a full working copy of version 8.2 right there within arm’s length in front of you!

Now let me see, etalmor, if whenever you change Attack Envelope you’re sure to lift the yellow horizontal line of it to whatever level you want and by your selection there equally sure to shorten any of the resultant yellow bars’ length accordingly via rescale inside of the Note Edit pane.  Which ought to had affected the Attack Envelope, if somehow you wanted to lower the amplitude on any number of corresponding note attacks. 

(Obviously additional parameters are available to you including Spectrum profile, Direct sound duration, Damper Noise, Key Release Noise, Res EQ, Res Dur, and of course the swap of microphones to SF12 mics {because of the small diaphragms}).

Yet often overlooked is Delay whether you switch on or off that parameter; it greatly affects as much as it can thicken or thin out the sound of a note beginning and in as much add to or take away from its start, attack in amplitude on any preset.

If adjustment to no one parameter alone gets results you'd like, still some combination of the above mentioned just might!  (Smile.)

Already Philippe Guillaume himself commented on recent developments, direct changes from MODARTT to Spectrum profile in PIANOTEQ 8.2.  He recently replied to Pianoteq 8.2.0 update with muffled sound?.

Maybe you want to pay some very close attention to what he specifically said, about ver. 8.2, and on your own now try out damper and key release noises but after only personally you’d examined the changes in Spectrum profile inside PIANOTEQ PRO 8.2.  (And, post periodically whenever anything positive develops for you or you're yourself really onto something whether pleasantly or even disappointingly new.)

I do have the pro version, and the attack envelope is indeed interesting. Pulling it up - while it makes some of this "thunk" go away, it also gives this stringy / fade in effect - which is expected. Overall this doesn't work for me.

It seems to me that it is impossible now to get the pure string sound, even when pulling the hammer noise all the way down, and placing the microphones far from the piano. There is always this hammer noise.

(Get a copy of PIANOTEQ PRO 8.2 instead.)

Already I got one!

If you do find however unacceptable the recent update to PIANOTEQ STANDARD 8.2 you received from MODARTT, anybody else who'd just also upgrade to PIANOTEQ PRO 8.2 possibly could point out several advantages to you, those it has primarily over the PIANOTEQ STANDARD 8.2 edition.  They might include among others the Attack Envelope from the additional parameters available on a note per note basis; within that edition and which you can adjust personally to your very own liking.

Although, no demo of PIANOTEQ PRO is offered. 

You have really to commit to it and towards professional uses, probably.

Hi dear forum and Modartt,

I feel that the new voicing of 8.2 has some sort of a "bite" of "soft thunk" to the piano sound.
As if there is an inherent "hammer" sound even when the hammer sound is off.

I find it a bit aggressive at times, especially when playing soft / pianissimo, and miss the delicacy of the pre-8.2 voicing.

Does anyone else sympathize (pun intended) with this perception?

Thanks
Eran

Yes, I sympathise very much with this. I am finding the sound to be piercing. The strike of the hammer is hard. I've been using the Blüthner model one for the last few days. I've reduced hammer noise and direct sound duration to zero, reduced hammer hardness by about 40%, and lowered hammer hardness for the trebles.

I've never had to make big changes before. I think this might be a bug, like something is stuck on maximum.

It's probably more unlikely, but I also wonder if there have been Linux audio updates affecting audio encoding. I'm running Opensuse Tumbleweed. Are you using a Linux rolling release?

etalmor wrote:

Hi dear forum and Modartt,

I feel that the new voicing of 8.2 has some sort of a "bite" of "soft thunk" to the piano sound.
As if there is an inherent "hammer" sound even when the hammer sound is off.

I find it a bit aggressive at times, especially when playing soft / pianissimo, and miss the delicacy of the pre-8.2 voicing.

Does anyone else sympathize (pun intended) with this perception?

Thanks

Eran

Hi Eran,
Which instrument/pack/s?

I haven't noticed that but different keyboards/curves/loudspeakers/rooms/user experiences all make a difference.

For example: both Steinways and the Bluthner. I'm using AKG K240 headphones.

Hi dear forum and Modartt,

I feel that the new voicing of 8.2 has some sort of a "bite" of "soft thunk" to the piano sound.
As if there is an inherent "hammer" sound even when the hammer sound is off.

I find it a bit aggressive at times, especially when playing soft / pianissimo, and miss the delicacy of the pre-8.2 voicing.

Does anyone else sympathize (pun intended) with this perception?

Thanks

Eran

Hi Eran,
Which instrument/pack/s?

I haven't noticed that but different keyboards/curves/loudspeakers/rooms/user experiences all make a difference.

I feel that the new voicing of 8.2 has some sort of a "bite" of "soft thunk" to the piano sound.
As if there is an inherent "hammer" sound even when the hammer sound is off.

I find it a bit aggressive at times, especially when playing soft / pianissimo, and miss the delicacy of the pre-8.2 voicing.

Does anyone else sympathize (pun intended) with this perception?

Thanks
Eran