I kept hearing a harsh, metallic tone around middle C.

For posterity, you were probably hearing the duplex/aliquot strings. Those can be quite pronounced in acoustic instruments, and while I trust Pianoteq calibrated its presets to the reference models faithfully, they can be a bit overbearing in places (For example, by default the NY Steinway D's F5 is way too rattly for my tastes).

Duplex sounds in concert instruments are tweaked for listening at a distance (where high frequencies are more decayed) so sound "too loud" from a player and close mic perspective. So in recording situations you'd low-shelf the close mics a bit to make it sound more balanced (as sample libraries will)

All of which is to say, both views make sense: you want the duplexes to be a bit overbearing as a "realistic" starting point but you're in your right to reduce them to have a better time listening to yourself.

In Pianoteq you can reduce the duplex/aliquot resonances at will, which is a useful tweak to make the practice/playing experience a bit more pleasant. In Pro, you can rein in troublesome individual notes (like my F5), too.

I leaned on a lot of online advice to dial in settings that seemed better than Pianoteq’s defaults. No matter what I changed, I kept hearing a harsh, metallic tone around middle C. I really tried to make it work. As an engineer, I assumed I’d eventually get it to a good enough place, but that metallic character never went away.

I use a Roland FP-10, and I think it sounds very good. I bought Pianoteq mainly to expand my instrument options and use the FP-10 as a MIDI controller. The FP-10 is a great MIDI source, but in my experience Pianoteq just did not deliver the sound I expected. I ended up selling it and will be much more cautious with future virtual instrument purchases.

If anyone wants to say I should have spent more time with the demo first, that is fair. I am not sure whether the demo includes all the same adjustments as the Standard version, but based on so many glowing reviews, I expected to be impressed. Unfortunately, I was not able to find a sound I liked, even after a lot of tweaking (hours).

What surprises me is that the Roland is also a virtual instrument, yet it sounds much more pleasing to me. I expected Pianoteq to at least match it and ideally beat it, but for me it was not even close.

That said, if anyone has recommendations for other virtual pianos, I would love to hear them.  'll be using my iPhone with the Roland for my playing sessions.

hmmm. Just thinking and making an analogy . Imagine you go a used car shop and you buy a used Chevy after the seller told you how good was the car and after a week , you read in the car seller blog ‘ I finally got rid of this crappy Chevy ‘ how would you feel about it . I am criticising your personal view on pianoteq , but rather the ethic of sales as an individual seller . Should you made this rationale clear in the first sales post , that would have been totally fair . But posting such comments after securing the sale is a bit dodgy and as a buyer I would be a bit upset …. If you have shared your opinion with the buyer  in your private discussion with him, then consider my reply as irrelevant.  The thing is that buyers abd sellers here share a common passion : music and one would hope that this community doesn’t take the car buy/sell market as a raw model ….

I use a Roland FP-10, and I think it sounds very good. I bought Pianoteq mainly to expand my instrument options and use the FP-10 as a MIDI controller. The FP-10 is a great MIDI source, but in my experience Pianoteq just did not deliver the sound I expected. I ended up selling it and will be much more cautious with future virtual instrument purchases.

If anyone wants to say I should have spent more time with the demo first, that is fair. I am not sure whether the demo includes all the same adjustments as the Standard version, but based on so many glowing reviews, I expected to be impressed. Unfortunately, I was not able to find a sound I liked, even after a lot of tweaking (hours).

What surprises me is that the Roland is also a virtual instrument, yet it sounds much more pleasing to me. I expected Pianoteq to at least match it and ideally beat it, but for me it was not even close.

That said, if anyone has recommendations for other virtual pianos, I would love to hear them.  'll be using my iPhone with the Roland for my playing sessions.

Steinway D, Electric, K2

I am in the U.S..