In pianoteq site MP3 demos we can listen a wonderful music, Witches Dance, sounding incredible rich and natural. A pleasure... 
... And, for other side we have Raphysody in Blue, that have some strong strikes moments sounding way too metalic, not much natual, as these moments get direct in the few weak points of pianoteq.

V-Piano have a timbre tone closer to natural, but in terms of natural ressonance it's someway more close to samplers than to a real piano. Many people which had great expetations get a bit frustrated when tried V-Piano themselves.

But I can't understand how people can like things like True pianos. A very compact sampler with few and mediocre modelled things. Honestly, I just cant understand. I tried it and felt it was like back in time in terms of technology, a waste of time.

Also, I have suspects that some sampler manufacturers or competitors are trying to sabotage pianoteq somehow.  I saw on youtube people posting pianoteq performances using a very old versions, or even close to the first version, while update to current version is free to all users.
Why someone would had work to creat and post a video of a piano performance, and not be smart enough to use the last version ????
And some videos was made like trying to make the sound intentionally bad, with very poor sound recording, or frequency rate. Very untrue representations of pianoteq capability.

jcfelice88keys wrote:

Actually the piano in this mp3 really IS a New York Steinway, a Model M (5'7") about 30 years old, and in need of tuning.

You know I read a lot of criticism of Pianoteq on various forums and some of the comments can be extreme, like Pianoteq sounds disgusting, horrible, I can't bear to listen to it etc. but this recording puts me in even more awe of the technical achievement Modartt have managed with PTQ. It may not be 100% convincing yet but my god it's close! Even the metallic quality that my gut tells me is wrong in PTQ is there in that Steinway recording. Pianoteq can get soooo close that sound that it's spooky! It just reinforces how absurdly exaggerated these criticisms of PTQ are.

Putting my finger on the differences is so difficult now. There's a percussive woody quality to the attack on a real piano that isn't quite there yet in PTQ I think and it's still maybe a little too metallic even in K1 when you dig in. Back off the hammer hardness a little and it goes a bit muddy.

Hello BazC, ZZ and others, as well as the Modartt team,

I applaud each of you in your gracious spirit after my having introduced a real recording of a real Steinway in the Pianoteq forum.  As I acknowledge from your responses, the purpose of introducing the 'real' recording was not to fool you, but rather to demonstrate to you how close Pianoteq does approximate a real-world piano, including metallic sounds and nasality (made worse by tuning problems) that do exist in a real Steinway.

Of course, I hasten to agree that I can instantly tell a real Steinway from a sampled or modeled piano after only a few seconds' hearing it.  However, it is the degree of pleasure that I derive from playing Pianoteq in my home at night (often with headphones so as not to disturb my wife's sleep in wee hours), that I really don't worry about Pianoteq's few pitfalls in sound.

Re-reading BazC's quote, above, about how absurdly exaggerated these criticisms of PTQ are, I am reminded of a comment that Henry Kissinger reputedly made about academic disputes:  they are so vicious because the stakes are so small. 

Cheers,

Joe

Z

For a percussive, aggressive and lot of staccatos (played in bass & low mids) type of music I'd probably use something else than PTQ. This is still the most difficult thing for it IMO. More and more I listen to it I feel that problems are there in the middle to lower part and increase when going from mezzoforte to fortissimo...

Actually the piano in this mp3 really IS a New York Steinway, a Model M (5'7") about 30 years old, and in need of tuning.

You know I read a lot of criticism of Pianoteq on various forums and some of the comments can be extreme, like Pianoteq sounds disgusting, horrible, I can't bear to listen to it etc. but this recording puts me in even more awe of the technical achievement Modartt have managed with PTQ. It may not be 100% convincing yet but my god it's close! Even the metallic quality that my gut tells me is wrong in PTQ is there in that Steinway recording. Pianoteq can get soooo close that sound that it's spooky! It just reinforces how absurdly exaggerated these criticisms of PTQ are.

Putting my finger on the differences is so difficult now. There's a percussive woody quality to the attack on a real piano that isn't quite there yet in PTQ I think and it's still maybe a little too metallic even in K1 when you dig in. Back off the hammer hardness a little and it goes a bit muddy.

Actually the piano in this mp3 really IS a New York Steinway, a Model M (5'7") about 30 years old, and in need of tuning.  I de-noised the hiss in the recording, and even added a tad too much reverberation to make the instrument sound less real.  You are all to be congratulated for your good ears and the courage to suggest this was a real piano. 

The piano is in a church sanctuary, and was thoroughly tuned only last June.  This shows how having air conditioning turned off (and resulting high humidity during an exceptionally warm and humid summer) can wreak havoc on the tuning of even a decent Steinway grand.  I will re-tune the piano after this upcoming weekend, so as to have it ready for when the choir resumes singing during church services.

Cheers,

Joe

the fxp would be good

For me a 'good' piano (subjectively) would be like a grand with good resonance in the bass, no hollowness boxiness of sound (I find a lot of Painoteq stuff has this), lots of body, a crispness and clarity in the higher registers, clear partials, and what I might call 'humanisation' what I mean is not really that but ''pianoisation'  something to do with the wood/soundboard felt and dampers being heard in a natural way - not as if they were imitations.

I do think this can be modelled. So far I have not been able to do this with Pteq.

Zero

Greg.

Please have a listen to this clip uploaded to the users section.  Is this tone any less nasal- or boxy-sounding to your ears? 

http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads.p...0Piano.mp3

Whaddya think?

Joe

Hmmm, to me this is a real piano probably a Steinway, a bit worn out but still extremely real...if it's not, well, that's quite a feat!

I've downloaded those samples to my Electro 3 and I like its woodness or whatever to make it warm and natural. I also have Roland RD700GX running there Supernatural Piano so I have those two to compare. As I said earlier Lady D is nice, warm and natural but it can be little bit difficult on stage. This is mostly cause my Electro doesn't have parameters to adjust velocity scales or dynamic range (only simple EQ). On the other hand Roland sounds little more synthetic (its partly based on V-piano technology) but it's very playable, expressive and liable on stage. With "liable" I mean that it works quite well in any place (small room to noisy stage, terrible acoustics etc.). And with Roland there're many many adjustments to make it to fit your musical demands.

Just to make sure, I'm not advertising or supporting any of those companies (it's different if they offer me a deal some day ) they're all good in their own way. With my experience with hardware pianos, I would really check them carefully if was buying one. And for example in this 1500-2000 euros price range  there're quite many competitors with very different pros and cons.

Greg.

..... but so far I cant seem to get an authenitc sounding 'real' piano.

Are there settings I could try to eradicate this boxy tone?

Wil probably buy just for the electrics

Hello Mr. ZZ,

Please have a listen to this clip uploaded to the users section.  Is this tone any less nasal- or boxy-sounding to your ears? 

http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads.p...0Piano.mp3

Whaddya think?

Joe