Strangely, the fxp sounds quite different here and isn't "close miked" at all.

Hey Gizmao, and thanx....

I used the "Close Mic" microphone settings, and therefore I Used that name... In the video I also had some reverb and some processing in Logic. I've tweaked the sound to fit my VMK188plus. I think it's a little bit to easy to reach velocity 127 and therefor I maybe have the forte hammer a little bit to soft to make it playable. I've tried to make the sound not lose intensity at ones in the upper register but I only have the standard version so my tweaking affects all the register...

The fxp I used was:

http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/fba1eaa17...d87b52f7aa

I kind of like it, and not (in the same time...). What do You think???

Strangely, the fxp sounds quite different here and isn't "close miked" at all.

Anyway, I like your funky rhythmic playing in the beginning. Very solid. Your melody improvisation could be worked on though. It's always a challenge to keep the flow when we start so full-handedly and then change to solo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKrUvCg-rbI

The fxp I used was:

http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/fba1eaa17...d87b52f7aa

I kind of like it, and not (in the same time...). What do You think???

You access to "Detune" in the diapason menu, last item "Detune notes" (Standard version).

Oops… Didn't know that
Thanks for explaining!

Volume yes, Detune no!

You access to "Detune" in the diapason menu, last item "Detune notes" (Standard version).

Just give us a good upgrade price to version 4 when it comes out and you'll have me as a customer for life. Well, for the foreseeable future

Been playing boogie woogie, bach, chopin, mozart on this piano, and love it more and more.

As probably many will agree, live situations are quite different from playing at home. There are sounds that sound great in the studio but ultimately fail when played through a live sound system.

As much as I immediately liked playing the Pleyel at home, I had my doubt about live. I thought it might be too thin, too unbalanced and generally too scrappy. Luckily, that expectation has been falsified.

While there is some truth in the "thinness" issue, generally the Pleyel works quite good on stage. I do not have the pro version so I could not try some tweaks (like the detuning issue discussed here), but the model is very playable, dynamic and has much more character than, say, the C3. I also get along with less EQ which I used before to make the C3 somewhat more transparent.

With the Pleyel, I basically use a 8dB cut at 1.2k (de-stress) and maybe a HF boost, depending on the situation. The Pleyel is a good compromise between expressiveness and usability.

For playing solo or accompaniment w/o a bass player, one could use some more LF, like a boost at 150 Hz. I haven't tried that under live conditions, but when I played a tune just with the singer, it was a bit thin in that region.

Otherwise: To me, the most transparent, expressive and realistic PTQ model so far. A delight to play. Many thanks again, Modartt!

I also think that this fxp has a quite open feeling in it, and I like that...

Are you talking Pleyel in general? I'd agree on that. That openness is lacking a bit in the C3 model (though that in turn is more balanced, but also less lively).

Volume yes, Detune no!

I thought of a modulation, but it didn't happened this time... ;-)

I know the fxp is a bit out of tune (as I said when posted it). I thought it was told earlier in this thread why it is out of tune, forgive me not for being clear....

But why I still use it is because I actually played many real pianos in worse tune than this, and that even quite newly tuned (sometimes the tuning is changed after only minuets or hours of playing...). I think this out of tune is given it a bit realism to it... But, maybe it is to much...

I also think that this fxp has a quite open feeling in it, and I like that...

In the standard version of pianoteq you still have the "detune" and "volume" window with note by note change. I rescaled your original detuning quite a lot, I even tuned some notes that I thought was to much. When doing so, I discovered that some octave notes had to be different tuned to work together. This made me wonder if you can change the direction of the unison width in the pro version (up or down)??? Or is there other things that I need to have in thought when considering this???

So again, Thank you for explaining for us that not is tuners, I've always wanted to be able to tune the piano, but I don't have the time to learn...

Be blessed!

Yes, as I already said, I like the Pleyel! So, I made a recording with it! I started with Joe Felices Campanella patch and exported the settings to the Pleyel. Then I tried to tune it a little (yes it is possible even in the standard version) so it should work with the Pleyel. I also changed the hammerhardness (and maybe some more...). I hope you don't think it's to much out of tune... ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVrgr240RB8

God Bless You!

Hello berghs.kedjan,

I had a chance to listen to your YouTube video --- very inspired playing on your part!  If I had an observation to make, I might suggest that you continue starting the piece in the key of F major, but you might consider modulating the key tonality upward to G Major and then possibly A-flat or A Major, because five minutes' worth of playing in the same key begs to have one or more keychanges in any given piece.

In the end, I would NOT scrap the video due to uneven microtuning!  Actually, the degree of mistuning is far, far less than what is commonly heard in even nicely-maintained pianos experienced in public venues throughout all parts of the world.  [EDIT: We Pianoteq users may be aware of this mistuning, because it has been pointed out; the average uninformed listener will probably not notice the degree of mistuning present in the Campanella fxp from K1 that has been frozen and then grafted into a Pleyel fxp.]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I have a possible explanation of what's happening with the Pleyel's microtuning adjustments in the fxp used in this performance:

In the video, when you listen to the F note (just above Middle C) alone, it sounds fine; by that, I mean to say that the F-note unison strings' tunings are NOT excessive enough to cause the pitch to warble on its own as a single note being sounded.  Likewise, Middle C, and the A just below Middle C each sound fine and in tune -- when they are played separately -- but their individual harmonic series tend to intermodulate destructively, when the three notes are played simultaneously as in an the A-C-F inversion of the F major chord featured prominently in this video. 

Restated, the warbling sound you hear in the A-C-F f major chord, and on the Bb-D-F b-flat major chord is the result of the individual notes' harmonics reacting unfavorably (in the form of alternating constructive- and destructive soundwave interference) with each other, causing alternate experiences of louder- and softer heard harmonics, perceived in the form of vibrato or tremolo cycling at the rate of approximately 2 to 4 times per second.   Similarly, when the F above middle C is sounded with the note F, some two octaves lower, one hears the pseudo-vibrato. *

Now, before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion that the wah-wah tremolo is engaged -- it is surely NOT engaged in this fxp.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So, where does one go from here, to correct the perceived mis-tuning anomalies?

Owners of the PRO version may wish to reduce the amount of random detuning [EDIT: of my Campanella fxp for K1 that was frozen and grafted to Pleyel] in the two or three middle octaves of the keyboard.  Recall that I deliberately de-tuned this area, in order to simulate the way that heavily-played/worn pianos tend to go out of tune in this region.  As it sounds in the Pleyel version, the amount of detuning [EDIT: originally designed for the nominally 9' / 2.7 meter K1] does not make a one-for-one fit for the length- and tonal characteristics of this particular piano! 

Please remember that longer pianos have lesser inherent inharmonicity; in contrast, much shorter pianos (in this case, some 3+ feet shorter), have strikingly different inharmonicity characteristics, both in the amount of inharmonicity AND the distribution of inharmonicity characteristics across the entire 88-note keyboard.

If I were to encounter this mis-tuning in the Pleyel, that specifically occurs upon trying to graft a K1 fxp onto the Pleyel with zero modifications, I would reduce the level of purposeful detuning, and make up for the slight amounts of "real world imperfection", by compensating for more variability in hammer hardness, note-by-note decay rates, strike points (to accentuate / de-accentuate note-to-note differences in resulting prominent harmonics), damper position and damper decay times. 

All of the above suggestions come at the personal experience of tuning hundreds-to-thousands of pianos over the past 40+ years.

Hopefully, this information will help shed some light on this elusive condition, even if it takes repeated readings to fully comprehend its content.

*  When two F notes are played together, two octaves apart, and you hear that characteristic warbling sound (about two or four cycles per second), this is an indication that the Pleyel's inharmonicity has NOT been adequately addressed with the K1 fxp's tuning characteristics.  In other words, "the notes are not in tune with each other!" 

I encounter this condition with numerous freshly tuned pianos that the technicians had slavishly used a strobotuner to tune the fundamental frequency of two different notes, two octaves apart -- but their overtones do not blend in a pleasing way.  It's almost as if a deaf Beethoven has tuned the piano, using ONLY the fundamental frequency as the pitch being tuned between two note F's on a short piano!

This is a condition that any good piano tuner would remedy while tuning a given piano by listening to match overtones of various octaves' corresponding notes;  it is also a negative condition that necessarily occurs when one tunes an fxp for a 9' piano, and then attempts to "graft" the same tuning characteristic onto the very different amount- and distribution of inharmonicity characteristics across the keyboard of a nominally 5'4" long piano.

Cheers,

Joe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVrgr240RB8

God Bless You!

I am a little curious about the aftermarket for commercial add-ons for Pianoteq, since this kind of stuff really can be worth paying for. Is there anyone out there doing work in creating high-quality digital replicas of historical instruments?

Greetings from
August

I have just a question, not a complain at all, but just a characteristic, that certainly is part of the original pleyel piano used as reference, and probably partially responsible for the charm of this model.

Have you noticed that the Pleyel Long have the second octave quite less bright (like a bit fog) than the first and the hird octave ?

The bass get a "more variable" feeling, don't you agree?

I haven't tried layering two models yet; that might be a workaround until model morphing is introduced (v4? Come on Modartt! ).

Morphing sounds interesting. Would it be a ridicules idea to be able to split the keyboard in Pianoteq and assign different instruments to it? I remember an old  48 key Casio keyboard that allowed you to set different beats to the first octave or so. Maybe this is for another forum.