i too have a roland hp201, and external monitors (blue sky mediadesk 2.1 - very happy with them). i use the line-in on the roland for the keyboard vibrations and also to give a more immersive soundscape. for this i use a 4-out audio interface, with 2 microphones in pianoteq placed above the keyboard for the monitors and 2 below the piano for the hp201 loudspeakers.

the crucial thing is to equalize the signal for the hp201. the built-in speakers are extremely colored and have strong resonances. i used a cheap microphone and some free audio analyzer software to find the resonance peaks. i then used a parametric eq to place notch filters at these few frequencies.

without the eq, the sound did get muddy when adding the hp201 output, but with eq, and at lower levels than the monitors, it works very nicely: just adds extra space and nice vibrations in the fingers !

(i'm falling in love with those babies, and thinking of buying them...
http://www.audiophonics.fr/dayton-audio...-7135.html

I use those Dayton Audio Pucks, and find them to be a wonderful enhancement.  I use my console for playing Organ (Hauptwerk), and also Piano (PTQ and sampled Pianos).  I have the Puck transducer attached to my Bench, and the sound is delivered through Headphones.

The Puck Transducer gives a great sense of "presence", especially on the deep bass sounds of the Organ or the Grand Piano.   Highly recommended.

(I know that technically sound IS a vibration, so I'll rephrase the question : the practical difference between exciter-like and buttkicker-bass-shaker-like transduces, is that one can't use the former while playing with headphones, while he can use the latter ?)

(i'm falling in love with those babies, and thinking of buying them...
http://www.audiophonics.fr/dayton-audio...-7135.html

but those seem nice as well :
http://www.audiophonics.fr/monacor-ar30...-6374.html

... so that's the reason why I'm writing this reply!)

You're completely right - vibrational feedback was the "low-hanging fruit" in my quest for realism. The cost to implement it was less than 3% of the cost of my piano. I roughly outlined my quest so far, and this step was by far the simplest and cheapest, but for me it was still rather profound.

I think the next step will be the most expensive: A digital piano with better action. The Roland PHA-II is a great action, and the escapement/let-off mechanism is okay (I rarely feel that "catch" at the bottom), but I know there are better ones out there. I think that's why I'm so intrigued with those AvantGrand's. Yamaha claims they used an actual grand piano action, and that the velocity measurements are taken from both the impact of the hammers and key sensors. It sounds like something pretty close to the best that I can hope for from a "digital acoustic" piano.

I'm not against anyone wanting tactile feedback in the form of vibrations, let alone a classical pianist.  So on that count, I'm with Jerry Knight.

As Sigasa has demonstrated (and many of us have experienced), the key motion from many digital pianos is not reflected in the signal sent to Pianoteq.  And I strongly suspect but can't prove, that this is where the major improvements to the DP can me made (aside from having an actual key and hammer action).

My own Roland has an imitation let off feel at the bottom of the keystoke (which is OK), and as I've mentioned in other threads, it generate the full range of damper pedal control values.  I'm of the opinion (not necessarily correct) that this could be more important to a classical pianist.  Heck it's even useful to me, and I am no where near you or Jerry in technical ability (of this I'm very sure).

My comments were meant to suggest that there may be other aspects that if addressed could make the DP more like an acoustic grand than key bed vibrations.

But then, everyone perceives different aspects as being important.  On the pianoworld forum, Pianoteq was bad-mouthed for its sound, but I wonder if those that have sworn a blood oath to samples, actually play the piano live that much (I well recall your comments on having previously used samples to play live and how much work it required to massage the midi file to get the sound you wanted).

And in closing, I realize that key bed vibrations are the one aspect that is relatively easy to achieve; the action and response being a very different matter.  Best to put one's limited resources where they will have the most affect.

Cheers,

Glenn

I read your reply of 29OCT2011 regarding acoustic vibrational feedback, and found it to be a very interesting read.  Although I consider myself to be a somewhat accomplished musician (piano and pipe organ), I do not feel the need to perceive vibrational feedback from the piano I play, to enjoy the piano I am playing.  In fact, when playing the pipe organ, by definition, there is no tactile feedback of acoustic vibrations from the keyboard itself.

So, in a way, I am agreeing with you.  At the same time, JerryKnight's opening statement mentions that he is a purely classical pianist who wishes to duplicate all of the nuances of a concert grand.  He did forewarn us to "keep this in mind if you think what I did is crazy or misguided."  In his case, Jerry is entitled to feel vibrations from a real grand (and even the best of them still do emit vibrations through the frame, case and keyboard);  in fact, I applaud Jerry that he went so far as to engineer his own physical solution, and was kind enough to share it with the Pianoteq forum!

For a moment, back to the topic of perceiving acoustic vibrational feedback: 
I re-visited the Steinway M at my disposal, to characterize and describe what is felt.  When playing any notes from, say, G5 and below, it is very easy to feel acoustic vibrations from non-musical portions of the piano, including: the keyboard, the piano's wooden case, soundboard, pinblock, the cast iron frame -- and you can also perceive vibrations if you raise your left knee to the frame below the piano's keyboard.

Now, here's the rub:  The manner in which you depress and hold the notes in order to perceive the vibrations usually (at least in my case -- your experience may vary) does not consist of classical playing technique.   To state differently:  One can certainly perceive vibrations when loud notes, of clusters of notes, are played and sustained by your hand.  Fair enough; however, my experience has mostly involved long sustained (hand held rather than sustain pedaled) notes are usually the soft notes!!!  Usually when I play loudly, the repertoire and my technique usually requires my fingers to be on the individual keys for relatively short times, so that I really don't notice the sensation as it occurs!

Even though my own playing experience does not "require" tactile acoustic vibrational feedback through the keyboard, I do not "miss it" when playing on my trusty 22-year old Roland A80 mother controller keyboard.  At the same time, I defend JerryKnight's right to strive for this sensation if he desires, and has the ability to simulate it in his own electronic rig.

Enough of my rambling.  Bravo to both Jerry for initiating this thread, and to Glenn who takes a different approach and encourages us to focus our mental energy ... and the piano's physical kinetic energy towards Pianoteq's ability to produce realistic piano sounds.

Cheers,

Joe

There are previous threads about the energy lost through the vibrations of "non-music-producing" parts of an acoustic piano, and using a transducer to create non-music vibrations is interesting.  While this may provide a more life-like tactile feeling for digital pianos, in acoustic pianos this is self-defeating.

One key to understanding this is to recognize that sound is energy, and (in the case of an acoustic piano), all the energy comes from the pianist.  Another key is that a piano DOES NOT amplify sound - a piano is a transducer, not an amplifier (a DP is both a transducer and amplifier).  Consequently the sound energy that we hear is simply the conversion of one type of energy to another.  Definitions of transducers and amplifiers are available on Wikipedia.

To get maximum conversion of finger energy into sound, designers strive to minimize the vibrations of the parts of a piano that don't produce "music".  Examples are the pedals, key bed, frame, and in most designs the rim (Bosendorfer claims that their rims are made of softer wood that vibrates - most other builders use laminations of a hard, dense wood).

The point I'm making is that although pianists can feel the vibrations of the key bed through the keys, this is in truth wasted energy that could better be put to use in producing musical sounds.  Every piano builder strives to have maximum projection of sound from their pianos - this is achieved by minimizing energy losses.

In the case of digital pianos the energy comes from electricity, so the penalty to be paid is in using more electrical energy (and it's presently not expensive).

This is not to say that using a transducer is pointless - I think it's a brilliant idea in an attempt to replicate the feel of currently produced and existing acoustic pianos.  But with the advances in technology being put into play (Estonia is experimenting with steel key beds), key bed vibration will be a thing of the past in the future.  In the meantime, vibrating transducers will gain in usage.

Perhaps the effort and cost expended on vibration producing transducers would be better directed towards transcribing the actions of our fingers into more accurate signals for Pianoteq to utilize in the production of piano sounds.

To this end, the work being done by Sigasa utilizing PNO Scan comes to mind.

Glenn

Has anyone tried attaching them, or similar transducers, to a real piano's soundboard? In other words, one would play a midi keyboard that triggers PianoTeq, and the signal would then be sent to vibrate the real piano's soundboard. (One could use a mixer so that the signal went to both monitors and the real piano, and one could thus control the amount that each contributed to the sound.)

Or can these transducers even overcome the sound board's impedance and the downbearing force of the strings? Perhaps with the pedal depressed, so that the dampers let the strings vibrate?

Not sure if the result would be worthwhile, but I'm still curious...

great thing about these things is that they come with a clamp. Just clamp to bass end off keyboard stand???

Yeah, that bad boy is probably around 100x more powerful than the puny exciters I got. I'd be afraid of my piano falling apart during some Rachmaninoff...

These are the ones I got (with the amp included)

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdet...er=300-381

EDIT: That ButtKicker Mini-LFE model is probably just about perfect as a higher quality alternative to my cheap-o's. I think mine are ~15W each, and they're running at around 90% on the amp to get a good vibration level. Something more substancial running at a lower amp level is probably more reliable, and you'd probably only need one.

EDIT 2: I've been looking at the Yamaha AvantGrand models (N2 & N3) and they have that "TRS" (Tactile Response System?) that supposedly provides tactile feedback. Think they're just beefy speakers, or actual tactile transducers like these?

If I were more brave, I would partially disassemble my piano and see if I could mount the transducers in a better location inside the case..

http://thebuttkicker.com/musicians/prod...oncert.htm

http://thebuttkicker.com/musicians/prod...oncert.htm

looks good?

Well done.

Glenn

Very nice idea :-)
It's cool that you would go this far to get your 'feel' back from the piano - and - crazy or misguided ? - no way...
this is just a proof of how far one can go in an attempt to get near-realism

good on ya!!

cheers
Hans