Thanks, Joris! I checked out your website, and will be in touch with you about possible collaboration!

Nice, Rachel! Looking forward to your mail.

That is pretty gorgeous! Can you explain the technique he used to add that "church ambience"???

Hi Rachel and Delt,

I'm glad you like the recording, thanks!

Before the first note and after the last notes you can hear an acoustic "space" noise. That's the acoustic noise in the empty Nicolaï church in Utrecht that I once sampled just before a recording gig. So, it's no impulse sample.

Now about the acoustic reverberance.

First I bypassed all internal reverb & delay processing of Pianoteq.

Then I accomplished the acoustic church sound by making a subtle combination of different plugins:
• Native Instrument's Reaktor, loaded with the "Kraftverb" ensemble (for putting the
• Reaktor again, now loaded with the "Native Yardstick" ensemble
• IK Multimedia's Classik Studio Reverb
• Reaktor one last time, now loaded with the "Space Master" ensemble

When EQ'ing PT5's instruments, I mostly use IK Multimedia's T-RackS Master EQ 432 and/or Tokyo Dawn Labs SlickEQ.

Soon I'll try to have a closer look at the deeper possibilities of PT5's internal acoustic options.

Greetings!
Joris

______________________
J o r i s    H o l t a c k e r s
composer-pianist | multi-instrumentalist | recording-engineer | mastering-engineer | producer
http://www.sonopoly.net • info@sonopoly.net

Lanny

I'd really like an impulse file of that church ambience... !!

I first made the same error... he did not use it as impulse but in a mix (at least that's what I understood). That means several minutes of church ambience. Not that it is impossible to use a truncated/faded out version as reverb impulse, but with no guaranty of similar result.

Philippe Guillaume wrote:

Speaking about the Kremsegg collection, we just added a beautiful demo played by Joris Holtackers on the Frenzel grand piano, listen to F. Schubert - Sonata No. 20 Andantino on page https://www.pianoteq.com/kremsegg2. He mixed the piano with some church ambience which to me provides a very authentic sound.

That is pretty gorgeous! Can you explain the technique he used to add that "church ambience"???

I don't know exactly, he wrote me that he "mixed with live church ambience noise I once sampled, for increased realism". I told him about the discussion here and will try to get more details.

Bill

My humble opinion, to try to define Grands, it's about the sound. It it sound close to a Grand (and for get it naturally require iron frame, 3 strings/note and fine body) it is not a fortepiano.   
:-)

I wonder if leather hammer effect can be adjusted for the modern pianos of pianoteq. Is just a matter of hardness?

Speaking about the Kremsegg collection, we just added a beautiful demo played by Joris Holtackers on the Frenzel grand piano, listen to F. Schubert - Sonata No. 20 Andantino on page https://www.pianoteq.com/kremsegg2. He mixed the piano with some church ambience which to me provides a very authentic sound.

That is pretty gorgeous! Can you explain the technique he used to add that "church ambience"???

Lanny

Bill

All vintage grand pianos I saw have iron cast, for example, and the form similar to we are used to see today, despite some models have not the Steinway created single curved wood piece in the side but two pieces or more.

I would like to see a more intermediary model, just for curiosity. Like the earliest kind of model that can be considered a grand piano. What is the minimun amount of inovation it require to be called a grand?

I think there really is no consistent definition of what distinguishes a fortepiano from a modern piano. The term 'fortepiano' is very broadly used just in the sense of 'vintage (grand) piano', as far as I know. A narrower definition would be everything that uses a wooden frame instead of a metal one; at least this is what I think of when I think of a fortepiano.

Personally, the distinguishing features that make a grand 'modern' in my book are: full cast-iron frame, choirs with at least 3 strings, felt rather than leather hammers, at least 7 octaves and a double-escapement action. If I am not mistaken, the development was largely finished at the end of the 19th century, however AFAIK many grands built between 1850 and 1900 were still missing one or more of those features, depending on the manufacturer.

For example, double-escapement and felt hammers were quite common from 1850 onwards, I think, but the full cast-iron frame construction was not. Many European grands of that time used composite metal frames, if I am not mistaken: stronger than the old wooden frames, but not as strong as a modern cast-iron frame. Because of this, those models probably had fewer and thinner strings and had a sound somewhere between a fortepiano and a modern grand.

So between 1850 and 1900 things are a bit muddled, and pianos from that time probably all are 'more or less' modern, depending on the make and model. Everything built 1900 or later could/should probably be considered 'modern', however.

PS: all this is talking about grand pianos. I have never really researched pianinos (uprights); they are younger than the grand (early 1800s?) and have probably undergone a similar/parallel development, but of course not identical.