I have been using Pianoteq demo for years now, obviously I hate the limitations but I still haven't bought  it because of various concerns:

1.- The, more now, huge price difference between the price in euros and dolars. Even more compared to the retail version avaible at thomman. I really can't make the payment of the 349 USD knowing I could get it for 194 euros on thomman.
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I have no doubt Pianoteq is a superior product to any sampled library, also saves precious SSD space. But I think if it was possible to pay the same 194 as the retail version in Thomman I would have purchased it eons ago.

I hear ya! The Aussie dollar is diving even deeper than the US dollar, so I feel your pain. And I agree that the Stage version is just a tease; the Standard offers so much more. If you're a music student (or professional teacher) there is a generous educational discount. (See "Buy" link on main site.) Maybe you should enrol in a music course if you get the opportunity. Could be a win-win.

As someone who has furnished demos for EWQL Pianos, I don't use the product because the layering is not consistent, and the tuning is out on different notes at different velocities!  I have deleted all four sampled EWQL pianos from my hard drive.  It has a "gee whiz" effect when you first try them, they sound tremendous.  However, for serious work, I consider these and other sampled pianos as being unplayable without a tremendous of subsequent editing to avoid certain velocity ranges of certain notes, that vary between pianos.
 
As a former customer of Ivory, I was extremely disappointed in the Italian Grand (Fazioli), and ended up deleting the entire product from my hard drives to save space.

With Pianoteq (and I am not a paid employee of Modartt!), I am able to play the pianos in the same manner that I play high-quality acoustic studio- and concert grand pianos.

Joe

1.- The, more now, huge price difference between the price in euros and dolars. Even more compared to the retail version avaible at thomman. I really can't make the payment of the 349 USD knowing I could get it for 194 euros on thomman.

2.- You can't choose the pair of instruments you want, I don't like k2, I want the bluthner.

3.- Stage version is affordable but I don't like the way it outputs sound compared to standard (mic positions vs "headphones").

I have no doubt Pianoteq is a superior product to any sampled library, also saves precious SSD space. But I think if it was possible to pay the same 194 as the retail version in Thomman I would have purchased it eons ago.

And reviving this old thread is my fault. Sorry.

But at the end of the day, Pianoteq feels like Modarrts science project.  It doesn't feel that they are taking it seriously from a consumer's point of view.
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Hell yeah, it's a science project! Modartt/Pianoteq is no ordinary software company. It's a handful of extremely talented super-nerds full on into mathematics, physics and music. The mastermind Philippe Guillaume is a professor of mathematics, and the scientific and mathematical basis for Pianoteq is openly available as the doctoral thesis of one of their staff Dr Juliette Chabassier, as well as in a number of peer-reviewed publications in leading scientific journals.

If you don't think that is right up there with the coolest things ever and that it's worth a couple hundred quid supporting that's a shame. Because this is the stuff that makes Modartt and Pianoteq so great, unique and more innovative than other companies focussed on appealing to the masses for the sake of maximising profits.

But it's fair enough that money's tight and it's up to you whether you want the product or not and whether it's useful to you and worth the money. No one can decide that for you. The demo version of the product is functional enough to give you a good idea of what the software can do. Even if you only get two basic instruments that come with the standard version of the software, it allows for so many tweaks of the parameters and also has a great selection of effects that let you create a large library of very distinct sounding virtual instruments (even with just "two" instruments). Maybe spend more time with the demo version, exploring the settings with the different instruments.

Edit: Doh! I did not realise this thread is six years old!! @oldionus I blame you! :-P

Kindest Regards,

Chris

This is an old comment, but I just have to strongly disagree. Some of us, like me, for example, were swayed to purchased PTQ PRECISELY because it has a wonderful collection of historic pianos and earlier keyboard instruments, unlike anything available anywhere else. PTQ actually has a good balance between jazz/pop/rock/contemporary and historically oriented classical music people, but some of us really love the historic instruments!

amen!  'more historic pianos please, Modartt!

This is an old comment, but I just have to strongly disagree. Some of us, like me, for example, were swayed to purchased PTQ PRECISELY because it has a wonderful collection of historic pianos and earlier keyboard instruments, unlike anything available anywhere else. PTQ actually has a good balance between jazz/pop/rock/contemporary and historically oriented classical music people, but some of us really love the historic instruments!

...Since its illegal to make the transactions through any venezuelan banks, the only possible way is to make internet transfers from an autorized venezuelan credit card of a max of US$50 (which is the total amount alloted by the system and the goverment to spend online within a whole fiscal year) to a paypal account, then consolidate several transfers from different paypal accounts into mine and then I can buy stuff....

Why not just take the chance on postal delivery and mail $50 currency ?  It's generally reliable... just put "The Chavez French Support Group" instead of Modartt on the envelope...

Have you considered moving to another country? ^^'

Get in touch with Modartt guys via e-mail, perhaps they can give you a bank account number to which you would directly pay the 50$ (circumventing PayPal or stuff like that), and they would send you the serial number for E-piano addons also via e-mail. When there's will, there is a way!

Ohhh... there is. I have already walked down that path. Moddart guys have been and, at the time, were excellent in making suggestions. Since its illegal to make the transactions through any venezuelan banks, the only possible way is to make internet transfers from an autorized venezuelan credit card of a max of US$50 (which is the total amount alloted by the system and the goverment to spend online within a whole fiscal year) to a paypal account, then consolidate several transfers from different paypal accounts into mine and then I can buy stuff. MInd that in order to get the 50 bucks I have to ask favors to people and pay them in advance and with the black market rate.... its kind of people live isolated in Venezuela!
Everything is complicated... albeit not impossible when you really want it.

PS. As much I as have been craving, I've been unable to circumvent the legal restrictions here in order to buy the addons (I love the Wurly sound)... but I don't lose hope.

Get in touch with Modartt guys via e-mail, perhaps they can give you a bank account number to which you would directly pay the 50$ (circumventing PayPal or stuff like that), and they would send you the serial number for E-piano addons also via e-mail. When there's will, there is a way!

Did I regret buying the Clav? Hell no. At least it has a good midi implementation. But as soon as I found the way to buy it (which was much complicated because some political issues in Venezuela and foreign exchange restrictions), I just hooked it up and forgot completely about whatever stuff the Clav has... since the only need I have is to get the best sound possible from a piano.

I work everything with ptq (Hanon, Beyer (I'm going through the first year at the Conservatory ), and last month I made my first private recital at home using it through a dedicated (and cheap) Dolby SR system.
I played the three Gymnopédies and Melodie and Danse Rustique from Matsudaira.

PTQ just made me proud. I got also the added benefit of training my ears better by comparing sounds.  It's not easy to explain since I lack some of the theory behind it, but everytime I hear a real piano at the conservatory or anywhere else, its like Im automatically analising the sound in terms of PTQ parameters,... even detecting problems with the sound boards or specific strings! Ha....! I never thought this would happen.

In the end, it all goes down to what one expects in terms of learning. For me, it all has been a long and difficult road to get here, but right now, I'd trade all my intruments just for keeping PTQ.

Good Luck

PS. As much I as have been craving, I've been unable to circumvent the legal restrictions here in order to buy the addons (I love the Wurly sound)... but I don't lose hope.

Especially when you take in account that with a physical model of a certain instrument, they can also make it execute all it's typical articulations. Whereas you now have to always use keyswitches to access many articulations of the instrument, Synful orchestra and wivi already show us that these articulation samples are fundamentally redundant and just take up memory space on an too expensive pc.

The physical model can do an interpretation of what you play and doesn't need more memory for it, only slightly more processing power maybe.

Physical modelling of instruments seems to be the way forward. The only thing Pianoteq will have to worry about, is if it stands still and allow competition to over take it.

Links on physical modelling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUh21Eje56g

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

http://www.lnt.de/lms/research/projects...p?lang=eng