It feels like pianoteq have more punch for strident sounds.

Yeah, in a lot of ways Pianoteq is close to the recordings and it's really something to be able to say "I'd like to see if I can get it like this.." and get really close to it. You can work those FXPs more to add or subtract things about them - or use in a DAW and add some analog grit.

Now, of course, I'm just stretching for an excuse to post another quirky short video and this springs to mind - it reminds me of what other piano software makes me feel when I play them now.

Shin Godzilla's Roar

Maybe harsh - but it's kind of true - they look the part but when I play the other software pianos, I hear a wrong voice.

Compared, Pianoteq gives me as much real piano as I can work with. Always feel everything falling short with other software pianos. They make me want to feel "Ok, looking forward to playing this" but then it's like the roar in the video.

It's interesting how he uses the very same logic of Bugs Bunny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yBNWqBrTxQ

It's true, we all just get on doing our thing and it's not always worth time or efforts to convince those who may be un-convinceable I always love reading what you're thinking!

I'll just scroll down a little to the next comm ...

Oh

@Beto, Beto.. Beto - LOL I laughed much too loud, in a great way As they say these days,

Thanks, I hate it! (well, you know I love it really)

Thought to bring these in here for ease of listening..

the audio and FXPs from the Pianoteq Workshops page - since they are really a sweet kind of real recorded pianos vs. a quick Pianoteq edit to hear - the workshops can quickly help a new user to get toward that sound they want (you can keep editing those FXPs available to download there to get even closer - it's a fun way to learn how to edit for various effects).

These are certainly not the limit of what can be done - but a great tutorial way of getting to understand how to make tweaks in Pianoteq to get close to a sound of a given piano recording - making, in effect, Pianoteq more true to those recordings.

Workshop 1 a Jazz type of recorded piano sound

Jazz Piano recording

Jazz Pianoteq tweaked

The jazz Pianoteq workshop FXP

Workshop 2 a Classical recorded piano sound

Classical Piano recording

Classical Pianoteq tweaked

The classical Pianoteq workshop FXP

Workshop 3 a famous standard recorded piano sound

Standard Piano Recording

Standard Pianoteq tweaked   

The Standard Pianoteq Workshop FXP

[Edits to fix urls and a little context]

Piano legends Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, & Brian Auger, 1969

This challenge would turn Modartt's head 180 degrees.

;-)

This topic is a classic. I think largely we all share similar views about it here. "I think Pianoteq is excellent!" - "No way! It's perfect!" ;0)

I used to post more about how audio studios should all consider Pianoteq, because it's so easy to work with MIDI performances in post, for just one good reason other than less cost to keep a real one viable. As a VST, it's the only piano I wrangle these days. For people not knowing why exactly - the quick explanation might be, once you record a "real piano performance in the studio with microphones" to file (or 'tape'), you lose the ability to later deeply edit the sound, in other than conventional ways. Whereas, if you play a realistic piano (recording also the MIDI data), then you can, with Pianoteq audition any of the many other pianos and presets, using the same player's performance. I know most studio folks will understand - but those looking for pros and cons but trying to understand - maybe that's a data point hither to yet surfaced.

Having struggled for decades myself with poor digital pianos, Pianoteq is actually the first product to make me genuinely feel "OK, we're officially actually living in the dream piano future everyone was looking for". Unfortunately, the sense of it is something requiring a self-evident observation or demonstration.

There are many other software piano products and consumers might not understand what makes Pianoteq so valuable to me or others who record with it.

One very high up reason, is that with other software piano products, you can achieve very limited playability (as sandalholm alludes to) and limited options for altering the sound. A studio/engineer/producer type should easily grok how workable Piantoeq is, also how light it is to run, install, update etc. (the music industry is full of gigabytes of downloads and 3rd party 'locks' and weird custom config hassles - not so with Piaoteq - it's like opposite-land.. light, easy, quick, playable close to a real piano, each piano and preset usable out-of-the-box for its purpose and a whole lot of great real pianos and other instruments for something like 40% off, if you go straight to the Studio Bundle deal). I do think someone running an audio studio would benefit from getting beyond Youtube comparisons, and try it out.. it's how I decided.. the demos sounded good - but is it doable here? Turns out, yes. I would hate to be without it now because, trying to wedge some monolithic sample piano into everything was a pain - but it's a pleasure, and inspiring using Pianoteq by that comparison.

I'd probaly leave my last thought on it to be that, I'd be happy to see more comparisons, but to me, they would be just entertainment (so anyone doing those, maybe it's good to be aware that maybe if the bar is raised, your comparison video MIGHT be the best one on Youtube! because a lot of us have probably seen enough low grade ones).

I'd prefer a nicely done documentary style "Making Of" piece though, in some controlled conditions as dazric points out, and done maybe with a level of care and love for the piano (as in the Petrof video where Philippe explains the anechoic chambre etc). That would be informative whereas many comparison videos are more of a kind of circus, often more about driving eyeballs to a music store - Like and subscribe!

Pianoteq just opens up processes beyond a real piano (much quicker and better than other piano VSTi choices), for a studio situation. Passionate about that. Most studios probably have plenty of VST plugins of course but until they try out Pianoteq, they probably still have this idea in mind that a good piano VST takes up a rack and isn't good enough etc. Test videos by amateurs are fun but maybe not so much for people with a certain degree of experience.

I'm interested further in what sandalholm mentions in his post, in terms of listeners can often be talking about X or Y - but indeed, the extra dimension, the playing of the piano does factor in deeply!

For each separate genre_____
              |             Listening_______
              |                             |
              |                             Piano in room variant
              |                             |
              |                             Recorded piano variant
              |____
                   Playing_________
                                   |
                                   Piano in room sound
                                   |
                                   Recorded piano sound

That's kind of a clear reason that no test is going to satisfy all.

Old man shouting at cloud paragraph..

Seeing comparisons using poor MIDI, wrong velocity settings etc. makes for annoyance rather than anything useful - just a music store making a 'name' and driving eyeballs to their local store - that's great and all but maybe the methods and the types of comments those things attract, is not always the best for the products they compare. In the olden days (I have to point these things out I feel, as it does feel society is losing out from the lack) music magazines would at least have some policy around make respectful demonstrations, attempt balance in criticism - the idea being, that a genuine comparison should not be an ambush kill-the-competition scam. Many editors and journalists were held to account by sponsors and corporations to play fair - and not be actively sniping certain products or company's product for kick-backs and so on. These days, where everyone is a publisher? Like and subscribe!! About as much care for the products, results and commenters, with few comments really enjoyable or sensible, many, if not most missing some point or other like, "Obviously it's A" and others saying "Obviously best is B".. then many baseless nuances emerge.. "Yeah but sensitivity wise, A sounds loudest" - and "I like how B is not loud" - some related but separate questions arise "Can my PC run A, it's made out of lawn mowers?" and "I read somewhere that B needs a space shuttle sound card to work properly" and "My PC runs louder than a vacuum cleaner, sucks and blows - that's why I only use my telephone" and then the drunken hall effect kicks in and viscous arguing begins.. "A sounds flat idiots" and "LOL B is like mono version toy" and "Clearly, you are all idiots". Kind of sadly funny but deflating.

Not many of these folk have insight to understand what they're not understanding (Dunning Kruger effect pounces to mind) - so in a general fit of 'not understanding anything sensibly' they load in on each other with attacks and ad hominem and anyone with half a grain of common sense blinks, slowly gulps and clicks away from it.

So, it is a kind of risky marketing strategy, on that level IMO. Which is why a nice documentary style piece might be a reasonable marketing venture. It may allow people who've been diappointed by extremely sketchy (face it) Youtube tests to see and perhaps be able to effortlessly learn and understand some things more clearly in a cool way.

Mostly, even from the POV of a consumer of entertainment, I'd be interested in experiencing side by sides made by people who know more about pianos and Pianoteq than myself. There's zero pull for me (other than train-wreck entertainment) seeing unskilled people try to test things, esp. pianos and Pianoteq, in any context.

But on the other hand, the exception to that rule so to speak, might be a fun test by non-piano experts certainly could be majorly entertaining and still have, gasp, viral sharability potential.

These go to 11 - Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel explains the band's amplifiers

@Beto-Music - I wish I had your eyesight! - but glad I don't at the same time heh - I say that, but I bought 'old tech' large screens, I too hate hyped extra high res 'crisp edge' etc displays.. maybe with not the same disdain but much prefer softer with better colour - filmic - possibly because I love cinema.. so my eyes enjoy a more analog experience, rather than what I agree can seem very broken, to me (too many processes in evidence, rather than 'reality', or a form of reality on screen). I'm not a Luddite about it but I'm not buying into it until it gets past making everything look like a computer game, to me.

I love that thinking. Some part of me would like to see a great piano maker (Steingraeber) design some internal harp for such usage. The main thing would be replacing strings with a frame which responds to an excellent array of frequencies, like strings.

For critiques of this, the point may be lost upon them, but if you consider who such an real-world instrument could then theoretically take up and pronounce each and every piano and preset in Pianoteq and be as useful in a concert hall, as a studio or household.

Maybe that all still sounds futuristic or preposterous - but the world was never progressed by those, esp. 'with that attitude'. Also pointing to a lot of greats in music in the past, you could say the majority of the best of the best loved and basically now immortals, were often pushing things to change, be greater in some way etc.

If having Pianoteq in a studio can save money - well, imagine how much money a grand concert hall might save, if their only house piano needed no tuning (other than the Pianoteq tools - as requested per concert by the pianist) -

"I'm playing X and Y, will love to begin on an Pleyel in Well temperament, diapason 432, full rebuild please, then finish on the Steingraeber, please use my custom scala file for this if I can't provide an FXP in time"..

No moving costs, no trucks and bad backs or multiple microphone re-placement time cost - one body, many sounds, (or DI - Direct In - or mix of live and DI for FX - unlimited uses for live) so flexible - it almost seems strange if a major piano house is not already quite deep into committee on what possibilities could reasonably arise in the market. The sales of such (and patenting of new harps etc) could finance the keeping of existing stringed instruments alive also - as I would hope.. I never wish finality on such beautiful works as 'real' pianos.

Yeah absolutely, good point - depending on size of venue, a real piano is subject to mics, amps, P.A. a mixer, producers, art directors and so on in different combos. Those audiences are generally not interested in too much depth about "Is that piano real?" and in the back, nobody is going to hear the piano unless it's either mic'd or using something like Pianoteq with MIDI output. The show goes on and the audience enjoys.. A small venue or one which is traditionally acoustic or genre specific might not factor in the above at all.

I know of at least one musician who has been using MIDI for ages, a particular digital piano keyboard built into a smallish piano body - he said the audience took him more seriously, in his genre, when he sat at something which looked like a 'real piano' instead of a modern plastic keyboard on a flaky stand.

Like something I mentioned about working with MIDI in a studio - for sure it would be great for a performer (like those you mention) to be able to output MIDI at the same time.. there will be "those" shows where even a veteran might think "Oh, wow, I think I just played that better than before - why didn't I think of adding that dimension before.. I think it's worth hearing back, I want to get it right - I'm glad we capture this stuff for later - we could work with that on the upcoming retrospective album"... and other case scenarios.

I'm always seeing a lot of upside to working digitally with piano - but mostly because now we have Piantoeq. Sometimes, I'm playing using a modern grand, and decide "That's going to sound just right on the Graf.." 2 clicks and "Yes, I like that". Creativity boosted no matter what I'm doing.

Thanks, I really like how that video presents the product - it's along the lines of my mention about preferring a good documentary style production (but at what cost), rather than a sometimes poorly and missing-the-point test. I'd say, it's not about 'fear' because these things are all over the internet - but 'cost'.

Notice, comments are "OFF" on that video - probably the opinions are split - as these videos tend to ask for opposing opinions, even where the CEO might say "We're not trying to see if we're as good or better, but let's see how we're going, where we're at".. no amount of priming with sensible notions like that may stop a terrible storm of outraged and angry folks from wading in with their instantly formed opinion, having never once thought about any of the minutia before - fun

If we compare with old times, when a grand piano was almost a symbol of aristocracy, and compare today how many kids of medium social class can play piano with affordable models, we can see how technology have benefit music art.

About this video, despite fair comments of their intention, it's important to remamber that the difference from a real quality grand piano to a digital one (especially a sampled one) it's far more evident if we play both ouserlves than just watching a video comparison.

Speaking of such things, doesn't Elton John play a Yamaha piano on stage, but (as I read somewhere) the sound that the audience hears is actually a sampled sound from a Roland?

Similarly, Alicia Keys has famously had her Yamaha sampled so that she can play anything with MIDI output and what the audience hears is her own Yamaha C3 Neo.

https://youtu.be/92V-8eZSKW8

Let's supoose that in 10 years modelled pianos can't be distinguished from real piano sound recordings even by people with skilled ears. And let's supose they manage to create great transducer activated soundboards (in grand piano sizes) and also manage to create some transducers with metal resonators boards just for the more strident metalid sounds, being possible to create a grand piano body for a digital piano with astonishing quality, able to have the power and thewway of sound propagation very close to the way a true concert piano do.

What will happen to the real grand pianos?
One music teacher once said real pianos was going to extintion.

Anyway a small digital keyboard, cables, connected to sound speakers on the ground, would look a horrible abomination in a concert room for classical music.
Even for Rock'N' Roll. Every time, in the few ocasions Jerry Lee Lewis played a compact keyboard, for example, fans complained and he really looked inferior.
Digital pianos need a large body for such cases.

but for recording it seems to make less and less sense as things like Pianoteq and others get so sophisticated

I was today listening to a recording by John o'Conor (great Irish classical pianist and student of Kempff).  He has the reputation of a lovely, charming fellow (O'Conor that is) and yet I can see him bashing you senseless for such blasphemy.  And Lord help you if you bled on the piano in the process.

But, yes, I do think we're rapidly approaching the point where a real piano is going to be harder to justify even at the highest level.  That said, I can't imagine wanting to go to a concert of a great pianist and not being a tad disappointed to find my ticket price got me an evening watching someone play on a VPC1 through a speaker system - even if it was Pianoteq.  Some things just have to be done a certain way to feel right.

Maybe I shouldn't use the word "snobby", but many people rub me that way when they insist that you can never reproduce the sound of an acoustic piano with a synthesizer, but will resist any attempts at double blind tests, jumping through any hoop they can find to justify their beliefs. (people do the same thing with lots of things, expensive wines come to mind, as does modern art:  https://www.buzzfeed.com/jenlewis/quiz-...rt-and-art )

Here is another link to where I was exploring this on Quora: https://www.quora.com/When-recording-is...b-Cana-Mar

One thing he says is "a live instrument has a soul that you can feel, while sampled or synth seems to be empty". Obviously I don't agree with this, especially if we are talking about a recording.

I agree with your practical approach though. I can see why people would want a real acoustic piano for a performance (especially if the venue is small enough that you don't need to amplify it), but for recording it seems to make less and less sense as things like Pianoteq and others get so sophisticated.

I just tried asking people on Quora, and posted a video of the Pianoteq contest winner from last year ...

That little example should tell you enough.   Frankly I'm not sure that even when describing acoustic pianos most people (most ordinary people who listen to a lot of piano music) would be able to tell one piano model from another in a double blind test.  But, in relation to your original question, I think it's unfair to say that at least some of the people stating they hear differences between Pianoteq models and real pianos of the corresponding model they have experience of are being e.g. snobby.   There are people who have spent a lifetime paying their mortgage on being able to tell quite subtle differences between instruments (and indeed in being able to tailor the sound of specific instruments to exactly what the owner wants).

There just are some people that good.

Note that different issues come into play in the commercial world of music.  Authenticity is not, IMO, the main issue here unless you're e.g. making a recording of Valentina Lisitsa playing Rach 3 or something like that.  The main issue for most musical pros doing this would be (IMO) :

* reliability
* space
* cost, including maintenance
* how they fit the recording process
* if relevant how they fit the live performance process

The practical reality is that keeping a piano in good condition (in tune at a minimum, good keyboard) takes money.  Money tends to be the bottom line and honestly if a synthetic piano does a "good enough" job for your target then you're going to use that if it's a money saver over all.  Space is important because space costs money.  Moving real pianos is a heck of a lot more expensive than moving even a top of the line hammer action controller keyboard.  Insurance costs money - no problem guessing which is cheaper to insure.

An instrument that (for a studio) feeds a clean sound direct into digital recording is fine, perhaps even better for some, than an instrument requiring careful positioning of mikes and so on - that takes time and time is money.

To a live musician playing at e.g. a wedding, in a bar or a business event, the option to use a top quality piano is often not practical or even possible.  If a couple of grand's worth of synthetic piano can be packed into your car or van easily and driven to the gig and the sound is "good enough" (that expression again !), then that's a better option for you.  Usually its the speaker system at the other end (or that you bring with you) that matters - feedback, weird interference from whatever, etc.  .   The practical jobbing musician has issues to worry about which have a higher priority than authentic sound.

The people you sell product to matter here.  Good enough is what you're aiming at.  If the customer is happy with the sound then nothing else matters.   These days synthetic pianos (the better ones) are good enough for very high standard work of a commercial nature.

Reliability is an issue here.  This is why you'll see posts about drop outs and other audio kinks getting a lot of detailed attention here.  "Good enough" is all you need as long as it's "good enough" for the entire gig with no drop outs or crackling or pops, etc..  Any of those are deal breakers.

And, honestly, for many musicians, a good hammer action keyboard and sythentic piano may be a better "piano" than the ones they trained on for years.  It's a bit like racing drivers - you don't learn your trade in F1 cars, you learn on something less fabulous in average condition or worse.  If you are lucky your piano teachers keep a nice piano in good condition.  I love jazz piano and many great old live recordings by legendary names were made on pianos best described as "heavily used, sometimes maintained".  The great Art Tatum used to listen to other people's night club gigs, be invited up to play a quick number or two and, while he was listening, have picked up all the dodgy out of tune notes and sticky keys (he was basically blind, BTW) and played around them !  The best musicians actually can work with "bangers" of pianos - it's the rest of us that are so fussy, IMO. :-)

So what I'm saying is that "good enough", "authentic" and "commercial" are very moveable ideas.  Even if a pro in a studio can tell it's not a real piano, that's not the deciding factor.  "Good enough" is the standard aimed for, not authentic.

Probably should have posted these, plus their direct source audio files:

This comparison by forum user gtingley (with a professional Steve Jarvis with excellent mics on a great sound stage, compares Steinway B)...

Thanks this is great and a lot more what I was looking for, although it would be great if they were mixed up so people had to try to guess for each example. (and it would be nice if people reported on what they were listening with)  Was it agreed that in all five excerpts, the second one was Pianoteq? Although I can hear differences of course, they sound equally good to me. (and no I'm not listening on earbuds or laptop speakers, but I don't have an amazing sound system either)

I would think that a skeptic that was unable to get them all right might be a little less vocal with their skepticism in the future. Wouldn't you think?