I personally strongly prefer the piano (re)voicings in the latest version of Pianoteq. As others have mentioned, the ringing metallic sound at very high velocities, which sounded unnatural, distorted or exaggerated, is now almost entirely absent, which means that the entire velocity range can be used without having to resort to changing the default linear velocity curve or adjusting the equalization.
One thing I noticed perhaps a couple years ago was that some of the piano pieces used to create samples of the sound of Pianoteq were made from MIDI recordings produced by competitors in the International Piano E-Competition (I believe this fact is (or was) mentioned somewhere within the Modartt website or other text. Ah, here it is: "MIDI and audio files kindly provided by Phil Best, Miles Black, Paul Van Bladel, Lanny Davis, Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen, Blaž Jurjevčič, Andre Louis, Steve O'laughlin, Piet De Ridder, Nadia Shpachenko, Jacob Smullyan, and the Minnesota International Piano-E-Competition", at the bottom of this webpage, for example: https://www.modartt.com/modeld )--
* International Piano E-Competition
https://www.facebook.com/pianoecompetition/
Many of those MIDI files were created by the artist/pianist using a Yamaha Disklavier acoustic grand piano fitted with MIDI recording electronics--
* Yamaha Disklavier grand piano
https://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical...index.html
And many of those files, downloaded directly from the E-piano competition website, when played back in Pianoteq, rarely exceeded a velocity of 112-114, even when the Yamaha acoustic grand piano was played with great force by the pianists during loud passages of the music. They sounded wonderful when played back through Pianoteq, which made me begin to regard any velocity above perhaps 114-118 as unnecessary, or in the worst cases, detrimental, in Pianoteq. So I would adjust the upper limit of the velocity curve in Pianoteq downward to somewhere between 114 and 118 to limit the velocity range, and the pianos all sounded better to my ears.
With the current version of Pianoteq and the revoicings that were achieved and implemented, it no longer seems necessary to adjust or limit the velocity response. I think all the presets sound much better, even with a simple linear velocity-response curve from 0 to 127. Just a personal opinion.
Last edited by Stephen_Doonan (07-02-2024 21:12)
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Linux, Pianoteq Pro, Organteq