Topic by Robinez

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Topic: Soft Grand Piano sounds

I'm a new user of Pianoteq and I'm amazed how good pianoteq sounds.It took me a lot of time to learn how to modify the sounds to my liking. I really like soft piano sounds (especially that soft grand from Nord is really good). So i've watched some really good tutorials from very technical persons on youtube how to modify the sounds in pianoteq and tried to create my own soft piano sounds.

So now I have a great collection of midnight, intimate and soft piano grands all created to my liking. In the FXP corner I have uploaded my favorite piano sound which is using the NY Steinway.

I've also recorded a demo of it on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck3xmiH1ycY

The method I used for this specific piano sound was:
- lowering the Velocity curve
- changing the Hammer Hardness
- modify the Action parameters
- modify the reverb (although I use a different reverb in the video)
- changed the Microphone setup in such a way that the phase correlation is good
- and most importantly, I've analyzed the Nord Soft Grand sound and transferred that to an EQ profile for this specific sound and modified the three EQ's in this sound to get near to that profile.

During this sound design I've noticed that the Microphone setup is almost the most important part for the end result, it's really fast out of phase, so for me this is the hardest part and would love to have some tips from the experts here how to use microphones for recording piano sounds , I know that there are a few basic setups like the AB, MS, ORTF and XY setups, but maybe there are more common setups to use for recording piano sounds?

I'm in the middle of programming new sounds now for the Steingraeber model. It's my favorite pianoteq model, but I really struggle to have some great soft pianos out of that model, do you have any tips or tricks that you use when creating those soft piano sounds?

Last edited by Robinez (25-03-2024 19:33)

Reply by levinite

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Re: Soft Grand Piano sounds

Love the beautiful sound. Well played, so relaxing.   Hope you also post your Steingraeber fxp.

Reply by Beto-Music

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Re: Soft Grand Piano sounds

That's one of the main goals of pianoteq, to allow the possibility to customise each piano to your own taste. The magic of true modrlling allow that like in a way no other VST can do.

Congratulations for yor soft piano setup.
:-)

In Pianoteq  Pro you can do a lot of adjusts note by note, and you can also blend or even morph two piano models into a single one.

Last edited by Beto-Music (25-03-2024 21:08)

Reply by Robinez

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Re: Soft Grand Piano sounds

levinite wrote:

Love the beautiful sound. Well played, so relaxing.   Hope you also post your Steingraeber fxp.

I will, once I'm happy with the end result, but the Steingraeber is my favorite pianoteq model, and this one is quite difficult to program to get the results that I want.

But I uploaded a new FXP to the FXP corner based on the Ant. Petrov piano, this one is my take on that piano model, I've changed the sound color and spectrum profile a lot for this sound and also modifed the EQ and Reverb for this. There is also an mp3 demo attached to it, so people can hear it if it's worth it to download.

I've used a standard pianoteq reverb for this sound. But normally I use IR (impulse responses) from the Bricasti M7 in pianoteq. They sound so good once you add them to the pianoteq reverb (especially the Sun Plate C IR model from the Bricasti), these Bricasti M7 IR models can be downloaded for free on the internet, I highly recommend checking them out in pianoteq because pianoteq supports custom IR models in sounds.

Last edited by Robinez (29-03-2024 17:12)

Reply by levinite

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Re: Soft Grand Piano sounds

Excellent, I like your approach. Posting the demo certainly does help. Unfortunately, I do not as yet own the Petrov but I do have the Steingraeber and will wait patiently for its release, especially since there are few Steingraeber fxps posted.

Reply by Irmin

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Re: Soft Grand Piano sounds

On a different topic. I use to love your combi's on the Korg M3 when I still had one

Last edited by Irmin (29-03-2024 19:06)

Reply by Robinez

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Re: Soft Grand Piano sounds

levinite wrote:

Excellent, I like your approach. Posting the demo certainly does help. Unfortunately, I do not as yet own the Petrov but I do have the Steingraeber and will wait patiently for its release, especially since there are few Steingraeber fxps posted.

I've uploaded a Romantic Piano for the Steingraeber in the FXP Corner, I hope you like it.
And I almost finished my Worship Soft Grand Piano for the Steingraeber, It's already fantastic on the low end, but still some work to do on the high notes. Once it's finished I will upload that one too.

Last edited by Robinez (31-03-2024 00:34)

Reply by levinite

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Re: Soft Grand Piano sounds

Nice work, I've tried both fxps and they are very good and hope to put them to good use. I have also downloaded Samplicity Bricasti IRs but maybe I don't know what I am doing. I have tried the Sun plate C reverb L and find it to be too strong for the soft piano fxp. Is this the correct reverb for this fxp? Did you adjust the reverb once loaded? I just want to know if I am applying the reverb correctly or maybe its just my setup -- I don't think my headphones are that good. The mp3s do sound better though.

Reply by Robinez

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Re: Soft Grand Piano sounds

levinite wrote:

Nice work, I've tried both fxps and they are very good and hope to put them to good use. I have also downloaded Samplicity Bricasti IRs but maybe I don't know what I am doing. I have tried the Sun plate C reverb L and find it to be too strong for the soft piano fxp. Is this the correct reverb for this fxp? Did you adjust the reverb once loaded? I just want to know if I am applying the reverb correctly or maybe its just my setup -- I don't think my headphones are that good. The mp3s do sound better though.

programming reverbs is not easy to learn, there are a lot of EQ tricks involved and with pro reverbs you can set the sustain length of the reverb frequency area's to model a certain space. That was exactly what I did in the video above, there I created an algorithmic reverb out of that Sun Place C Impulse Response and modeled the Frequency area's and sustain lengths for a piano room sound.

But there is a basic reverb in pianoteq, when you load up that sun plate C reverb then it won't sound good, this is normal because you will get the full mix amount and the full reverb length of that impulse response. You don't have access in pianoteq to the EQ tone setting for that impulse response but that is not really needed for this sound. So just set the mix, envelope and pre delay so that it fits good in with that piano sound.

Here are the settings you can use:
Mix: -2.6 dB
Envelope: -29 dB
Pre delay: 0.010 s

Now when using a reverb like this (with a dark tone in that Sun Plate C reverb) it's better to have a little bit more high end and attack sound in the preset. So press the Celeste pedal on pianoteq screen (it will keep activated that way), this removes the thin felt layer I've programmed in, and set the velocity curve slightly higher to your liking.

Now it will sound a lot better with that specific Sun Plate C impulse response.

Hope this helps.

Reply by levinite

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Re: Soft Grand Piano sounds

It is much better now. Thanks for taking the time to explain how it works. I want to try my own fxp but I will probably stick with Pianoteq built in ones at least for now.