Topic: Pteq 9 - custom preset sound different - not in good way

I spent some considerable time tweaking S Erard to get the sound I was looking for.   In PT 9 it is dramatically different.  I'm not sure what adjectives to use - it's muffled, not as sharp?  Perhaps there is more hammer noise?  I tried reducing the hammer noise and boosting the treble but that did not fix things.

This is disappointing because I am planning to use this setting for 2 tracks on my next album.   I suppose I could just stick with PT 8 here, but that is not an ideal solution.

I can't figure out how to attach files here, and my attempts to make a linkable URL using BBCode have failed, but if you copy this URL it will get you to two sample mp3 files and the fxp file. 

  https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/cgelxwat...1&dl=0

Edit: somehow the interface managed to create a linkable URL on my second attempt . . .

Last edited by eheilner (15-11-2025 19:01)

Re: Pteq 9 - custom preset sound different - not in good way

eheilner wrote:

I spent some considerable time tweaking S Erard to get the sound I was looking for.   
[.....]
I suppose I could just stick with PT 8 here, but that is not an ideal solution.

For Steinway D there is STEINWAYDV80.ptq which is the v8 version. I have not tested it to see if it is identical to what it was before, but perhaps it is. I suspect that if you go to your user area and request the same thing for the Erard, the fine folks at Modartt will make one for your (I speculate that they just need to export from the previous version in an internal way, not create it from scratch, but perhaps I'm wrong).

Go to https://www.modartt.com/pianoteq_legacy to see what I mean.

Hope this helps.

Where do I find a list of all posts I upvoted? :(

Re: Pteq 9 - custom preset sound different - not in good way

I think you can run PT8 parallel to PT9 on the same license. Try it out

Re: Pteq 9 - custom preset sound different - not in good way

dv wrote:
eheilner wrote:

I spent some considerable time tweaking S Erard to get the sound I was looking for.   
[.....]
I suppose I could just stick with PT 8 here, but that is not an ideal solution.

For Steinway D there is STEINWAYDV80.ptq which is the v8 version. I have not tested it to see if it is identical to what it was before, but perhaps it is. I suspect that if you go to your user area and request the same thing for the Erard, the fine folks at Modartt will make one for your (I speculate that they just need to export from the previous version in an internal way, not create it from scratch, but perhaps I'm wrong).

Go to https://www.modartt.com/pianoteq_legacy to see what I mean.

Hope this helps.

I'll try that - but it could be that the difference is caused not by the ptq file but by the engine itself.

Re: Pteq 9 - custom preset sound different - not in good way

Fancellu wrote:

I think you can run PT8 parallel to PT9 on the same license. Try it out

That does work, but it is introduces a level of complication that I'd prefer to avoid.

Re: Pteq 9 - custom preset sound different - not in good way

dv wrote:
eheilner wrote:

I spent some considerable time tweaking S Erard to get the sound I was looking for.   
[.....]
I suppose I could just stick with PT 8 here, but that is not an ideal solution.

For Steinway D there is STEINWAYDV80.ptq which is the v8 version. I have not tested it to see if it is identical to what it was before, but perhaps it is. I suspect that if you go to your user area and request the same thing for the Erard, the fine folks at Modartt will make one for your (I speculate that they just need to export from the previous version in an internal way, not create it from scratch, but perhaps I'm wrong).

Go to https://www.modartt.com/pianoteq_legacy to see what I mean.

Hope this helps.

I reached out to Modartt support.  The response was that the model has been re-voiced and that I should use the 9 version and tweak.   Using the "Brilliant' EQ setting seems to get close to the rel 8 sound.

I should add that I've been using PianoTeq for, umm, 7-8 years now and am very happy with it - this is a minor glitch in the larger scheme of things.

Last edited by eheilner (23-11-2025 03:30)

Re: Pteq 9 - custom preset sound different - not in good way

eheilner wrote:

I spent some considerable time tweaking S Erard to get the sound I was looking for.   In PT 9 it is dramatically different.  I'm not sure what adjectives to use - it's muffled, not as sharp?  Perhaps there is more hammer noise?  I tried reducing the hammer noise and boosting the treble but that did not fix things.

This is disappointing because I am planning to use this setting for 2 tracks on my next album.

I should add that I've been using PianoTeq for, umm, 7-8 years now and am very happy with it - this is a minor glitch in the larger scheme of things.

Since I’d been working on the very same piano model I like really to share my insight and maybe put things into some perspective for you and others whose work generally on presets is also challenging. You see, I'd been working on an S. Erard preset too in PIANOTEQ 8 (8.4.3) prior to the very day PIANOTEQ 9 was released.  In fact about a whole month I worked on many of my own custom presets of the piano inside the old version before I lastly loaded what seemed (then) my final into PIANOTEQ 9, but thereafter only continued my work on the preset within it (that is) inside the most recent release of the software.  Which now does seem itself to produce a piano sound having more detail and is slightly dark or just somehow darker than the previous S. Erard (1849).

My own undertaking starting in the older version and ending in the newer was complicated by indeed the lack of brightness er the thinness that is currently missing and that was very much present in the earlier model.  (Man, it seemed tedious too to try and compensate somehow.)

To try and sum things up and give just an idea of the difficulties I’d previously encountered, from PIANOTEQ 8 I had made presets of the piano model that eventually took on a total of ten (10) completely different custom iterations, all those saved by me before my arriving eventually at even more, a whole other eight (8) additional I created but inside PIANOTEQ 9.

(From the S. Erard alone, I went through a total eighteen {18} derivatives.  Each is with its own different sounding particulars.)

Anyway though I went through the eighteen (18) of the S. Erard 440 (1849), from ten (10) of the version 7.5 model in PIANOTEQ 8.4.3 to subsequently my eight (8) of the S. Erard 440 (1849) new model version 9.0 in PIANOTEQ 9.0.3, for the total of the eighteen (18), there just at each step of the way I took was a thing for me to learn… 

(Now as I endeavor, I appear hardly alone.  Apparently, I'm finding you as well as others might had experienced similar circumstances.)

From version 7.5 to the current version 9.0 of the S. Erard 440 factory model, obviously even the developers of it at MODARTT, step-by-step had something that they collectively theirselves needed to learn.

About your own preset, though a process is sometimes very long and arduous, my advice is just keep at it; if you’re like everybody else using it, just continue at it, since honestly you can eventually learn to make it sound whatever way that could end up ultimately a thing very rewarding and helpful to you as you endeavor yourself in your present project.

Consider possibly a download of this preset of mine if it can help you out somehow:

https://forum.modartt.com/file/9xxsesp5
short audio example
If by any chance you’d like to take away something from it or the audio recording of this S. Erard preset that you can hear at the forum available too is this link connected onto the audio since it’s already posted at another thread.

Although I’m making available temporarily the same preset used in the recording, I’ll take it down perhaps after a few days.

Each musical number inside the recorded audio was originally taken from a player piano performance out of the 1800s but since archived and reproduced as MIDI by Stanford University in northern (Palo Alto) California.

(How each was made into MIDI I may one way or another attempt to explain later.)

Last edited by Amen Ptah Ra (10-12-2025 03:18)
Pianoteq 8 Studio Bundle, Pearl malletSTATION EM1, Roland (DRUM SOUND MODULE TD-30, HandSonic 10, AX-1), Akai EWI USB, Yamaha DIGITAL PIANO P-95, M-Audio STUDIOPHILE BX5, Focusrite Saffire PRO 24 DSP.

Re: Pteq 9 - custom preset sound different - not in good way

Amen Ptah Ra wrote:

How each was made into MIDI I may one way or another attempt to explain later.

Dear Amen, I try to do just that, turning piano performance into MIDI. I want to derive notation in the end.
So I look forward to your explanation, hopefully sooner than later.
I use different pieces of software that promise to do just that (audio in- midi out) but none fullfills that (bold) promise.