Topic by xkuruma

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Topic: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

Hey everyone, I'm going to get a new DP soon, hopefully the Kawai CN35 or Yamaha CLP545, which apparently both have pretty good internal speakers (2 bass-mid and 2 treble speakers pointing up) (other suggestions for pianos are welcome). and I want to know if anyone of you guys play the sound from pianoteq into the internal speakers of your DP's. I want to emulate that immediacy feeling and vibration you get from playing an acoustic, or when your DP has built-in speakers, they vibrate the keys as well.
I already talked with a kawai rep through email and it can be done, but I have yet to test it in the store before I buy anything.

Hopefully you have insights and experience on this idea.
Thanks!!

Last edited by xkuruma (22-11-2015 01:35)

Reply by billd

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

xkuruma:

I am using my Casio PX-780 the way you mentioned.  DP via USB to computer.  Computer audio out back to DP.  And use DP's controls to turn off Local control.

Bill

Reply by stamkorg

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

xkuruma wrote:

Hey everyone, I'm going to get a new DP soon, hopefully the Kawai CN35 which apparently has pretty good internal speakers (2 bass-mid and 2 treble speakers pointing up) (other suggestions for pianos are welcome). and I want to know if anyone of you guys play the sound from pianoteq into the internal speakers of your DP's. I want to emulate that immediacy feeling and vibration you get from playing an acoustic, or when your DP has built-in speakers, they vibrate the keys as well.
I already talked with a kawai rep through email and it can be done, but I have yet to test it in the store before I buy anything.

Hopefully you have insights and experience on this idea.
Thanks!!

Hello,
Yes you can, I do that with my Roland HP-507.

Now, after 1,5 years of experience using Pianoteq thru my DP's amplification system... I will say you honestly, and that's just my opininon: if you want to go with software pianos, the best you can do is to buy a good controler and add a good pair of monitors.
The sound thru my Roland is good but I am sure it should be better thru good monitors, simply because these speakers are more neutral. That's not the case on a cponsole DP where the sound system is probably tuned for the internal sound.

Reply by xkuruma

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

stamkorg wrote:

Hello,
Yes you can, I do that with my Roland HP-507.

Now, after 1,5 years of experience using Pianoteq thru my DP's amplification system... I will say you honestly, and that's just my opininon: if you want to go with software pianos, the best you can do is to buy a good controler and add a good pair of monitors.
The sound thru my Roland is good but I am sure it should be better thru good monitors, simply because these speakers are more neutral. That's not the case on a cponsole DP where the sound system is probably tuned for the internal sound.

Thanks! I just kind of like the look of the classical piano, with the cabinet and everything. I'm sure with a dedicated controller like the kawai vpc1 and good monitors you'd get even better sound. Maybe I'll add external monitors later and hide them below, idk. BTW how do you like that Roland?
Thanks for your response tho!

Reply by AKM

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

xkuruma wrote:

...other suggestions for pianos are welcome...

Did you consider getting a Casio GP-300 or even GP-500? GP-300 is a bit more expensive than Kawai CN-35 but it is a very fresh model and seems to have the best mechanics on the market recently.

Andrei Kuznetsov
https://www.youtube.com/pianopictures

AKM's Website

Reply by stamkorg

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

xkuruma wrote:

BTW how do you like that Roland?

It is a nice piano with a nice vibration in its sound.
I must admit that I asked myself several times which sound was the best (Roland or Pianoteq).
My conclusion is that Pianoteq's sound and playability wins over Roland.
I could live with my Roland standalone when I play with the internal speakers.
When I play with the headphones, Pianoteq's advantage is huge.

That's out of context, but I tried Eighty Eight Ensemble (a sampling piano software that has a full demo version for 2 weeks)... ok, it is a joke...
When you are trained to Pianoteq's touch, I think it is difficult to see elsewhere.

Reply by xkuruma

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

AKM wrote:
xkuruma wrote:

...other suggestions for pianos are welcome...

Did you consider getting a Casio GP-300 or even GP-500? GP-300 is a bit more expensive than Kawai CN-35 but it is a very fresh model and seems to have the best mechanics on the market recently.

To be honest I hadn't even thought about it. One piano dealer near me has Casio dp's but I think I've never heard of these models. BTW I was just reading and the GP300 is like $3,999? If that's the case then that's way out of my budget. The cn35 in my area is around $2,600 USD.       They do look sexy tho. Gotta love polished ebony finishes.
I even tried the Yamaha CLP 545, and I did like the touch and wooden keyboard, but the sound not so much. wouldn't be that much of a problem since I'm gonna use Pianoteq, but it is like 200$ more than the CN35 (again in my area).

Reply by nb

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

stamkorg wrote:

The sound thru my Roland is good but I am sure it should be better thru good monitors, simply because these speakers are more neutral. That's not the case on a cponsole DP where the sound system is probably tuned for the internal sound.

,

I do the same thing with my old Roland HP201, but in addition I have small monitor speakers, so I use 4 output channels. Anyway, the HP201 has some pretty nasty resonances which I'm sure, as you say,  the internal sounds compensate for. What I ended up doing was use pink noise, a microphone and a software spectrum analyzer to find these resonances and to put notch filters on the two output channels that feed the HP201 to fight them. After this procedure, I feel the internal speakers nicely fill in the sound from the monitors; but before, they actually made everything worse.

Reply by xkuruma

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

nb wrote:
stamkorg wrote:

The sound thru my Roland is good but I am sure it should be better thru good monitors, simply because these speakers are more neutral. That's not the case on a cponsole DP where the sound system is probably tuned for the internal sound.

,

I do the same thing with my old Roland HP201, but in addition I have small monitor speakers, so I use 4 output channels. Anyway, the HP201 has some pretty nasty resonances which I'm sure, as you say,  the internal sounds compensate for. What I ended up doing was use pink noise, a microphone and a software spectrum analyzer to find these resonances and to put notch filters on the two output channels that feed the HP201 to fight them. After this procedure, I feel the internal speakers nicely fill in the sound from the monitors; but before, they actually made everything worse.


Wow that sounds pretty complicated. So you're saying that the built in speakers on your piano sounded good with the original piano sounds, but sounded badly with pianoteq? What if you play a pianoteq recording from a usb stick ?.  I don't really know what you said about the resonances and stuff.

Reply by stamkorg

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

nb wrote:
stamkorg wrote:

The sound thru my Roland is good but I am sure it should be better thru good monitors, simply because these speakers are more neutral. That's not the case on a cponsole DP where the sound system is probably tuned for the internal sound.

,

I do the same thing with my old Roland HP201, but in addition I have small monitor speakers, so I use 4 output channels. Anyway, the HP201 has some pretty nasty resonances which I'm sure, as you say,  the internal sounds compensate for. What I ended up doing was use pink noise, a microphone and a software spectrum analyzer to find these resonances and to put notch filters on the two output channels that feed the HP201 to fight them. After this procedure, I feel the internal speakers nicely fill in the sound from the monitors; but before, they actually made everything worse.

Very interesting,
This way you made an audio correction...
Can you share some more informations: what is the software you used to do that? Can you explain your procedure in detàils?
Thanks

Reply by xkuruma

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

So I ended up getting a Yamaha CLP545. Tested both kawai cn35 and the Yamaha, and opted for the latter. I liked the Kawai sound AND the yamaha's Bosendorfer sound, so I was torn right there. The key actions felt similar, though the wooden keyboard felt a little better in terms of response (keys coming back up faster {I think} ). Plus the Yamaha had more powerful speakers and looked nicer (to me).

I made my velocity curves and hooked it up with pianoteq, just the way I described in the first post. It sounds amazing, both the D4 and Bluthner are GREAT sounding instruments.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ds3ywe1h5uwmmf9/DSC_4971-3.jpg?dl=0

Last edited by xkuruma (17-11-2015 14:14)

Reply by LectricIvories

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

I have a Korg DP keyboard which I use to drive PTQ which then goes to powered monitors.  However, I noticed that there was something to playing the DP with its own speakers that I liked.  I eventually realised that we feel vibration through our fingers on the keys of a real piano, and the speakers in the DP give this effect.  I took the top off the DP and fitted a couple of phono sockets and a volume control pot with a changeover switch for internal/external operation.  So I can now feed the PT sound into the keyboard speakers as well as the powered monitors.  It works really nicely!

Reply by xkuruma

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

LectricIvories wrote:

I have a Korg DP keyboard which I use to drive PTQ which then goes to powered monitors.  However, I noticed that there was something to playing the DP with its own speakers that I liked.  I eventually realised that we feel vibration through our fingers on the keys of a real piano, and the speakers in the DP give this effect.  I took the top off the DP and fitted a couple of phono sockets and a volume control pot with a changeover switch for internal/external operation.  So I can now feed the PT sound into the keyboard speakers as well as the powered monitors.  It works really nicely!

Oh man that's exactly what I want to do in the future. Either replace the spekares or add a couple of powered monitors and hide them in the piano for a bigger punch

Reply by scherbakov.al

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

xkuruma
Any correction systems Sonarworks and ARC2 System (..аnd others). They correct the frequency response of the sound source. In my system Sonarworks - i worked with great delay and very heavy sound card. But they can be calibrated headphones. I tried a test version of the program with my Beyerdynamic DT990pro - i liked the result. This system can be any measurement microphone. ARC2 - i worked steadily and without delay. For this system, you need a native speaker setup microphone. I believe that using Pianoteq necessarily need to calibrate the system speaker-room. What would Pianoteq sounded through the correction plugin i used Audio Hijack for Mac. I think a good idea would be to add the correction function (Auto EQ) directly Pianoteq.

Last edited by scherbakov.al (29-11-2015 19:38)

Reply by Ron Powell

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Re: Using Piano's internal speakers with Pianoteq?

Sorry to come to this late. I have a Yamaha CP300. One application I use enables you to route the output from the computer to the keyboard's speakers through the midi connection cable. I could not find that Pianoteq does that, but I may be wrong. So I route the output from the computer to the CP300 using a separate cable from the computer to the CP300's auxiliary input.

I found immediately that if you keep the speakers active (there is a button to silence the speakers when e.g. you are using earphones) you get the output from the computer and from the CP300 as well. The CP300 has a layering facility and you have to quieten the CP300 layer so that you hear only the computer output. This produced a sort of mains hum, quiet but noticeable at first, through the speakers. A new, and better quality cable seems to have cured that.

But it would be better if the keyboard had a facility to turn off its own output but leave the speakers active to relay the computer output.