Spoiled by PianoTeq

I couldn't agree more. I've been using Pianoteq for 6 weeks  and can't wait to get home from work  and practice and work on new material. Pianoteq has sparked  a renewed interest in detailed and dedicated  piano work for me.  Love the new B piano in particular. I have an acoustic Yamaha U3 upright and Yamaha C2 grand, and essentially haven't played either since Pianoteq.

Have to agree. That Model B is almost there. Pianoteq at its finest.

Evidently not completely. Instead, it appears (from information available) to be sampled pianos with some modeling (such as for string resonance) applied to the samples as they are triggered.

The "SuperNatural" pianos on the Integra-7 have an annoying loud twang in the sound of the upper mid register, followed by relatively weak treble volume from there to the top of the piano range. I attempted to use equalization, but instead eventually resorted to using a combination (2 sounds for each note) of the Yamaha's beautifully sampled and crystal clear grand pianos (2 of them on the CP5 keyboard) and the Integra-7's pianos at a lower volume, but with the string resonance parameter turned very high, to give the warm and complex resonance to the Yamaha's piano samples.

But neither the Yamaha nor Integra-7 pianos, or a combination of both, have approached Pianoteq's beautifully modeled pianos with their excellent string resonance (and so many other configurable parameters) and the very natural-sounding equalization and tone of a professionally tuned and maintained acoustic piano over the entire 88-key piano range. Pianoteq is truly superior.

--Oh, and I agree with lem18. I am so happy to find a software piano tone generator that works (extremely well) in Linux, not just in Windows or Apple's OS.

Pianoteq is becoming just excellent.

But there still a lot of Rolandcentrism, Yamahacentrism on the Market, where name speakes more loud.

I hope pianoteq get the recognition it deserves.

Interesting idea. But they mostly use stage pianos, that have no space to place stickers of good size.

This is interesting. I recorded a short chord improvisation into a MIDI file, then recorded the audio from the performance using two Yamaha grand pianos - PianoTeq's modeled Yamaha grand (the YC5) and a Yamaha grand expertly sampled by Yamaha itself (and included in my MIDI keyboard, the Yamaha CP5). Both audio files were recorded at the same volume and normalized to -2 dBfs.

One of the MP3 files below Is the sampled Yamaha grand (sampled by Yamaha itself)
The other MP3 is the modeled Yamaha grand (modeled by PianoTeq, the YC5)

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NOTE: (Added later) Someone who carefully listened to and analyzed the waveforms of the two files originally placed here pointed out that I may have made an error when recording them, so I reconducted the test using more careful and strict methodology. Please see the followup post below for a description of that methodology and for the two new audio comparison files that resulted. Thank you. -Steve
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I received an email from someone who carefully listened to, looked at and analyzed the two original files I posted, and to him it appears that both files, while having somewhat different waveforms, used the same audio source. I may have made a mistake in the original recording (I may not have correctly muted one track when exporting the other, for example).

So here are two new MP3 files from distinct, separate audio files, one from my Yamaha CP5 MIDI keyboard (which has a very nice sampled Yamaha grand piano as the default patch #1), and the other audio file exported from PianoTeq as a WAV file, using the same MIDI file performance (a brief improvisation of mine) and the PianoTeq modeled Yamaha grand (the YC5). The files appear at the bottom of this post along with the MIDI file used for the comparison, and the methodology follows:

I turned on my Yamaha CP5 MIDI keyboard, but did not launch PianoTeq, so my external MIDI keyboard was the only possible sound source. I loaded the MIDI file of my brief chord improvisation into the internal memory of the CP5, and had the keyboard play the MIDI file using its own internal CF Grand (preset patch #1, a sampled Yamaha grand piano). The output of the keyboard was routed using balanced TRS cables to a rack-mounted mixer, and from there directly into a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 audio interface set at 96 kHz sample rate and 24-bit depth. I recorded the output of the Scarlett interface into my computer, using the digital-audio recorder Ardour in Linux.

I then turned OFF my external CP5 MIDI keyboard, and turned OFF the rack mounted mixer, so there was no possible external sound source. I then launched PianoTeq 5, loaded the same MIDI file into PianoTeq, and chose the preset YC5 4 mics (a Yamaha grand piano modeled by PianoTeq, using the "Sound Recording" output setting (instead of "Stereophonic")). I then had Pianoteq export a WAV file (at high settings) of its performance of the MIDI file using the "YC5 4 mics" preset. I imported that WAV file into Ardour (the digital-audio recording application) into a new track just below the previous audio recording from my MIDI keyboard through the Scarlett audio interface.

I then synchronized both the starting and ending times of both tracks, so that the music in each track began at precisely the same time, and the track ended at exactly the same time. I did this so that I could do rapid A/B comparisons of both tracks in order to find the PianoTeq preset and settings that I thought sounded fairly close to the sound produced by my CP5 keyboard's sampled Yamaha grand. The WAV file exported by PIanoTeq was actually several seconds longer than the recording I made from my MIDI keyboard, but those extra seconds were nearly silence, so I truncated the PianoTeq exported file to the same length as the previously recorded file, and in both I placed a quick fadeout after the last sustain-pedal release in the MIDI file. I then normalized the volume of each file to the same level, -2 dBfs. Then I used Ardour's "Stem Export" feature to export each track, one at a time, into separate WAV files at 48000 sample rate, 16-bit. I converted each of these files into fairly high-rate kbps MP3 files using the program Sound Converter in Linux.

Finally, I uploaded those two audio files to the PianoTeq Forum, along with the original MIDI file I used to make the comparison, and all three of those files appear below.

Yamaha grand piano comparison, sampled or modeled, file A
http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads.p...and-A2.mp3

Yamaha grand piano comparison, sampled or modeled, file B
http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads.p...and-B2.mp3

The original MIDI file (a brief improvisation of my own, recorded just before making this comparison)
http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads.p...arison.mid

Best wishes,
Steve

When pianoteq was to start the first beta testing, before the first mp3 was send to "give a taste", I gave a suggestion based in a diet soft drink comercial in my country, that asked people to tell what was the dietetic softdrink and what was the one with sugar.

Now this test, trasnposed to the world of pianoteq tone , becomes harder and very welcome.

Undoubtedly "B" is Pianoteq. This is what I talked about, it has characteristic pianoteq-ish sound, slightly synthetic and your sampled piano for me sounds more natural.

Well, you are correct, file B is PianoTeq, although I did mention that in my last post above.

But about the sound, I disagree. I personally prefer the modeled sounds, which I find complex, dynamic and rich, whereas sampled sounds, however pristine they may be, often seem relatively flat and sterile to me, like a dead acoustic piano. :-) Pianos are sampled with microphones, and in the file comparison above I did not include PianoTeq's microphone modeling in file B, choosing the raw stereophonic PianoTeq model instead, which I thought might better approximate the stereo output of my Yamaha CP5 keyboard (I may be wrong about that, however).

But perhaps I'm just expressing a personal preference, and everyone has their own preferences for their own reasons.

Yes, Pianoteq produce too ideal sound, too flat and even. Condition slider helps not so much, "bad condition" Pianoteq just produce ideal "bad condition" sound. Another side of Pianoteq's sound that upset my ears is too mellow nature of it, it really hard to get bright but not harsh sound in treble; if you just increase hammers hardness you get more harsh sound, but sampled pianos can produce very warm non-harsh bright sound. This is just my IMHO. I personally hardly believe that anybody consider "B" example more realistic than "A", probably it's just my ears.

But I want say again that Pianoteq has no alternative for playbility, for response. No velocity layers (ok, for humans 127 is infinity), very realistic pedal (even top sampled pianos has troubles in repedalling and non-realistic damping, partial pedaling), great dynamics. So, from pianist point of view Pianoteq is f*cking unbelievable realistic, from audience point of view Pianoteq is weak (IMHO).

OK, sorry. If anybody will give such a comparison later, let me know please.

Thankfully it's just your opinion, the audience I played Pianoteq to was just as amazed as myself in the quality of sound Pianoteq puts out, and realism of it.

Hmm.. I don't notice such things I talked about other thing: it's like flatness, weak brightness, harshness... ohh... I can't describe it even in my native language, and moreover can't in English, and I think I'm the only man who notice this, so I won't even try

Almost any modern commercial sampled VST: Ravenscroft 275, True Keys (all), Addictive Keys, Ivory II, and even NI Alicias Keys...

No need to post any concrete MP3, all demos from official sites are very good (for my taste). Or, for example, this amazing composition of Shaun Choo (here comparsion of Ravenscroft 275 and True Keys American/German):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkGpSO_FNqc

And this he played on acoustic grand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UMbBdy42q0