Topic by bobm

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  • bobm
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Topic: recommend pianoteq based setup for small jazz club ?

A new very high-end restaurant/bar currently in planning stage, I am bass player/music director

seating around 60-70 room is not too large, but ceiling is high. Emphasis will be on very high quality stage sound and room acoustics, music will be trio jazz, w/piano, acoustic bass and smallish jazz drum kit, w/ occasional horn or vocalist added.

Venue's in-house background music system is Bose. Stage area is pretty small, stage visuals important, setup should be clean and posh looking and as uncrowded as possible given the smallish area. Stage sound will be 2 Bose L1 IIs, one shared by bass/drums, one for piano (and shared with horn/voice when present). Stage sound from L1s may be optionally routed into house AV zones, e.g. into dining room or into ceiling Bose speakers at far end of room to provide balance if needed. In general, we want clarity, acoustic fidelity, and balance over volume.

I had originally wanted a true baby-grand, but space and probably budget make this difficult. Instead, I am considering either the a) Roland or Yamaha smallish wood-case digital pianos, or b) a keyboard driving pianoteq solution. For the pianoteq approach grateful if experienced users here could offer thoughts and suggestions, especially on the right choices for ancillary gear.

Which Keyboard - great touch, real piano feel is crucial. could be controller only, or optionally a few on-board sounds (vibes, strings, pads) might augment pianoteq piano sound from time to time. Ease of use live, and a clean visual look on stage also important. What are good choices here?

Which Computer to host Pianoteq - want super reliability here, and ease of use. Piano player probably not very computer-savvy, so hopefully can just turn it on and play. Can choose one voice for the whole performance, no need to select/tweak real-time. Doubt this machine will be required to run any application aside from Pianoteq during live performance. Also, wondering if there is there a simple rack-mount alternative PC, which could run a remote UI over Bluetooth on pianist's iPad on music stand? OS choice no problem, I can support any of three alternatives.

Which DAC - Reliability and sonic quality key here. output will be to Bose L1 audio In, so live realtime tweaks can be done on Bose.

Hope this isn't too many questions for one post topic. Grateful for any advice on these three items....

-bob

Last edited by bobm (06-09-2018 10:41)

Reply by eriks

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  • eriks
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  • Registered: 22-12-2016
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Re: recommend pianoteq based setup for small jazz club ?

Computer-wise, running Pianoteq on a Linux machine and having this set up to boot directly into the headless Pianoteq executable with one fine default preset should do it. If you choose an "undestroyable" filesystem like btrfs it should be save to just power cycle the machine if something goes wrong. To configure Pianoteq you could connect X-forwarding through ssh, but unfortunately Pianoteq isn't a daemon process, so you always have to kill the headless process before connecting through X.

I don't have suggestion concerning the hardware; Tinkerboard or Raspi will be to slow for serious live performance, even if you get those great DAC from Hifiberry etc. for it. I'd look into a setup with an Intel NUC.

I more and more get the feeling that one of Modartt's next steps should be to look into recommending/building a Linux based default hardware which has enough computing power and a decent DAC, all in a small fool-proof package.

Reply by tfort

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Re: recommend pianoteq based setup for small jazz club ?

Will the piano be set up permanently, and what kind of budget are you working with? Also might be a factor if there will be "house" piano player who is comfortable with the gear, or if there will be multiple players with varying levels of familiarity and technical expertise.

For best touch, in a 75 lb. pkg, I'd recommend the Kawai MP11SE. For classiest look with nearly as good a keybed, the Kawai VPC-1 is also more affordable, and slightly lighter at 65 lbs.

The Yamaha CP-4 (possibly due to be replaced this fall/winter?) or new P515, or Roland RD-2000 are also strong contenders.

Will the piano player be only playing acoustic piano, or also Rhodes, or even occasionally Wurlitzer and/or B3?

Reply by bobm

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Re: recommend pianoteq based setup for small jazz club ?

Thanks both, useful advice

eriks wrote:

recommending/building a Linux based default hardware

. if there were a standard recommended hardware platform, I'll bet the Pianoteq community would start sharing optimized, stripped down OS install images to host.

I like this approach if it will work, so for now I will focus my research on good boards/boxes for a Linux solution. On-board DAC would be a further plus. No need to go as small/inexpensive as Raspi, but would love to find a single-board, fanless solution incl DAC, which has exactly what I need, no more. (of course can always disable unneeded h/w in UEFI)

tfort wrote:

Will the piano be set up permanently, and what kind of budget are you working with?

Piano/drums on stage should be more or less permanent, though may be cleared away occasionally for one-off events, so "somewhat" portable should be sufficient

tfort wrote:

"house" piano player [...] or if there will be multiple players ? [...]  only playing acoustic piano, or also Rhodes, or even occasionally Wurlitzer and/or B3

piano player(s) probably on 3-month contracts, maybe longer.

some candidates will more tech-y than others, but all should be able to handle at least some amount of hardware mgt given a few days to get up to speed. Still, simplest operation is preferred for smooth transitions during performance.

Material is expected to be mainly classic jazz piano trio sound, based on a single acoustic piano patch. That said, an occasional switch to a Rhodes/Wurli/B3 sounds would be a nice plus as long as easy to manage for even a non-tech savvy player.

I will investigate those keyboards you suggest.