New piano - PETROF

First impressions: just played the demo for half an hour...wow, looks like a  hit for Moddart. Very well balanced, meaty to say the least!
Requires v6.3 however. It seems much bigger than any previous version (192MB, I think). I wonder why?

It sounds very decent, and with somewhat new feeling for tone. Good job of Moddart once again.

I was wondering... Petrof have a pattented magnetic balanced action and a magnetic accelerated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm27u3Ed4lI

Could the feeling of magnetic accelerated action be e(even partially) recreated with a special velocity curve or algorithm for pianoteq ?

In some Petrof pianos the magnets position it's adjustable easily to create a heavir or a light touch ressponse.

Phil's review :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIS3OnTwpHg

Congratulations once again - and thank you all at Modartt and Petrof teams - what a gorgeous sound! Majestic might be wild understatement. It's everything I love about modern grand pianos, in one.

Demos are outrageously good - the video: first thought whilst seeing real pianos on screen.. "Am I hearing the real piano at the start?".

What an entrance.

Already becoming a first choice affair. So detailed and versatile - and just what a range. We all have opinions about pianos progressing over time but lately at such a pace (both physical and modelled), it really does feel more and more as though a large quotient of the future as I dreamt it, has now arrived. I've probably said something like that that before - but wow Magnificent!

Love how the ANT. PETROF responds to the softest playing and so, so amazed at the range.

@Beto-Music - it's always inspiring to see piano makers exploring features like that.

Maybe lowering latency might be the #1 thing some users could do to get closer to the feel of the magnetic action? For reference for others, in Piantoeq Preferences/Devices/Audio Buffer size: lower number here = lower latency. Having said that, I like around 10 to 15ms for realism even though it can be made lower. Added to this, a faster curve does work really well with Ant. Petrof IMO (lots of room). A mix of those and I'd say it's possibly going some way toward the feeling of the action.?

Also - Phil Best's vid says a lot of the things I feel about this piano - thanks for posting it Beto. He shows the range off very well.

@aWc, Pianoteq install is around 50 mb with all instruments? Maybe someone else knows - or certainly I'd say double-check the size (Don't know but could it be a dependencies thing on Mac/Linux or something else being tied to the main install?)

@DFJEX, here's a link to Pianoteq 6 page. Doesn't seem to be more CPU hungry here - Standalone, "Blues Demo" Steinway D sits around 8% (between 6 low to 11 high) - around 3% idle. Next, Ant. Petrof sits around - actually seeing all other models the same - nice - strangely, hadn't tested that before. I thought we'd see a rise there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzIcdGk_85c
OK, different spelling, but you get the idea!

I think I found a weird paradox, as strong as in some Sci Fi TV series.

Can pianoteq 6.3 be far better than a version from almost 10 years ago ?
Yeah, probably way better in all aspects.

Can a pianoteq model be better than the real thing for a given model?
Uh, a difficult question...

How a old version of pianoteq can be assumed better than the real thing ?
Weird to think about...

It's really crazy, isn't it???

But this old comparisom showed interesting results from audience, when Hugh Sung said some people even prefered pianoteq (10 years ago) over the real Petrof piano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo0O1pC6zDA

So the old was better than the Petrof, and trhe new it's as good as Petrof, and the new it's at same time time better and somewhat worse than the old???   Ohhhn, that's insane to think about... What a paradox.  Háaa háaaa háaaa...

Really love the customized sound on the The Town Elders Of Petrovia and am wondering if there is any way we can have the customized presets used in the demos?

it's funny, but i had the same piano module (and still do ... it's still going strong).  up until i got set up with pianoteq std last year it was still my gigging piano.  needless to say pianoteq is much better. 

and, to be on-topic, the Petrof is excellent.  i feel lucky to have gotten involved with pianoteq at this exciting time.  i got to go up to v.6 and saw the release of Grotrian, Steingraeber, and the authorized versions of Steinway B & D.  of course i plan to buy the Petrof, but now i have to decide what the other piano will be! probably the YC5 (i have almost all the other acoustic pianos). 

i really appreciate Modartt's hard work and am more than happy to support them.

Come on... Some wax cylinders was better than some CDs, Háa háa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0xhrkh0-KY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jie-_cq0afA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UR8ppYHIb8

Interesting how the first and second recordings have low noise and the third recording a lot of noise.

Ok, I was kidding about CDs.

Placebo exist, but also a oposite effect called nocebo. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo

I suspect much pianoteq haters have nocebo effect, since they hated the early version and, even after the sound was deeply refined in modern version, they keep hating it like early versions.

For example, I'm a deep LCD hater, cause people told LCD TVs was fine and I found it absolutely heavily repulsive in all ways (angle distortions, crushed blacks&clipped whites, fadded look, motion blur) and even after years these deffects remains in some degree. I hate so much the fact of be offered horrible version, finding it disgusting while people insisted to me it was fine, that even the most modern LCD (latest LEDs models or even quantum dots) of today makes me dislike, even if in some case just a tiny residual of the initial deffects remains in a latest model more advanced.

I'm also a digital air broadcast hater, since the digital broadcast signal have much compression and kill details and textures of image, making it overal no better than DVD, if you consider digital broadcast for meddium and high motion get a lot of blur effect. So even if the broadcast technology or bitrate improve a lot, I will still search for any deffects to point out. Anyway, at present time digital broadcast by air it's still a deep mess, unwatchable for me. Honestly, I can't watch it (digital broadcast on a digital TV) even if you pay me to watch.
I watch on computer cause I was used to accept computer videos as somewhat inferior due internet limitations of speed in earlier days. Even so I don't watch in full screen and I don't watch entire movies, cause I can't accept such standart for entertainment for long things.

And I'm also a LCD computer monitor hater, and I suffered a lot to be forced to change to such monitors, as the CRT had stoped work and standarts of 16:9 became a need.

Didn't try it yet but bought it and picked up the electric pianos too... it shows all registered but showing Demo when opened...always something....figured it out..yay...Ill try it later...off to get 2 of my 3 matching custom Emerald Carbon Fiber guitars (pedal wood laminate )  set up....nice!! I love Pianoteq and some of my guitars.

Well done Modartt, another wonderful accomplishment.

Warmest Regards,

Chris

Thank you Pianoteq, another great instrument and also the chance to grab Vibes at a discount.

Me too! It drives me mad that the colour is different when I move my head, or even for each eye owing to the differing viewing angle. I also think that more recent screens are worse in this regard than IPS panels from a few years ago. My Samsung laptop from 2012 has better viewing angles than my new MacBook Pro or the Dell XPS 15. I had the XPS screen changed before returning the computer. I had just assumed that a 2018 screen would be better than a 2012 one.

I haven't looked at the expensive Eizo monitors or the like, but I work exclusively on a laptop. I can only imagine what modern CRTs would have been like.

Hey, I think we know this wise man :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm2-WPUr6P8

:-)

Interesting, this is the first time Modartt had the chance to analyze a grand piano using a anechoic chamber.

And looks like a "robot" arm was used hit the Petrof piano keys with exactly measurable velocity.

I wonder if would be possible to build a portable (somewhat...) anechoic chamber, to help sample/analyse pianos not allowed to be transported usually, like old pianos in museums. It could be like mount/assemble a geodesic dome, and with holes/plugs to fit the pyramidal sound absorbers. An anechoic dome.

Very cool video!

Thanks for posting.

Upon listening to this boogie woogie sound track, I have two concerns:

1) It sounds like a three-handed midi file rather than something played live -- three-handed parts consist of bass line played in somewhat low octaves; plus right hand chords played in the vicinity of Middle C, and then the jazzy top line is played about 2 octaves higher.  Moreover, there is zero variation in tempo, and it sounds as though most (if not all) note-on velocities are fixed at a value of approximately 80.

2)  Unless I am very mistaken, this "piano" does NOT sound like a Petrof piano  (real-, sampled-, modeled- or otherwise) was used in this demo.  Rather, it sounds to me as though someone grafted a midi sound track onto this video.

Even if I or someone else were to mimic this soundtrack, Pianoteq's Petrof piano would NOT match what is heard here.

Sorry, but don't shoot the messenger ....

Joe

Are you seriously ?
Saying a respectable piano manufacturer would use a MIDI like, WMP MDI databank, to create a video presentation of the company. Petrof founder would roll in his grave. I wouldn't even dare to send them a email asking it.

For me it sounded always like a heavy hand performance of two boogie pianists playing a upright. A "heavy hand" style, often for many fast enthusiastically boogies, can sound giving a idea somewhat poor in velocity and harsh for metalic tones.

If I remamber well someone years ago told the name of this music or the name of the performes, but I forgot take note. ANyway I couldn't find, at the time, if the information was correct.

Well "fortunately" I'm a little crazier than you are and I asked them. :-)

Actually I asked them if they could identify the piece, the player(s) and the pianos used on that boogie woogie piece by email a few days ago.

Unfortunately they no longer have that information as it's an old video and people have moved on.  This was their reply :

And as always a big thank you to European businesses who are willing and able to communicate with me in English because I'm not able to communicate with them in their native language.

So no joy.

We probably need a boogie woogie expert.  Anyone know Jools Holland's email address ? :-)

Here's a pic from my analyzer to evidence this. The overtone is at 1676 Hz and is red in the graph for unusually long. There's no issue with neighbouring notes. Unfortunately I only have stage version.

What analysis program is this screenshot from?