feature request: more "noises"

not redundant at all , but yes I have been using them... however the probability density they generate doesn't seem to do very much beyond what can already be accomplished in the note editor...?

I did though indeed mean more physical effects as you mention... I realize that this probably is not to everyone's taste and I'm likely incurring being pelted by virtual rotten tomatoes with this suggestion, but it seems to be an important aspect that separates Pianoteq from real-world recordings for both modern and historic instruments.  That being said, I'm admittedly not sure of the specifics beyond the hammer noise, key release noise, and sustain pedal noise that we already have as to what further sources might be reasonably included...?

Regarding "humanization", are you aware that in the Design panel you can "humanize" the Energy and Inertia sliders ?  Your last response could be interpted to suggest you don't know of this particular detail.

I'm an old Linux user and developer and we tend to follow Ye Even Older Unix philosophy that you make a tool to do one job really well and let it take input and send output to other tools for other jobs, so with that in mind I'd suggest not trying to make Pianoteq do everything and consider using a DAW and some external processing tools (which can be triggered by MIDI events like NoteOn and NoteOff, etc.

In this way you might get to add effects of whatever mysterious type you want to the output of Pianoteq.  This could mean processing the output itself or adding other sounds (which you could relate to e.g. note velocity or whatever).  I'm not sure it's a useful idea to you, but it's the direction I'd suggest to avoid Pianoteq ending up with terminal feature creep.  You will, after all, never get everything right in one application.

I know Pianoteq is pretty light on size, but keep in mind that every new bell and whistle requires programming resources to develop and support in Modartt.  The more features we look for away from core requirements, the less resources Modartt will have for other things.

But you really need to be able to define exactly what you need in order for Modartt to be able to judge what resources they can divert to them (or not).

Sometimes I wonder if this is a psychological thing.  We know we're using a synthetic sound, so it seems synthetic ?

Just the other day I was experimenting with making an FXP for what I felt was a more pleasing sound.  I got to version 9 of this work in progress and then, on an impulse, wondered why it sounded familiar.  It was practically identical (to my ear) to one of the existing presets, although interestingly it had a completely different microphone setup.  I've started to wonder if I really am hearing the differences I think I am or I'm inventing a fault because I expect one.  If you see what I mean.

That said Bruno's recent Erard FXP was stunning and I'm amazed by the amount of effort he put into it.

I was brought up not to waste food, so you're safe from me.

I can smell the scent of Pandora's box on the air...

Ok, finger noise... But, if they add finger noise people will start with: "I want plastic key cover finger noise, and ivory key finger noice, electric keyboard key finger noise, harpsichord fingernoise..."

By the way, any video demosntrating the variety of finger noise in different  keyboard instruments?

And happily if you just prop the pages up on your keyboard and turn them, you'll get the exact sound (and experience) of turning pages.

It's ridiculous to suggest this should be emulated when you can do it normally.

And page turning sounds are definitely not part of the music (or intended to be by any composer I know of).

I posted a video of Valentina Lisitsa playing impressively on an upright piano and not only were there no pages to turn, the piano was physically moving and no amount of finger noises or other silliness will emulate the physical contact and movement of a particular piano.

You are entitled to want what you want, of course, but my view is that people worrying about these issues are worried about things that have no real impact at all in terms of realism compared with e.g. housing your keyboard and monitors (speakers) in a physical case that emulates the real thing in bulk and sensation or more reasonably just using good monitors/headphones and a good preset.

When I look at videos of professionals choosing from a roomful of Steinway grands and picking one they prefer, it's obvious that even at that level of quality build individual pianos have individual sounds from what on paper are identical models.  And I've yet to see one of these selections talking about key noises.  They look for tone.  I think this sort of thing is getting away from the objective - good sound for music.

I don't want or need finger noises - I have fingers, they make noise.  I take the view that this has nothing to do with making a good piano sound for music.  I want Modartt to concentrate on that goal.  None of what (IMO) are gimmick noises (for me), thanks.

YMMV of course.

at first I thought this was some crazy gimmick, then I came across this ==> Physics Buzz: Hearing the Pianist's Fingers: The Importance of Touch in Piano Music

@sjgcit: I hear you about feature-creep, and the psychological aspect of all this is certainly an important consideration.  Further, I agree that such things as page turning and other such spill are properly beyond what Pianoteq should be modelling (that would clearly be silly)... but when working with Pianoteq for the purposes of recording (as indicated in the OP) and not for live performance then the performer's interaction with the instrument does seem to be a key (pardon the pun) missing ingredient from the sound artifact and, as the report linked-to above details, one which is aurally recognizable. 

In addition to finger noise, the studies also seem to indicate that the various noises of the key striking the bottom of the frame play a role as researchers "found that this small extra noise, hidden within the sound of the note itself, allowed listeners to distinguish between otherwise-identical notes"... I'm not sure if this aspect of the sound is already in the model, but if not then perhaps that would be an additional area for exploration.

It's possible to get carried away and want random noises, but the sound of the keybed strike--the sound of the key hitting the keybed--is often audible on close recordings.

Something that isn't exactly a noise, but instead part of the sound of the instrument, is the sound of the upper soprano notes bouncing off the inner right frame.  I hear this while sitting at the piano more than on recordings, of course.

And I still worry that out of tune unisons don't quite sound like out of tune unisons on a real piano. Part of the problem, if I hear it correctly, is that the stings don't beat in quite the same way. On real strings, there is a much more pronounced wavering in amplitude, with one string going almost silent while the other's freq is left exposed, and then diminishes as the other string gains volume. This behavior is so rapid on badly detuned unisons that we don't hear it. We instead hear the clash of mismatched partials. But when unisons are closer, there is a subtle wavering that to me contributes much to the sound and would greatly increase the already very good realism of the sound of each note. People sometimes complain that the sound of the current model is a little static, too smooth and even, on sustained notes. I suspect that what they are missing is that gentle, barely audible swinging between two sets of very near freqs that can be heard on close unisons.