Fazioli FXPs

yes thank you very much for sharing these with us.
very kind of you.   

Yes, this presentation and these Fazioli .fxp are really interesting
while this Piano model is still missing in Pianoteq.

Bruno

Little illustration of the real thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIMLf_9...=emb_title

You're all extremely kind!

I'm in Northern Utah, just south of Salt Lake City.  Because of Rick Baldassin, who is the main piano guru in our area--offering concert services to the Utah Symphony and now overseeing Brigham Young University's piano technicians, in addition to having his own piano sales outfit in one of the Salt Lake suburbs, he's the main reason that Fazioli is quite big in the area.  He's consulted for them before and--as far as I'm aware--no longer sells new Steinways, so--since there really isn't any major competition for new concert instruments in the area, most sales of new instruments are Schimmels, Boesendorfers, or Faziolis--courtesy of Rick.  BYU has two Faziolis (a 308 in the orchestra recital hall and a 278--I think--in the regular recital hall at the music school); Rick has a 308 rental that usually ends up doing symphony performances or recitals (and he had another one which was lost in a major fire at a local venue); and there are a number of 308s in private hands in the area--I personally know a couple of the owners (and no I don't know how they afforded it ).  Steinway has been doing much less marketing in our area (or in general) since being taken over by a Chinese private equity firm, so I don't think you can buy a new instrument in Utah except directly from the New York factory.  While I didn't get a chance to meet him, Paolo Fazioli visited the area a couple of weeks ago to see the F308 and F278 at BYU before heading to NAMM.

We do have a large presence of Yamaha because of "The Piano Guys" and there is a CFX on display at the local Piano Gallery sales center.  Most churches or small halls have vintage Kawais or newer Shigeru-Kawais, so that market isn't very Steinway-centered either.  I've seen a few Baldwin concert grands and semi-concert grands (most high schools have something along those lines).  In fairness, I see countless Steinway Bs, especially second-hand.  Most professors of piano in the area have a Steinway B in their office/classroom and the wealthiest students have a Steinway B at home.  Utah Valley University is also a Steinway-only school, but I don't know that they have multiple concert grands.  I also see the occasional Model A--there's an interesting 1906 one for sale at the main piano rebuilder/restorer in the area.  In spite of the number of smaller, vintage Steinways, I hardly ever see a full-size D.  While I could easily be wrong as I don't go door-to-door taking a piano census (though wouldn't it be amusing if I could), I would say there are less than a dozen Ds in the state--certainly less than 20 (and there might not be a single Steinway C at all), while there are easily that many Faziolis of the same size.

@budo I hope to do that eventually, but at the moment my approach is much more analog and trial-and-error.  Usually I comb the internet for audio examples of a specific model usually in a solo recital setting--youtube is extremely helpful because you can often see the mic placement, lid position, and player technique--and then once I find a performance of a piece online that I have a comparable piano roll or midi file of, I A/B test the performance with PTQ for several hours.  If I'm lucky, I can even overdub the results in real-time and listen for beats, overtones, or other resonance hints.  Once I get a result where I basically can't tell which is which, I figure it's good enough to share.

On models like the Faziolis or Baldwins, I've had the opportunity to play them enough that I have a pretty good sense for how the action should feel and how the instrument should sound.  Also, youtube channels like Robert Estrin's LivingPianos.com or James Pavel Shawcross' ThePianoForever are extremely helpful, because they show several different used pianos each month and often demo them with the same microphone setup and same pieces with the same player technique (Robert always plays a little Bach and some of the Chopin G minor Ballade and James usually plays Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu), and their consistency makes the preset design process go more quickly (along with useful asides like the case size, damper travel, action feel, etc. that can be easily ported into PTQ's math as a starting point).  The Chris Maene, which is a new design, or Gaveau FXPs, which are extremely rare, were harder because I had much less reference material than I do for the Faziolis or Baldwins.

Ultimately, on both the Baldwins, Faziolis, Boesendorfers, and some vintage Steinways, I'd like to take the time to record my own sound references so I can do the more precise FFT preset generation, that like you, I've always admired in our community's work.  I need to schedule or rent recording time on some local instruments to hopefully produce better results.  I think it was Gilles that did the FFT work with the PTQ v4 Bluethner turned Boesendorfer, which turned out extremely well and largely inspired me to start using the PTQ engine to emulate as many other piano models as possible. http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/file/3qsjiy8s

So, thank you Gilles!

Very impressed with Fazioli recital. Very powerful. Love the glass-like treble and generous bass.

I played a Fazioli at a Fazioli dealership in the UK about 28 years ago. I loved it's purity.

Then I descovered the promega 3 in a local music store (Lincoln UK) which had samples of a Fazioli. I couldn't afford it but did loved the experience of playing it.

Thank you for these presets. Thank you also to everyone who works hard and then shares on the website and to all the Modartt / Beta testing team(s). It's a great community to which I'm proud to belong,

Warmest regards,

Chris

I think best last damper position is 91 for these Fazioli presets

Warmest regards,

Chris

@Marc lol!  That was definitely my mistake.  After reading so many piano scaling specification sheets and documentation that use 1 as the lowest A and 88 as the highest C becomes second nature.  So, I was right that authentically the Fazioli F308 stops at 69 and the F278 stops at 71.  I just didn't realize that PTQ uses "C -1" as "0" for both the extended range instruments--like the D and K2 and for everything else too.  The arithmetic means you need to add 20 to the "keyboard" number to get the PTQ number.  Oops!  So in the end, it's 89 and 91, respectively.

@sigasa You're instincts are absolutely correct that the default should be 91 for the F278--like it is on the Steinway D-274.  Fazioli only changes the F308 to have two extra keys without dampers, so it comes in at 89; while there frankly isn't much audible difference, I believe they chose that to give the 308 a very slightly brighter sound and a little more subtle "ringing" in the high overtones for concerto/orchestral performance.  Most modern pianos stick close the Steinway choice for the last damper, I just looked at a Boesendorfer 280VC that would be 92 in PTQ, while the Imperial would be 89 like the F308.  I think we can safely assume that there isn't an active patent for where the damper rail stops, but it's definitely possible that there used to be, which would explain older brands having to use a slightly different key while newer models don't face that same restriction.  While only theoretical, it sounds logical.   Though, it does definitely change the character of a piano's overtones to have the value change by even one key, even if it's quite subtle.  Yet another topic for an essay that I wish Del Fandrich would write.

@Philippe Perhaps we should add a note to the manual and/or the tooltip that "Last Damper" is calculated from the (somewhat arbitrary but mathematically convenient) "C -1" for 0 and any traditional piano note number should have "20" added to it.  Or, in future--though it might change how usable the value is for MIDI integration--we could move to anything below the lowest A for #1 becoming a negative number, which might make data input from historical specifications easier for the forgetful types like me.

As a general aside, I honestly don't know what makers like Boesendorfer, Chris Maene, or Stuart & Sons do on their scaling diagrams or technical literature to deal with this essential difference from most pianos.  In the back of my mind, I seem to remember that Stuart goes with 1 being the lowest of whatever scaling is in use.  I would guess that the other makers do the same, since the information needs to relate to action and having negative numbers there would probably lead to endless confusion for technicians and builders.  It certainly would be interesting to find out!

Here are corrected presets:
https://forum.modartt.com/file/d2bigg7o
https://forum.modartt.com/file/bf4l2szh
https://forum.modartt.com/file/987ckm00

@Lanny  Either that, or even having something in UI that shows the keyboard notes without dampers.  It probably would be trivial to create a note edit for "Last Damper" that visually shows which notes have no damper, or a the main MIDI keyboard on the screen being grayed out on the damper-less notes while editing the Last Damper value.

Another way to clarify would be to optionally use on Pianoteq's virtual keyboard the same method as in the Organteq keyboard mapping illustration: show the MIDI number on every C key.

A couple of videos might shed some light on the seemingly utter demise of Steinway & Sons in northern Utah including Ogden (the location of Weber State University) but with the exception in Orem its Utah Valley University.  That seems its own city-state.  (Possibly now Logan, the location of Utah State University a land grant institution, and Salt Lake City, where University of Utah gymnasts meet and compete, have also few if any Steinway pianos on school grounds.)

1. Problems associated with New York Steinways

2. Steinways with no name on the front

Hey tmyoung, it seems that you used a custom impulse response for rever,do you mind to share it? Thanks on advance!

Is .fxp just a preset (settings) of a built-in piano sound or can it simulate a new piano sound?

So this is to simulate Fazioli sounds and in theory you can create Kawai SK-EX, Ravenscroft 275, Bosendorfer, CFX sounds too? But then how do you "create" a sound by using a preset?

Thank you so much! I'm going to download these and try all three.