Topic: Vibrating glasses - Transducer? Sound design?

Hi All,

As I'm having more time now, I'm experimenting with Pianoteq and my Kawai CA97.

I'm being able to get some satisfying results with Pianoteq through my internal speakers, and in most of the times I need to increase Bass (EQ) in Pianoteq so that it sounds as near as possible to the onboard pianos, what loudness concerns.

I've noticed that when I'm playing any of the F2 or F1 on my Kawai sounds, the glasses of my living room vibrate (they're thick and well fixed), even when not playing very loud (second level out of 10 in the volume fader). This is never happening when I play Pianoteq through the same onboard speakers.. even when I'm getting same loudness levels after tweaking here and there, but no vibration at all.

Is it a sound design matter, or is it rather related to the transducer itself..? I'd describe those F as compressed in a nice way, like vibration occuring after the sound is heard, but I'm not getting it in Pianoteq either when I'm switching on the compression..

Anyone that can shed some light on this?

Regards,
David

Last edited by davidizquierdo82 (24-04-2020 19:38)
P85>Kawai CA97>Numa XGT>FP90X>LX706
Pianoteq 8 Pro (all instruments) + Organteq 2
i7 4790K W11 64bits + UMC1820 + MTM + DT770 pro X
http://youtube.com/DavidIzquierdoAzzouz

Re: Vibrating glasses - Transducer? Sound design?

Hi David,

The resonant frequency of your window is not necessarily the fundamental frequency of the note, it could be any higher harmonic that is loud enough.

It could be also the hammer noise that is much louder and more compressed in your samples than in Pianoteq. That is the case in the internal samples of my Yamaha P80, where that kind of thumpy hammer attack is not possible with pianoteq, especially in the low notes.

One thing you could try is play a note of your samples starting with the keyboard volume off and open it gradually soon after hitting to bypass the attack sound. If your windows vibrate when you do that, it's some frequency in the F1 or F2 spectrum that is lower in pianoteq, otherwise it's the compressed hammer attack with random noise that makes your window vibrate.

Last edited by Gilles (24-04-2020 20:24)

Re: Vibrating glasses - Transducer? Sound design?

Gilles wrote:

Hi David,

The resonant frequency of your window is not necessarily the fundamental frequency of the note, it could be any higher harmonic that is loud enough.

It could be also the hammer noise that is much louder and more compressed in your samples than in Pianoteq. That is the case in the internal samples of my Yamaha P80, where that kind of thumpy hammer attack is not possible with pianoteq, especially in the low notes.

One thing you could try is play a note of your samples starting with the keyboard volume off and open it gradually soon after hitting to bypass the attack sound. If your windows vibrate when you do that, it's some frequency in the F1 or F2 spectrum that is lower in pianoteq, otherwise it's the compressed hammer attack with random noise that makes your window vibrate.

Thank you Gilles for the suggestions.

I've been experimenting again an these are the results (through the internal speakers of the piano):

1. I've tried to play sampled pianos "Galaxy Steinway" (from Galaxy II Pianos) and "The Grandeur" (from Native Instruments) and they both combine perfectly with Kawai's speaker system, actually tried out more sampled pianos and they all were much satisfying to play, similar full and vibrating sound to the on-board ones from Kawai (different characters though).

2. I've tried Pianoteq, several patches with several perspectives, playing around with the equalizer, trying to boost the bass 250Hz and downwards, adding some compression.. even tried to edit the sprectrum profile of single notes F2 and F1 because changing the spectrum profile in the main interface affects all notes and that sounded weird, the result was kinda better but still not a full sound like in the sampled ones. I even tried Arturia V-Piano 2 which is modelled too, and to my surprise I got same result like with Pianoteq, hollow and thin sound, somehow linear and lacking life.

This leads me to think that there's nothing wrong with my piano speaker system, I've even tried to play some pop music on it (MP3) and it sounded good enough.

The problem I'm having with Pianoteq is that I only like it when it's through headphones, no way to let it grow on me when it comes to real speakers, even with the monitors I have it sounds somewhat unrealistic, I don't know whether I'm saying this because it's just straight away after having been some hours trying here and there, I love the theory behind the programm and the playability it offers, but I'm somewhat frustrated with the sound.

This is again something that makes me discard any option of having a mid-range DP say an FP90 with its nice action plus Pianoteq and a couple of monitors. I think the only way Pianoteq would make a difference in this sense, would be integrating it in a digital piano of theirs, that is Modartt's design so that the entire combo would just sound exceptional with all the editing capabilties that it's got.

In the same line, I wonder whether combining Pianoteq with the "Resonance Piano" (a Grand cabinet that emulates an acoustic piano for any digital) would really solve the problem and bring up some realism to the experience of playing it.

https://www.resonancepiano.com/en/

From my experience and just sticking to realism, I can say that there's no color betwen piano sound system and studio monitors, since in the first, sound is emanating from many different sources and mixing up in the resonance board (my case with the CA97), and that definetely goes a level up in the feeling and realism, that's why I'm trying and trying to get Pianoteq sound as good as any sampled piano through my digital, and even though I prefer it rather through my digital than the monitors themselves.

Guessing what frequencies and which harmonics of which exact notes I gotta change (if it surely was the problem) is just a chance for me to mess up and destroy the original sound I was trying to work on, since you're blind editing. If we add the possibility of the "problem" to be compression or EQ, I could take ages to finally get the result (if any), that's why I think that this should be a thing that should be available out of the box, like integrated in a speaker system at least, if we wanna skip the controller part for Modartt.

Regards,
David

Last edited by davidizquierdo82 (25-04-2020 13:43)
P85>Kawai CA97>Numa XGT>FP90X>LX706
Pianoteq 8 Pro (all instruments) + Organteq 2
i7 4790K W11 64bits + UMC1820 + MTM + DT770 pro X
http://youtube.com/DavidIzquierdoAzzouz

Re: Vibrating glasses - Transducer? Sound design?

Hi David,

Thanks for reporting your findings, they are very revealing and many have the same interrogations as can be seen from previous forum threads. I have no answer to give except some ideas. I too cannot like the sound of Pianoteq through speakers I own, I only play and listen through headphones where I get all the fine details of the model. Others with near-field monitors may disagree but in this case, listening very close to the speakers also gives you more details and less room interaction. Refer to previous discussions with Bruno (bm) for what is involved in correcting a room response...

I think most samples have the advantage of being recorded much closer to the hammers and strings than the Pianoteq instruments, so with a stronger hammer sound, and after that being very compressed and equalized to sound better through speakers, be they internal or external. If your internal speakers sound uncolored with music, then the samples could be.

I might be wrong (Philippe could correct me) but the attack and sustain part of the modeling are two different processes that have to be mixed (by addition) to get the final result, and it would be unnatural to have the hammer sound very strong in that combination. In samples, nothing prevents the engineer to bring the mics very close and still get a natural sound (maybe better for pop or jazz) because the interaction is one-shot and what is two processes in modeling is one normal signal capture when sampling.

As for the Resonance cabinet, I haven't listened to the demos yet but anything big and bulky added to a digital makes me think it would be better to buy a real instrument...

See also the posts from David Klein (dklein)  and others that have integrated Pianoteq with an upright piano.

Re: Vibrating glasses - Transducer? Sound design?

David,

I'd recommend experimenting with the microphone position, and I completely agree with Gilles that nearly all samples are taken with close miking.  Several of us have been trying in other forum posts to get an "ideal" microphone placement to match transducers.  While the results aren't perfected, something like these settings below give a very clean and direct sound, since the microphones are located near the middle of the bass and treble bridge connections near the soundboard.  Delay and Level Compensation should be set to off.  Microphone #1 should be set to -6 on the left channel and Off on the right channel, and Microphone #2 should be set to -18 on the Right Channel and Off on the left channel.  Overall instrument volume should be between -18 and -12.

Microphone #1

X = +0.380
Y = +2.220
Z = 0.840
Angle = +180.0
Vertical Angle = -90.0


Microphone #2

X = +0.740
Y = +1.080
Z = 0.844
Angle = -180.0
Vertical Angle = -90.0

Regarding the F notes that shake the glass in your room.  Run a slow Sine Wave Test Tone Sweep from 20Hz to 20kHz and listen for the same rattling from different speakers and speaker placement in the room.  It is mostly likely a "room tone" at some fundamental frequency of the wall dimensions of your listening space.  In a small space like mine, the 10ft walls (if not properly treated with acoustic foam, speaker placement, isolators) will build tones that either cancel or get significantly amplified.  My room, before treatment, had a 60Hz tone that cancelled and dropped multiples of 2 and 60, like 120Hz and 240Hz, as well.  I also have a solid Alder desk built into the walls that takes about half of my listening room, and when I used speakers that weren't "isolated" the wood would absorb the kinetic energy of some fundamental frequencies and change its pitch, making the desk and walls vibrate at the same or a different frequency.  My guess is that the glass in the room is absorbing kinetic energy and if you move your speakers or isolate them, the problem will go away.  (I use isolators that I made from sheets of solid styro wall insulation capped with a block of stone tile.)

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2xHiPcCsm29R12HX4eXd4J
Pianoteq Studio & Organteq
Casio GP300 & Custom organ console

Re: Vibrating glasses - Transducer? Sound design?

I too have always noticed the bass is a bit weak in Pianoteq no matter what I try, at least compared to on board Kawai sounds. Its like the woody resonance isnt there sometimes so much as more of a chime-like resonance.

Last edited by PaptainClanet (27-04-2020 14:50)