Pianos have no real OOMPH

You'll get there PaptainClanet! and Pianoteq just gets better each year in my experience In a way, it's like playing with paints and brushes until you find out how you like to paint.

I'd suggest that if you have a setting you've nearly got to where you want it but with the issues you mention (harsh mids & some ringing), maybe upload the FXP and someone might have some time to work on it further to you liking.

For harsh mids, that's typically something I might first think of attenuating for in with EQ. I know it sounds boring - but it's possibly the most simple and overlooked aspect of all audio.

A nice simple way to find offending frequencies while in Pianoteq, is to go into Effects, load an EQ3, drag the middle dot up high, then left and right until you hear clearly the frequency you don't want.. then drag that dot down below the 0.. fixed hopefully - but you can load 2 or 3 in a row to kill or boost 3 frequencies.

There are typically many alternative strategies (subtractive or additive - and adversarial staging which I enjoy, where you may EQ something up then EQ it down a little with a 2nd EQ3). For EQing, Pianoteq has both a Pre and a Post EQ setup, which is extremely useful for all kinds of thickening or thinning of any preset.

For ringing, it could be useful to change "tone" of the reverb (a slider inside the effects/reverb area) to take some treble out of it. It's possibly something overlooked a lot but often the wrong reverb tones can hurt your desired outcome - so might be best to do all your edits without reverb first and then apply various reverbs afterwards to find the ones which hurt or help your goals.

Also you could try lowering resonance duration just for some high frequencies within the new resonance tools (tabs inside the main Equalizer button).

A myriad of other things (like editing overtones in Pro) could remove some ringing.

Otherwise, it's going to be useful to spend a little time in the main EQ (it's a pre-EQ.. so changing some frequencies on that will effect all notes).. and then doing a little more with the EQ3 EQ in effects for some 'adversarial' finishing on the output signal.

For me, many of the defaults are rather oomph laden - and it's often more about attenuation than additive processing here (as much as I love to push things beyond normal for some contemporary tracks).

Others have posted before here that it's too thin

This is why a good pair of studio type monitors can help.. it's easier to tweak for something which sounds stable on those, knowing it should transfer well on other audio systems.. but if you're tweaking a preset for your speakers in your room, an FXP might really only sound good at your place.

It's a fairly good and repeat topic here - and in my sincere opinion, you can definitely make Pianoteq as thick or thin as you want even without post processing or a bunch of DAW plugins - a reason I love it so much.

In terms of our own audio system, it's a very large can of worms, and it may turn out that your browser plays audio loud by default, whilst your 'nice' audio routing for Pianoteq is set lower and just simply turning up an audio slider somewhere in your OS could be the answer, or even just by having an external audio unit with signal and master volume knobs at 12o'clock (instead of one high, the other low) might help.

Maybe this should be first - but always double/triple check what velocity curve you use. Even to this day, I will swap between a few favourite ones.. sometimes a softer sounding curve will match the preset (and feel like a softer action on an older piano) and sometimes a brighter action can bring out the tones I want at mp-mf very distinctly different - but both valid to my keyboard and desired outcome.

The beauty of Pianoteq is this fluidity - but if you want something other than defaults, it does take some time - but I'd not be alone in saying it is well worth it.

Lastly, it's always worthwhile going back to the defaults for a time, because, over a long timeline they always help bring me back to a sound which works on many systems. I can get lost making my own specific presets for tracks etc. but, standalone, many of them would sound awful as solo piano presets out of context.. but when comparing to the defaults, I can often drop lower a few of the harder tweaks and end up with a much better result.

Hope that helps somewhat, cheers - and keep at it and post your progress - there are a lot of us who delight in this aspect of Pianoteq.

I would say that is far from an ideal piano sound: close mics to reduce unwanted reflections due to the space constraint and no acoustic treatment of the space, small practice room which is death to a piano sound, single mic mono recording to avoid phasing issues. But if that's to your taste who am I to say anything. Before juggling with any parameters the first thing I would consider is placing a close mic and turn compensation off to start with. Plenty of Ooomph and boominess to deal with if that's your thing.

Thank you all for your responses. I definitely have adjusted most all of the parameters in Pianoteq Standard to varying degrees in testing, but I have not messed with reverb enough. I will just completely turn it off and see if it makes a difference. I usually dont use very much of it anyway, so i cant imagine that is causing a problem.

I think the idea of reducing resonance duration is interesting. I sometimes feel that there can be too much resonance with the defaults, so I will mess with reducing resonance via the various methods and see if it helps.

I've done some EQ work, but it is so hard to isolate the exact offending frequencies, and it is far too easy to ruin the sound more, so I need to spend more time with careful testing there, I guess.

The wall/room settings idea for grand pianos would be awesome!

Can someone explain more of what Direct Sound Duration does, exactly? I have adjusted it to min and max values, and hear no difference really.

Me too! I agree with you about reverb, I always consider the room to be part of the instrument. My ideal is a 'Goldilocks' balance between close and ambient sound; I find many of the default presets either 'too dry' or 'too wet' and I try to find something in between. The lid is indeed a great tool for softening the sound. But all of the default presets for the grand pianos, even the Player or Home ones, have the lid fully open, which I find rather odd.
Haha, just noticed I have the same avatar as PaptainClanet. It doesn't bother me, but I might change mine soon to avoid confusion.

Agreed.  My point is that the "pure" piano sound from Pianoteq won't do this.  You need the reverb and/or some work with the other settings.

I find Ooooomph to be quite speaker-dependent.  For example, when I went to larger monitor speakers, my Oooomph improved.  I added an 8" subwoofer under my keyboard, and things got much more solid, especially when I turned the threshold down to 40-50 Hz, so it's really trying not to produce much audible sound, which would muddy the bass (and it's best if it's just loud enough to 'feel' it, without hearing it).  Also, reverb can be helpful or harmful, depending upon your goals, and depending upon your local environment.  A short reverb, like a "case reverb", can add to the psychological Oooomph.

very true! And I find that the reverb settings in pianoteq are the most difficult for me to get right...particularly when monitoring on speakers.
I tend to turn the reverb down...probably because I have not yet fully understood how to set it up!

these both sound rather tinny to me and quite lacking in either character or depth... but maybe you were trying to create a sort of electric piano sound?
either way, it would seem the ooomph still eludes you, young padawan...

Thanks, Amen! I do like the 2nd one you added better than the 1st, though both sound nice to me. Still not quite where I want to be as a final result, but it really does sound nice. I will download the fxp when I get time, and check out the adjustments you made. Thanks for trying to help!

The "oomph" thing:

I know it is difficult to talk about sound, that words often fail to convey a precise description of what we hear. Elvis Costello famously said that "talking about music is like dancing about architecture".
But, "oomph", I don't know, man: it takes the cake. It's like people are trying to draw a map for an undefined  destination...

https://forum.modartt.com/file/1rv9licw
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.mid

I've just reposted the two (2) files (above) to make these convenient in an A/B comparison with PaptainClanet's Steinway B Prelude (oomph) preset (also above).

With oomph as the object target of pianos at this topic, and while I was making a preset to demonstrate it, I found the PIANOTEQ Limiter more than just remotely adequate.  It seems in its present version —maybe its fourth (4th) GUI look— it has recently been suited specifically to the current PIANOTEQ instrument tones.  In which it functions as an inconspicuous brick wall limiter (that is) without a lot of over saturation and distortion given and creating a distinct impression in instrument volume peaks.  A result of that is just a naturally sounding loud ffff instrument crescendo and volume peaks without any unwelcomed red peak signal showing up on an interface. 

I was myself surprised to see the latest entry method also the look of the Limiter.  (I was pleasantly surprised.)  And, I was surprised to find it more useful to me than it had previously been in other (earlier) versions of the software.

Now I'm curious to get an idea from the opinions of others, if they would like to rate the very latest presets that include oomph, both recently posted by PaptainClanet and me.  This idea might help software end users to gage how much really software experience can matter in the creation of a preset and whether or not one planned around a specific MIDI file performance does make a difference.

As reference, I've been a Pianoteq user since I got v2.1 when it was firstly released, while presumably PaptainClanet began around his forum registration date.

If you're going to brave the A/B comparison, please submit a rating on each of the presets.

Granted, my piano preset built around a specific MIDI file might have an unfair advantage.  So, you may want additionally to experiment on one of your own.  (I'm suggesting audition and play as loud a level as tolerably possible at your audio interface while watching to see if any software red peak signal ever lights.) 

Careful, don't blow the loudspeakers!

Personally, I find it interesting two presets given the same MIDI file produce vastly different sounding results.  It is as though they are playing different files altogether.

Please, comment if you like!