Hammer response

Hi Eli26,

there's nothing you can't alter with Pianoteq Standard and Pro.

Since I don't know your version of Pianoteq etc. I'll post something which can be done in all versions of Pianoteq.

I'd begin with the velocity curve box on the front panel.

There are a number of velocity curve presets you can load by right-clicking the velocity box and selecting a preset.

You can also make your own velocity curves by dragging, adding, removing dots.. doesn't take too much time to get what's going on with it - and can save your own with your own names like "sluggish 1" or "bright 397" and so on.

If you want a more sluggish feel, I'd first try the "fast keyboard" velocity curve preset. (it doesn't make your keyboard faster, it infers that if your keyboard is fast, you can use this to slow it down from being too bright too quickly).

That gives a sense of having to put more weight into the keys - gives a similar effect to many dpaiano keyboard's control (like soft/medium/hard or similar).

You'll notice, if too much, there's a less sluggish sounding one, "Moderately fast keyboard".. as well as the default, if you want to keep that and move to other ideas.. but also, there are ones to make for a more bright sound like "slow keyboard" and "moderately slow keyboard".. (in case any are wondering if it goes both ways).

Really hoping that's what you mean. If not - feel welcome to say, give a little more detail (and Pianoteq version) - if you have Standard or Pro, there are so many ways to change how the hammers feel, it's rather limitless.

A simple example, is also changing hammer hardness to softer, along with a softer curve.. you can still have a strong fortissimo (a steep velocity curve) but makes it so you have to put more weight on the keys to achieve it.

That's something worth exploring. If you have Stage, you can try installing the Standard demo for yourself to try out the extra ways to alter the piano.

This makes me remamber about one thing...

I was watching a video where a japanese inventor created a adaptation to upright pianos to improve key repetion, in upright piano actions, to make it as good as a grand piano action, and other adaptation to make the hammer release (after hit strings) faster, bringing the upright piano tone tone closer to the one of a real grand.

So I wonder if could be a nice idea to have a adjust to change the hammer release speed, change how fast the hammer get away from strings.

Using pianoteq 7 pro edition. But I'm no pro!!
Thanks for all the responses.  I play on a Casio GP400.  Overall, the builtin parameter adjustments are really nice, so I got used to them.  I wanted more control as well as richer, fuller tones with longer decay times.  Hence pianoteq.    I will use casios terms as a reference point in explaining my question.   Because I am not an expert on this it may be that some of what follows may be incorrect.  

Hammer response is not about the velocity curve per se. (That is controlled via "keyboard touch" in casios terminology, with values of normal, light, very light, heavy, and very heavy.  And the velocity curves vary for the three main pianos).  Hammer response refers to the fact that there is an inherent delay in acoustic pianos between the moment a key is pressed and the moment that the hammer strikes the strings.  This delay is slightly longer with the heavier hammers on the lower end of the piano, and the delays are (according to Casio) slightly different for different pianos. For each instrument, I can turn off that feature (producing an unnatural, too immediate response, leave on default (which follows a slightly different delay response based on each of the three main piano voices in the casio) or adjust from 1 to 10, which moves the graded delay higher or lower.  

That is the parameter which I am asking about. It can change the feel of the instrument a bit.  Is it necessary?  I have no idea.  Perhaps that slight delay, with variance between instruments and even between notes on a given instrument,  is already built in to pianoteq. (Although if that were true, it might be nice to be able to eliminate it or reduce it for those looking to eliminate latency issues....  ).... with that clarified, any thoughts????

Thanks for your reply!

I find it to be a very interesting topic. Would like this delay curve being implemented into Pianoteq settings/presets. Or maybe it is already there? This seems to be a very subtle difference that one may not be able to recognize instantly.

Well, yes, except that apparently there are INHERENT differences in the actions of different pianos.  In general, aside from intra-instrument differences (ie slightly bigger delay for longer notes), the default recommended ideal based on the way instruments come out of the factory and are usually regulated produces slightly different delays for pianos of different maufacturers (presumably this would be true of historical pianos as well).

To some extent, I think some of this might be built in to pianoteq. But I was wondering if this is different for each piano, and it would be nice to make the adjustments.  And if a historical piano played with more immediacy or more sluggishness, that should be there as the default and easily changeable.

One other point. It would be cool if there was a toggle to adjust this based on inherent latency in the midi-computer system.  So if the program knows there is already 8ms of latency, it could automaticaly deduct that from whatever sound latency it would produce, if so desired.  but I don't know if that would be workable.

For that matter it would be cool if there were better tools to meaure realworld latency,  Presumable there could be an app which actually listens to tones played through speakers and reports how soon they were produced after the midi data made its way to the computer....