Real hammers whip through air. Where's the air in Pianoteq? (Page 1 of 2)

Maybe I didn't describe it too well. It's very subtle, but it adds a dimension of realism that's sorely lacking in Pianoteq. Let's just say that if you enjoy listening to real pianos, you most certainly do want this element of the sound. And if for whatever reason you don't, I'm sure the developers would be kind enough to allow you to disable it... just like you can disable key release noise and pedal noise.

What sampled pianos are you using that don't have this aspect of the sound? Ivory has it. Garritan Authorized Steinway has it. My Yamaha digital piano has it.

I'm waiting for Evil Dragon to chime in and tell me this is trivial and not worth the developers' time. LOL

Good guitar modeling (like AxeFX) gives you the impression of a guitar speaker cabinet pushing air. Crappy ones sound claustrophobic, even with reverb effects. Pianoteq's tone is very realistic, but the delivery is utopian. If you like that, then I assume you disable key release noise and pedal noise? I'm just saying hammers whipping around could very well be a significant missing link.

Hm, good point about latency, though I never noticed it on my Yamaha.

I really can't say for sure what exactly it is. I'm taking my best guess. It just doesn't sound like Pianoteq exists in a natural space filled with air. There's something too pure about it.

Perhaps another small but not insignificant factor is before the hammer strikes the string, the damper lifts off the string. That itself creates sound before the attack.

Without a continuous control setup, I guess that one way to include sounds that occur before the hammer impact without affecting latency would be to post process the recording. 

Josh: Which Yamaha piano do you have that you can hear the whoosh sound in? I'm really intrigued. 

In the old Roland SAS pianos, some of the bass notes did reproduce the little "chuff" sound that is made when the hammers hit the strings softly - *that* was very nice.

Greg.

Ok, I can hear some kind of a whoosh in this Ivory recording:
http://www.synthogy.com/demo/Haydn_HOBXVI52_Finale.mp3

At 2:10, there is a slow, forte run of single notes, and the whoosh is quite prominent.

HOWEVER, the whoosh is occuring AFTER the sound of the hammer hitting the string - not before.  Is this the whoosh of the hammer REVERBERATING? If not, what causes this sound? If it is the reverberant sound of the hammer flying through the air, then presumably if we were to listen to a live recording of the piano with the same mic setup, we'd be able to hear the pre-whoosh even louder.

I don't find this sound objectionable, however I don't think I'm really missing it either.

Greg.

Glenn,
Oops - I had forgotten about your post about alternative sources of extraneous sounds.  I don't know why adding this sound would be so impractical though.  (but yes,even if I end up wanting it, at the moment the main thing I want is an improvement to the basic tone, before things like this are addressed)

Greg.

Greg:

My position is simply that in the real world, every design is a compromise (Pianoteq is a design).

I'm sure that Modartt could model the noise of the pianist breathing if it added to the feeling.  Flatulence could be added too, but sadly odours can't be synthesized to repeat through speakers.

The point is, compromise is necessary for several reasons:

1.  Cost - every feature added requires programming and extensive testing - it isn't free because there is no free lunch.  You pay for what you get.  I still want an improvement in the deep bass - the sound that only a large grand can emit when you pound the octaves down there.

2.  Functionality - as features are added (particularly in software), it starts to slow down, or requires ever more powerful computers, more memory, and larger HDDs.  These also add to the cost.

3.  Reliability - as features are added, there are more chances for things to go wrong.  The best example is our computers.  The old maxim:  Keep It Simple helps prevent Murphy's Law from kicking in.  If anyone doubts this is important, then scan the forum for posts about systems that aren't working to the owner's satisfaction.

And then there is the issue of "bugs" in the acoustic grand piano as it has been "perfected" to date.  If you could design the perfect piano, would you include the non-musical noise of the hammers and the action?  Would you include the annoying sudden release of the escapement at the bottom of the keystroke when you're trying to play "ppp"?  I wouldn't.  How often does one use the dissonant sound of "thumping" the dampers?

I always thought the primary purpose of the piano was to produce harmonic tones, not random noise.  Drums do this better anyway.

The only people that really notice these sounds are pianists because when you sit in the tenth row (pretty good location), during a concert, the sound of the music drowns out the clickety clacks, and the squeaks.

One last point - be careful what you wish for.

Glenn

Pianoteq is lacking deep bass???? Check your sound system.

Greg.

Glenn,
Sorry - I thought you were talking about a kind of very deep mellow sound, when notes are played softly to MF, roughly.  I'm pretty happy with the "growl" for FF, though, yes. I think Pianoteq's bass registers are one of it's strong points, and in some ways the sound is superior to real pianos. For example, on a real piano (assuming my sampled pianos are authentic!), there is sometimes an instant of unpleasantness in the attacks, just after the hammer strikes the string, and before the note starts to ring out. It's a chaotic mess, for just an instant, and I don't really like it. In Pianoteq, this doesn't seem to happen, and it sounds better.

RE: the whoosh, I can hear a release whoosh in Pianoteq, and just the slightest hint of an attack whoosh too. I hear these sounds when I move the mics right down near the action of the piano, mainly in the bass registers.  I think you're right that it's the action friction - not the hammers flying through the air, because I mainly hear it when playing very softly.  So, all we need now is for Pianoteq to have the option of including pre-attack sounds - this would usually be used in batch mode, not for live playing. (and ideally, a continuous mode for those fortunate enough to have a continous keyboard, so that it would then be usable even for live playing). Again - this isn't something I personally am very interested in.

Greg.

You can _never_ have too many harpsichords, IMHumO -- their construction is an art form unto itself!  (And I simply _love_ being able to use sustain and dynamics on the current models, which is not possible on your "typical" harpsichord!)

Well after thinking about this "whooshing" sound that is reputed to be the hammers flying through the air or the noise of the action, I went to visit my pianist/piano rebuilder friend this afternoon.

His comment - the sound of the action and the moving of the hammers through the air is not audible.

The sound is the dampers lifting off the strings.

He then demonstrated it on one of the six grands he presently has in stock (a Hamburg Steinway Model O - for it's size it's amazing).  But the dampers whoosh when lifted.  Try it.

He has a number of CDs of a particular jazz singer/pianist (Dianna Krall).  On one song he heard a very loud whooshing sound - they had close miked the dampers, boosted the volume, and used this for effect.

We're going to take a pass on hammers in the air and action noise.

Glenn and Glen

(his first name is spelled with one "n")

Josh: in Ivory (or any of your other whooshing pianos), do you hear the whoosh in the upper registers at all? If so, does it stop for the undamped notes? If there's no whoosh for the undamped notes, then that supports the theory that it's the dampers. If there''s still a whoosh, then it's probably not the dampers.

Greg.

+1 to all of that -- the sheer _impossibility_ of creating a continuous piano-experience sound from samples makes me laugh, especially with all of the various stop-gap measures that companies have tried to produce (or, more precisely, mimic) this sound.  You either have samples of _sustained_ notes (talk about adding gigs to the HD space, as well as increasing usage of the HD mechanism!) or attempts at "piano ambience," in which the samples are subjected to a glorified reverb in an attempt to have them bang around with each other as if inside a piano cabinet.  Ugh.

"Sampled" pianos are an "instrument" class (choke) of their own.  They probably respond better to some MIDI files because of their discrete nature.  However, they certainly do _not_ produce the kind of live, spontaneous sound with which Pianoteq blesses us (which is why _written_ MIDIs need a lot of work to be truly convincing in Pianoteq -- this is an instrument _meant_ to be played by a living, breathing person!). 

The nature of this "whooshing" sound in Ivory _is_ perplexing, but I deleted the samples ages ago and can make no comparison myself.  I consider this a bit of a detour (or red herring) from the original question, anyway.  ;^)

(I always enjoyed the sound of lifting the dampers from the strings, and Pianoteq replicates this very nicely;  you can create neat "breathing" effects -- to talk about air! -- with enough pedal manipulation.  I _love_ to press the pedal, hear that sound, and _then_ start playing -- you could liken it to a singer taking a breath before the first note!)

I had a Yamaha G2 (5'-8" grand) for 28 years, and I never heard whooshing sounds either.

If one lifts the dampers quickly before striking any keys, the sound may be construed as "whooshing".

As for noise in the action, I never really noticed this, but then I kept mine well oiled.   Or maybe I was concentrating too hard on the music and missed it.

Glenn

I've tried the Ivory Steinway by using http://www.try-sound.com  It's the Steinway that was used in that demo recording I posted earlier.

IMHO it could be the reverberation of the sound of the whole piano resonating a bit (including the other strings, even though they are damped), due to the shock of the hammer strike.  It doesn't really sound like a true "whoosh", either.  It sounds MOST like a whoosh in octave 5 (middle C = C4), but not exactly like a whoosh even here.

Greg.

I'd say it's because of the age of recording, possibly

I think this might be the same recording as that one in YouTube, probably in higher fidelity:
http://itunes.apple.com/au/album/horowi...d194378660

It just seems to have the same sound and ambience - I am not 100% sure it's the same though.

Greg.

There is something in the sound of pianos I call The "ping". Its happening in the very first attack of the tone. Its always there when I listen to live playings of real pianos or recordings of them. Also there when thy are played softly.
First of all: in Ivory it's almost there. In PTQ I still miss it a little.
What it is? I can`t say. Is it the whoosh of some hammers through air (I don´t really think so) or something like a missing Impulse-Information in PTQ - I don`t know! All I know is what I feel when I hear the difference- I'm missing something. ( as long as my goal is a real grand feeling)
With the new Update (which I love!!!) I`ve started to Layer Ivory and PTQ to find out more. Now it`s possible to tune PTQ Note for Note to fit it to the Ivory tuning which was impossible  before (tuning scale was to horrible for me). I`m using from Ivory just the first attack (very short release and everything else switched off) and now there is more of that what I want to hear. PTQ does all the liveness and Ivory the "ping". Maybe it`s not a "clean" solution. but for me it works well as long there is not enough "ping" for me in the PTQ sound.

P.S.

I´m listening through EMES Black TV and Dynaudio BM6 speakers (Byerdynamic Headphones) via TC-electronic Converters and RME Hammerfall soundcard with 1,5 ms latency, for the ones who wanted to know.
And I was not talking about hammer noise or any noises at all...and you can also call it  the "clonck"

For me the most natural sound in average middle keyboard is Yamaha C5 add-on.  But the bass lack some life when I reduced the hammer hardness to try to turn it better for classic musi.
That's why I did not buy it yet.

If someone with Pro version could adjust YC5  to classic music, soft hammer hardnes sellective along keyboard, in turn to keep some bass life, would be very good.

Who take this challenge???   :-)

Uhnn, I have no wave files of a real piano to represent what I want.  But if you could turn close just the bass of the YC5, to the bass of a Steinway or like, making it more present, it would get better.

I addapted the YC5 with the following:

Chamber solo recording

Hammer hardness
Piano 0.31
Mezzo 0.85
Forte  1.26

String lenght  3.15m
Sympathetic ressonance 1.12
Duplex scale  1.52

But the bass needs more presence, vividness.

Moddart could creat more tuning variation for YC5, and I think it would increase sales a bit, and also for Bechstein, since both came tuned and full adjust for rock, and a bit not adequate for classic.

By the way, can you smooth the bass of the bechsein, and smooth a bit the midle range ???  :-)
Bechstein have a too strong bass, sounding a bit like the spring sound effects used in comic cartoons.
I would like Bechstein adapted for classic soft music.

Thank you Jake.

But I fear the sound of F & G, from midle octave and a octave bellow, got artificial after the change, and the remain entire middle range got a bit of that problem too.

My impression is that the ping is already there, but must be controlled through the strike position, Spectrum profile, hammer hardness, etc, and that I don't ever hear the sound of the prehammer whoosh.

But Skip mentioned the chuff of soft hammer strikes heard close up. 1+ for the chuff.

(I'll start a new thread about the YC5, Beto-Music. We've been tossed off the thread!!!)

IMHO, yes, it does. As I have said before, I have heard a TINY bit of this in the bass registers, when the mics are close to the action. (literally, of course!)

If I am right, this raises a very interesting question. Have Modarrt given us less of this sound than is authentic, purely for latency reasons? If it ever supports full continous control, will we THEN hear a longer duration of the sound of the dampers leaving the strings?

Pure blasphemy - worse even than sitting at a V-Piano. 

Greg.

This noise is very easy to duplicate with any grand piano - my previous piano (acoustic grand) did it quite well.

A pianist can hear it, but one doesn't have to get very far away from the piano for it to be drowned out by the music.

Piano makers have spent considerable effort over the years to reduce the extraneous sounds produced by the piano's action, and I'd be surprised if this wasn't one of the sounds they worked on.

The level of the damper sound can also be affected by pedaling technique - "whapping" the damper pedal down before striking any keys will result in not only this whooshing sound, but a resounding thump from the pedal bottoming out and reverberating throughout the piano.  If the damper pedal is pressed just after the hammers strike the strings, the level of the sound is much less noticeable.  Essentially soft or gentle pedaling can greatly lessen this sound if desired.

In Pianoteq, this sound doesn't seem to be available.  From my own perspective, this is OK.

Good luck in your pursuit.

G