How to make it feel more like a moderate budget academy piano

Do you know what type of pianos your Academy uses specifically?  Are these acoustic or high-end digital?  Knowing the models/brands/type will really help us narrow what you're looking for.  I confess to being confused by "which are upright but also grand piano" as that could mean digitals with both upright and grand presets or multiple pianos--some of which are grands and some of which are uprights.

For example, if they're 6' acoustic grands from Steinway, those are the Model B, which are a pack available from PTQ and they're usually the "standard" academy/studio grand.  Bs tend to be louder when you're next to them and have a slightly lower dynamic range.  The D is richer, longer, and deeper in its sound and usually blends better with a much larger space.  Bs are for small and medium recital halls, while Ds are for large concert halls.  So, yes changing the dynamics slider will help simulate how they are when you're close to them and in a small room.  Also, changing the reverb settings in PTQ to match the environment you're practicing in will help.  Model C are really cool, but there are only a small handful of them in Europe, and they're the size between the 6' B and the 9' D.  There are As and Os, but those are particularly rare, and generally an academy will have Bs instead of As as the value to sound to size isn't as desirable.

Have you done the calibration of your velocity curve?  PTQ offers one for initial setup and it might allow you to make the response of your keyboard more consistent with other keyboard models.  This helps a lot with the feel of your keyboard; however, that can only go so far.  Every model of piano has a different action and feel: that's makes a ton of difference that software can only emulate to a point.

Which presets are you using in PTQ (and are you using Standard or Stage)?  Some replicate the player position (which is most helpful for practicing what you'll hear when you're playing in a space) and others replicate audience positions (which is great for recording but not for hearing how your playing will actually sound to you while you're at an acoustic piano).

If you are using something like "Classical Recording A" those will be the sound of the piano as the audience hears it.  If you are in Standard, you can switch the microphone positions to align with player position instead of the audience position.  That will immediately give a more realistic demonstration of what you will hear as a player.  What you're describing sounds a lot like the nightmare that any professional pianist faces--that the audience hears a completely different sound than you do and have you have to train your ears to translate the sound you're hearing from the player position to what the audience will hear.  Stage doesn't really allow changing microphone position, but it and Standard offer "Binaural" mode which is for headphones centered in the player position.

Anyone can play the instrument that is the piano, but a professional doesn't play the piano, they play the entire hall.  Concert pianists train themselves to give the best possible sound for the person on the back row, and it's a tricky, learned skill that comes with time and dedication.  This is very similar to how opera singers project in such a way that early reflections of the hall favors their voice and helps carry it through the space.  Van Cliburn famously practiced with the lid down on his concert grand at home, because he felt that the only thing that practice afforded was getting the fingerings right, and in his words "the real work begins when you enter the hall."  So, if it's the fact that you're used to the nice audience-perspective sound that PTQ presets typically have, you will need to practice taking what you hear from the player position on an acoustic and by lots of trial-and-error learn what that ultimately sounds like to the person sitting on the back row and adjust your playing accordingly.

I remember one particularly difficult hall, that's thankfully been demolished.  It's acoustics couldn't have been worse, as the piano was placed in just off the center of the hall, which meant that early reflections and decay were nearly the same and arrived back at the player near the same time--as it was a multi-use space for theater productions and symphony orchestra concerts.  That space took me several minutes for my ears to adjust to when I first worked in that space, and you start out in there and everything just comes out as soup.  After working in there long enough, you develop an intuition for how to compensate for the space.  A few years later, another pianist came into the space (who's a lot better than I am), and his early playing of the Brahms 2nd was terribly muddy, and I could feel my ears adjust to the space about 30-60 seconds before his did.  Once his ears had acclimated to that terrible space, his playing was recording quality...until that point in the rehearsal, it was barely student quality.  It's a real phenomenon that causes professions more grief sometimes than the repertoire itself!  A masterclass in this is to take piano roll midi files from artists like Godowsky or Rachmaninoff and compare them to less experience artists who didn't work in concert halls regularly.  The difference is striking!  An experienced pianist's rolls will sound equally good in a small "parlor" environment as they will played back in PTQ in a large hall environment.  Whereas, the less experienced or home market oriented recordings will only sound good in a small room, and they'll be dreadfully muddy and indistinct in a hall.  If it's a matter of learning how to listen to yourself from your position at an acoustic piano in a hall, look up Jeffrey Brown's interview of Van Cliburn for PBS Newshour, John Browning's masterclass on the Brahms (both the masterclass and the interview around it discuss this kind of ear training--though lots of his interviews talk about pedaling and balancing to the space), or Jorge Bolet's masterclass on the Rachmaninoff 3rd (he talks about pedal use to fit a hall roughly half way through the first movement--if I remember correctly--but it might be the beginning of the second movement, I just remember he talks about his dislike of overly dry halls).

Now, if the challenge is that you're dealing with a new instrument, that's something that will also come with time.  Pianists rarely can afford career-long control of what instruments they're asked to play.  Generally, when you sit down to a new piano, it's like starting a new (very tense) friendship, immediately.  You will need to develop the skill to show up to a piano you haven't played and very quickly.  Even within the same brand/model/showroom, no two pianos truly sound or act alike.  Digital is very kind in leveling those differences, but acoustics truly are a different and unwieldy animal.  PTQ does a great job of allowing you to tweak to match that, but ultimately, acoustics suffer from the fact that you can't tweak them much, if at all.  So the experience of getting a digital piano to sound the way you want and an acoustic will be night-and-day different.  The solutions for this are less about ear training and more about maintaining good mechanical habits with fingering and other ergonomics of piano playing, as you want your technique to be as adaptable a possible.  Typically, you can't switch pianos in the middle of a concert to get a desired effect, but you can definitely do that with your playing technique.

What style/genre/mood are you wanting out of your piano sound?  (And does it match what your teacher is looking for--as the sound that would blend well with an originally composed soft pop rock vocal is miles away from what's expected from a Wagner aria or Gilbert & Sullivan patter song?)  Don't worry about techinical or terminological limitations: we've all been where you are to one extent or another.  But we're best able to help (and always willing!), knowing more precisely what you're after.

I think you were wise to upgrade to Standard.  Yes, some of what you're after was already in Stage, but the added benefits of Standard I think will pay off immediately and in the long run for you.

Based on what you're after, you should have two paths/goals with your piano playing: 1) building a piano sound that pairs well with your voice and distinctive/original to you--*your* piano sound for recordings and situations where you have more deciding power about your sound than you can have at school; 2) perfecting your technique for when you're not able to use your ideal piano sound and instead using instruments that you're new to or uncomfortable with.  Separating these two paths/goals should simplify your practicing as you can organize your activities based on which goal you're working on improving/perfecting.

For the first goal, start by super-analytically studying pop artists whose sound and style you like and really breaking down how they do it.  Note how few pop starts play the piano while singing, because it's hard and for this kind of music, the piano will always be too loud, especially because you're sharing the same acoustic space and pitch range as your accompaniment.  Most soloists sing *in front* of the accompaniment/backup singers so they can be miked separately and to keep from the universal problem of accompanied music, which is that the accompaniment is too loud.  I can't tell you how many violinists, singers, pianists, cellists, and guitarists who have complained in public and private that their accompanist or accompanists were too loud.  It's just the way it is.  The only time that you really see an accompanist in front of a "solo" performer, are large choirs (which are definitely not soloists--they're an ensemble) because 30-60 singers can drown out a piano, but it takes that many voices to do it.  Everything you can do to simplify and quiet your piano playing will making your singing sound better.  It should be there to support you, not fight you.  Since you're sitting at a grand, you're aiming your voice into the absolute mass of sound the piano is making, and it's probably getting lost and drowned out--even if you're trying to play quietly.  Whenever a vocalist is playing the piano and singing, they're going to be extremely close-miked with a dynamic microphone or large condenser microphone, to help isolate and amplify their voice, so that they have a fighting chance to compete with the natural volume of the piano.  Watch as much video as possible of vocalists at the piano and watch how the microphones are placed, how they use different ranges of the piano to make space for their vocal range as they sing, and any details you see that you can try out in Pianoteq and use moving forward.

For the second goal, that's mainly a task of practice and dedication, which should come fairly quickly with working on it.  I would recommend downloading a copy of Liszt's transcription (it's a lot easier than the mention of Liszt would imply) of the Second Movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, and learn to play the piece (or at least the beginning of it) as quietly as possible while still being able to hear it and feel like it's the sound of a string section instead of a percussion instrument.  You want your piano playing to be as soft and orchestral-string-like as you can get it.  Most good accompaniments for vocalists at the piano involve light arpeggios and occasional chords with lots of breaks in the piano sound to keep the piano from being too loud and heavy.  The Liszt/Beethoven will help you channel that, as that's exactly what that piece is, and it's at a beginner/intermediate level, despite being Liszt.  Be light, be gentle, while still being confident in the fingering and notes, and you'll develop a good feel for keeping the piano quiet but not feeling like it's too quiet or weak.

Also when watching other performers for ideas and greater understanding, focus on soloists who have lower ranges--and how they are particularly different in their piano sound, as the lower you sing, the more the piano fights your vocal range (hence why so many Sopranos and Contralto ranges can sing more naturally with the piano because the piano is playing almost entirely below their range--this is why there are generally more violin concertos written than cello concertos as it's harder to "make room" in the orchestra's sound for a low instrument than for a higher one).  So, watch how stylistically Alicia Keys and Lady Gaga play the piano differently while accompanying themselves when compared to Stevie Wonder and Billy Joel, as that will be a goldmine for improving your live performance piano playing.

You'll want to build a series of presets in Pianoteq that fit each of your goals--ones that naturally sound good with your voice for the first goal, and ones that don't blend well with your voice that you have to learn to tame for the second goal.  The fact that the Model B sounds closer to the academy pianos but doesn't pair well with your voice, tells that you're working exactly in the direction you want to be.  Just keep at it, don't let doubts eat away your confidence.  The more you work at this, the better you'll get--you can't go wrong as long as you stay dedicated and keep trying.

Appreciate your response very much it's gold for me thank you.

One thing I’d like to add: my vocal academy focuses on “classical” singing, and we don’t use microphones during performances. A professional pianist from the academy plays the piano, which is positioned a bit off-center on the stage, while the singer stands right next to the piano in the center of the stage and can maintain eye contact with the pianist. The singer stands almost as close to the strings as the pianist does. A piece I performed at the academy last year, for example, was parts of Schubert in this type of setup: “Schubert: ‘Winterreise’ - Ian Bostridge - Live concert HD.”

During classes, I am only allowed to sing an “off-label” piece when I combine it with a classical one. Since I think it doesn’t make much sense to perform an opera or classical piece while sitting behind a piano, I asked the pianist and my teacher for suggestions within my vocal range, and they agreed on “Hallelujah.” I cannot sing this at a low volume; it must be strong enough for the academy performance.

There is a lot of thinking and studying for me to do. Firstly, the teacher told me I completely rushed the performance (she thought the bad sound was due to rushing, while I believe it’s because I’m not used to that piano). Normally, I am not in control of tempo during performances, but now I am, and I know I’m a person who likes singing more rapid songs because I find it easier to express emotions and drama when the song is fast. While “Hallelujah” is a slow song, I had no clue how to perform it emotionally and slowly, even if the teacher played the piano. So I checked my favorite artists performing it on YouTube, extracted the tempo, and inserted that into the metronome. But it only started to work for me when I began counting the eighth notes (it’s in 6/8) in my head: 1-2-3-4-5-6, 1-2-… This allowed me to get the tempo under control while still putting emotions into it, linking them to the somewhat faster tempo of eighth note counting in my head. Also, the highest notes of the piece in C are just entering my passaggio, and the teacher told me I need to transpose it down at least 2 semitones into B-flat major. On my digital piano, that’s just a button, but since the stage is acoustic, I need to retrain the entire piano fingering.

But that’s all just about one performance, which is a small thing in the many years of piano and singing that I plan to continue. Your valuable feedback includes, but goes far beyond, how Pianoteq can assist with that. A lot of work to be done and a lot to think about. Have a nice day!

This is almost the same thing I have spent the last 2 years trying to achieve.
Specifically, I am trying to get a Kawai NV10 digital piano to feel and sound as close as possible to a normal acoustic grand (because I'm a serious pianist but I cannot have one).

The short answer at the time of writing is that there is a limit to how close you can get with any commercial piano emulator but I have been able to get almost-kind-of-close-enough(ish) with Pianoteq and a few chosen presets. I have recently put a demo recording in the shared files which I think shows just how realistic you can actually get (A_2025_01_16_ZdyesHarasho_Prst_2025_01_16).

The biggest problem I find always, is getting the dynamic range without other things suffering (all the settings on Pianoteq seem to be interactive).

The most realistic presets to begin experimenting with are the latest Kawai ones. They are streets ahead of all previous ones. The Ryuyo preset is about the closest thing I have yet heard to a real piano with little to no modification. The Steinway and Bechstein presets - which I would have thought should be the flagship ones - are frankly disappointing and I gave up trying to achieve realism with them.

The most important setting of all is the velocity curve. I invested months building various test gadgets and doing maths and physics on the back of an envelope. I eventually succeded in getting a basic exponential curve for my NV10 keyboard which I can then tweak as necessary. This has been a huge asset. (If you are interested, read the post I put on this forum - search for "NV10")

The next thing is the sustain pedal. Again, I spent months getting a curve so that it responds exactly like a real one. It can be done.

After that, the dynamic and volume settings note-by-note (if you have the PRO version) and some tweaks to hammer hardness and direct sound duration etc. etc.

Unfortunately, there is no short cut to getting these all sorted out. Pianoteq is a hugely sophisticated emulator and it will almost certainly take you 12 months or more. I am happy to share my NV10 presets with anyone who also has a Kawai NV10 (which seems to be nobody, actually) but they are probably little use with other instruments.

In case it helps, here are some basic curves for the velocity and sustain. (You can highlight each line and do copy and paste into the screen field on Pianoteq, you don't have to type the values in by hand):

Velocity = [0, 45, 57, 68, 79, 88, 94, 99, 104, 108, 113, 116; 0, 3, 6, 12, 20, 31, 43, 55, 69, 82, 100, 114]
Velocity = [0, 45, 57, 68, 80, 90, 96, 100, 104, 107, 111, 115; 0, 1, 1, 3, 8, 24, 41, 55, 70, 83, 99, 115]

Sustain Velocity = [0, 1, 4, 32, 55, 82, 96, 111, 127; 0, 43, 86, 93, 100, 116, 123, 126, 127]

I am hoping that eventually, there will be an industry standard for "realism" and every electronic piano and software package will come with it built in. Basically, us serious keyboard users, with the current market products, are like computer users back in the 1990's having to set up their Windows 3.1 network by hand. (A horrific and degrading task which left permanent psychological scars on all who tried