Topic by ncfoster

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Topic: Simplest way to make universal changes to instrument volume

Hello all,

I've been using Pianoteq for a little over two years, and I love it.  I am presently on a PRO license.

One thing that I have consistently experienced is that I always have to reduce the volume of Pianoteq in one way or another to avoid clipping/distortion.  I am not extremely well-versed in the proper terminologies in this sphere, so please forgive me if my wording is incorrect.

Until recently, I have run Pianoteq exclusively on Ubuntu Studio, some through Carla, Standalone, etc., but mostly through Ardour.  As stated above, I have always had to reduce the volume one or more places in the chain in order to avoid clipping, to the point where I struggle somewhat to understand how the baseline settings were decided.  This is, of course, well above my understanding.  I presume there is some sort of baseline number of decibels that is targeted for peak output.

I recently acquired a Zynthian 5.1 box.  One of the big selling points for me was that Pianoteq support is front-and-center, and there's no need to jump through a bunch of confusing hoops to get it going.  However, when I changed my main setup from solely Ardour to Zynthian fed into Ardour through a mixer, this old question came back again.  Every one of the stock presets seems to clip/distort, unless I turn the volume down.  It seems to me that the best place to do this is in the plug-in itself, rather than one of the various places that I can change the gain.  My general testing was giving me the feeling that changing the volume in the plug-in itself was actually the only way that I was completely avoiding this distortion, even though I had no shortage of options.  I may do further testing on this to test my thoughts, but it doesn't really feel like a great use of my time at the moment.

My two main questions are:

1. Is there an easy way to reduce the volume of every preset by some amount (generally 6 db works well for me, I've found)....specifically one that is easy to achieve on Zynthian?  (If you are unfamiliar with Zynthian, one is able to see the plug-in interface through a VNC connection, but obviously that is not quite as easy as having it on your local machine, and some methods might not be as easy as on a regular computer)  I can obviously save each preset individually at a lower volume, but this is tedious and results in a sloppy list of pre-sets with a bunch of extra copies of things.

2. Do others experience clipping inside the plug-in itself at preset values?  I don't know if I am missing some variable in this equation that is making my setup different...or maybe I've tested poorly, and it is not actually clipping at the instrument level, but it sure seems to be.

Thank you for any assistance.  I welcome any tips for making use of Pianoteq on Zynthian if you have them.

tl;dr  How do I change the volume of every instrument in Pianoteq with the least fuss and the cleanest result?

Reply by YvesTh

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Re: Simplest way to make universal changes to instrument volume

Have you tried adjusting the velocity curve rather than the output volume?
Your keyboard may be sending too high a velocity.

Reply by Pianistically

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Re: Simplest way to make universal changes to instrument volume

ncfoster wrote:

Hello all,

I've been using Pianoteq for a little over two years, and I love it.  I am presently on a PRO license.

One thing that I have consistently experienced is that I always have to reduce the volume of Pianoteq in one way or another to avoid clipping/distortion.  I am not extremely well-versed in the proper terminologies in this sphere, so please forgive me if my wording is incorrect.

Until recently, I have run Pianoteq exclusively on Ubuntu Studio, some through Carla, Standalone, etc., but mostly through Ardour.  As stated above, I have always had to reduce the volume one or more places in the chain in order to avoid clipping, to the point where I struggle somewhat to understand how the baseline settings were decided.  This is, of course, well above my understanding.  I presume there is some sort of baseline number of decibels that is targeted for peak output.

I recently acquired a Zynthian 5.1 box.  One of the big selling points for me was that Pianoteq support is front-and-center, and there's no need to jump through a bunch of confusing hoops to get it going.  However, when I changed my main setup from solely Ardour to Zynthian fed into Ardour through a mixer, this old question came back again.  Every one of the stock presets seems to clip/distort, unless I turn the volume down.  It seems to me that the best place to do this is in the plug-in itself, rather than one of the various places that I can change the gain.  My general testing was giving me the feeling that changing the volume in the plug-in itself was actually the only way that I was completely avoiding this distortion, even though I had no shortage of options.  I may do further testing on this to test my thoughts, but it doesn't really feel like a great use of my time at the moment.

My two main questions are:

1. Is there an easy way to reduce the volume of every preset by some amount (generally 6 db works well for me, I've found)....specifically one that is easy to achieve on Zynthian?  (If you are unfamiliar with Zynthian, one is able to see the plug-in interface through a VNC connection, but obviously that is not quite as easy as having it on your local machine, and some methods might not be as easy as on a regular computer)  I can obviously save each preset individually at a lower volume, but this is tedious and results in a sloppy list of pre-sets with a bunch of extra copies of things.

2. Do others experience clipping inside the plug-in itself at preset values?  I don't know if I am missing some variable in this equation that is making my setup different...or maybe I've tested poorly, and it is not actually clipping at the instrument level, but it sure seems to be.

Thank you for any assistance.  I welcome any tips for making use of Pianoteq on Zynthian if you have them.

tl;dr  How do I change the volume of every instrument in Pianoteq with the least fuss and the cleanest result?

you can also adjust volume at key levels for a given preset using note edit , that you can apply on all keys  and preserve the midi output range . The suggestion from Yves works as well and is faster to implement but reduces slightly the number of discrete values you can generate and affects both volume and timbre. As always each solution is a trade off .

Last edited by Pianistically (26-07-2025 13:10)

Reply by Luc Henrion

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Re: Simplest way to make universal changes to instrument volume

"too high velocity" shouldn't lead to saturation... a MIDI value of 127 should remain under the 0dB FS barrier.

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Reply by Coises

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Re: Simplest way to make universal changes to instrument volume

ncfoster wrote:

How do I change the volume of every instrument in Pianoteq with the least fuss and the cleanest result?

I believe this will work:

1. Click the "freeze" icon (looks like a snowflake).
2. Click “Main Volume” to put a checkmark beside it.
3. On the right side, in the “Favorites” column, click the three dots following one of the empty favorites.
4. Click “Save” in the ... menu.
5. Click ... again, and click “Set as default” in the menu.
6. Close the freeze panel.

Now changing presets will not affect the main volume -- you can set it wherever you like, and it will stay put.

Last edited by Coises (26-07-2025 17:29)

Reply by Coises

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Re: Simplest way to make universal changes to instrument volume

ncfoster wrote:

Do others experience clipping inside the plug-in itself at preset values?

I suspect you’re hearing the limiter. If you can see the interface, you can see a small line between the left and right channel volume indicators extending from the right towards the left as the limiter begins to engage. (I think the colors of the volume indicators are related to the final output volume and not the actual operation of the limiter, the parameters of which can be changed. At default settings, the colors change from green to yellow as the limiter begins to act, and to red when it is fully engaged.)

Disengaging the limiter by clicking the L would probably make matters worse at volumes that exceed the digital maximum, but it might sound better to you so long as you stay below the maximum. (I say “probably” because I don’t know if Pianoteq can pass output along to subsequent audio processing using floating point rather than fixed point samples... if it does that, then reducing the volume anywhere before the hardware that actually converts the digital signal to analog could still avoid hard clipping.) You can also right-click the L to change limiter settings.

Reply by Coises

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Re: Simplest way to make universal changes to instrument volume

Luc Henrion wrote:

"too high velocity" shouldn't lead to saturation... a MIDI value of 127 should remain under the 0dB FS barrier.

I think you haven’t actually tried it with more than one note.

Putting a single instance of Pianoteq into Reaper with NY Steinway D Classical selected — no modifications, Reaper faders at unity gain — and banging hard on a C chord with both hands, I read the peak volume at +0.7dB.

If I disengage the limiter in Pianoteq, it goes to +5.8dB.  (Which proves that at least when running as a VSTi in a DAW that supports it, Pianoteq renders using floating-point samples, which can exceed 0dBFS.)

Last edited by Coises (26-07-2025 18:05)

Reply by Luc Henrion

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Re: Simplest way to make universal changes to instrument volume

Coises wrote:
Luc Henrion wrote:

"too high velocity" shouldn't lead to saturation... a MIDI value of 127 should remain under the 0dB FS barrier.

I think you haven’t actually tried it with more than one note.

Putting a single instance of Pianoteq into Reaper with NY Steinway D Classical selected — no modifications, Reaper faders at unity gain — and banging hard on a C chord with both hands, I read the peak volume at +0.7dB.

If I disengage the limiter in Pianoteq, it goes to +5.8dB.  (Which proves that at least when running as a VSTi in a DAW that supports it, Pianoteq renders using floating-point samples, which can exceed 0dBFS.)

Yes, I did. And I'm also concerned about the volume setting: I have to turn it down very often, but I hadn't thought about a general setting before reading this message!

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Reply by ncfoster

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Re: Simplest way to make universal changes to instrument volume

Coises wrote:
ncfoster wrote:

How do I change the volume of every instrument in Pianoteq with the least fuss and the cleanest result?

I believe this will work:

1. Click the "freeze" icon (looks like a snowflake).
2. Click “Main Volume” to put a checkmark beside it.
3. On the right side, in the “Favorites” column, click the three dots following one of the empty favorites.
4. Click “Save” in the ... menu.
5. Click ... again, and click “Set as default” in the menu.
6. Close the freeze panel.

Now changing presets will not affect the main volume -- you can set it wherever you like, and it will stay put.


Thank you so much.  I knew that the "freeze" icon was there, but I was not sure exactly how to use it.  I probably should have been able to figure it out.  In any case, this is the answer that I was looking for, and I very much appreciate it.