Tuning assistance appreciated for 280VC (Page 1 of 2)

Heya, I haven't looked at the preset in detail, but as a general idea have you made any microphone substitutions? The SF12 for close, R84 for distant (while an unconventional arrangement) is a lot warmer than the normal set ups. You can even boost the relative delay between left and right by a few ms for extra smoothing.

I'm basing this off my theory that the people who feel Pianoteq sounds synthetic get this from the pickup being too clean

He can't stand notes above G5 even with the Sombre presets. We went back and forth a lot. If you have time to check the samples in the dropbox folder I sent it would be cool.

dikrek wrote:

He can't stand notes above G5 even with the Sombre presets. We went back and forth a lot. If you have time to check the samples in the dropbox folder I sent it would be cool.

Hmm the modern D is easier listening, but I don't think it's down to piano design, but production effects - it sounds more compressed and EQd, and has a more sophisticated/saturated room reverb, for starters. I mean to say the pianoteq renderings sound more like raw takes off the mic, and the Modern D one sounds mastered. (Some probably prefer if they sound like a CD, but I want to stay close to the experience of playing a real acoustic, so raw is good for me.)

My choice of instrument (even within pianoteq) alters how I play quite a lot, so usually a midi based off one instrument will sound best with that instrument. I imagine the same is the case with the modern D, whose different velocity levels seem more forgiving than pianoteq (or a real instrument). You'd probably want to remap velocities per-register to have the new instrument be played "correctly".

That said I for one prefer the humanised Bosi for active listening - the interpretation comes across more clearly. The Modern D for above reasons makes it sound like a better interpretation.

(idle ramble) I've heard the argument that pianoteq is better for playing, and samples are better for production. I'm not a music producer so can't comment but just by analogy, surely music producers would prefer to work with a "raw" recording sound than something that's premixed? (/idle ramble)

dikrek wrote:

I have a file with external FX instead, check it out (did it in my DAW)

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4lf39zw0...l&dl=0

Yeah that sounds a lot closer to a sample library, at least to my ear. What do you think?

Good thing is:  PIANOTEQ PRO might allow any, including David, to benefit from its individual note parameter adjustments or at least until a desired sound is reached.  However it also could require an awful lot of effort from David, if he'd ever like really to acquire his own copy.

Right now possibly it might be just worth all the time and effort it could require of him (no matter how steep a learning curve).

My point is:  Presets widely by end users had been viewed as starting points but seldom end results.

Thank you, sincerely, for your response.  Apparently information you'd previously omitted.

Do you not consider though, my point yet valid?  Be honest...

If really you just failed to mention you're currently befriending David and he's indeed becoming a close friend, who for any reason should also come in possession of PIANOTEQ PRO, just as he'd beforehand needed other software, you'd maybe offer to help with that (PIANOTEQ PRO one); but only whenever seriously he'd gotten into a jam or had become confounded or confused or even misled somehow about it.

Have I now made my point clear to you?

dikrek wrote:

Any suggestions? I have PTQ STD 9.

(Allow me to reiterate:  Simply stated PIANOTEQ PRO could permit more tweak ability, say upwards from G5 than the standard version does technically.)

dikrek wrote:

Amen Ptah Ra wrote:

Thank you, sincerely, for your response.  Apparently information you'd previously omitted.

Do you not consider though, my point yet valid?  Be honest...

If really you just failed to mention you're currently befriending David and he's indeed becoming a close friend, who for any reason should also come in possession of PIANOTEQ PRO, just as he'd beforehand needed other software, you'd maybe offer to help with that (PIANOTEQ PRO one); but only whenever seriously he'd gotten into a jam or had become confounded or confused or even misled somehow about it.

Have I now made my point clear to you?

(Allow me to reiterate:  Simply stated PIANOTEQ PRO could permit more tweak ability, say upwards from G5 than the standard version does technically.)

He’s not a friend, just someone I’ve seen be always incredibly critical of Pianoteq so I was wondering if I could craft a preset he’d find good.

And him being blind would make it very hard to manually tweak everything.

He uses and likes Modern D so there’s nothing to be gained here but perhaps useful tweaks that will satisfy a classical pianist and may be beneficial to others too.

I like the sound I can get out of the STD version.

There are many classical pianists who adore Pianoteq.  Your friend doesn't happen to be one of them.  So what?

And him being blind...

And him being blind would make it very hard to manually tweak everything.

He uses and likes Modern D so there’s nothing to be gained here but perhaps useful tweaks that will satisfy a classical pianist...

Amen Ptah Ra wrote:

Somehow a factor only you'd previously omitted:

dikrek wrote:

And him being blind...

Maybe you'd like now to explain just how Modern D is better suited to the blind than PIANOTEQ, if you could?

And him being blind would make it very hard to manually tweak everything.

He uses and likes Modern D so there’s nothing to be gained here but perhaps useful tweaks that will satisfy a classical pianist...

I think you’re reading into this stuff that’s not happening. Nobody’s saying Modern D is better for blind people. He says he likes the sound better.

Go to pianoclack and check some of the Pianoteq threads there.

To elaborate: it may be like the cilantro effect, where some people have a sensitivity to it and think it tastes horrible.

I’m curious if there’s a cohort of people that have a sensitivity to something in the Pianoteq sound.

If that can be fixed, everyone would be happier

Me, I'm more familiar with acoustic instruments so therefore favour pianoteq.

dikrek wrote:

To elaborate: it may be like the cilantro effect, where some people have a sensitivity to it and think it tastes horrible.

I’m curious if there’s a cohort of people that have a sensitivity to something in the Pianoteq sound.

If that can be fixed, everyone would be happier

daniel_r328 wrote:

Me, I'm more familiar with acoustic instruments so therefore favour pianoteq.

I don't think this has *absolutely anything* to do with acoustic instruments. I played (and listened to) acoustic instruments almost exclusively for my whole life (several decades). I can hear the synthetic aspects of pianoteq. I can tell it's pianoteq from a mile. It's very far from the sound of an acoustic piano (live or recorded). It's nothing like you are discussing here (EQ, microphones, stereo stage). It's plain timbre of the instrument. It's like it's not a piano. And I can live with it and I love pianoteq (I own Studio, so my money is where my mouth is) for a million other reasons. But it does not sound like an acoustic piano. It's getting closer at each version, but not fast enough. So I sympatize with those "haters" because I hear the same thing they hear. Just that I can live with it and they can't.

I have not used sampes much, so I can't comment there very in depth, but I'll try anyway
From the few recordings I have heard, they sound synthetic and artificial too. In a different way than Pianoteq, so I can understand how someone can like one and dislike the other(s), but nothing sounds like a recording of an acoustic piano (let alone a "live" one). And again, I'm strictly speaking about timbre not EQ, stereo stage etc. So I can't understand how one can say that something is realistic and something else isn't. They are different but none is realistic to my ears.

dv wrote:

But it does not sound like an acoustic piano. [...] So I can't understand how one can say that something is realistic and something else isn't. They are different but none is realistic to my ears.

Ah, but I said:

daniel_r328 wrote:

Me, I'm more familiar with acoustic instruments so therefore favour pianoteq.

Which is different to what you are contesting.

That said... I'm not clear that a line between post-processing and timbre can be drawn as easily as you say. Audio engineering can alter the timbre beyond recognition! So I don't know that anything follows from the observation that the timbre is off.

jsaras wrote:

There are many classical pianists who adore Pianoteq.  Your friend doesn't happen to be one of them.  So what?

Allow me to show why:

The YouTube channel on which the video (above, at the top of this thread) appears is none other than vlabsaudio  —from the very competitor selling MODERN D by its affiliate Jiajun 'David' Lai.

Read the video description:

Watch David Lai play this well-known piece by Claude Debussy on the VI Labs Modern D concert grand library. Visit https://www.vilabsaudio.com/modernd to buy now and learn more. David is using the Kawai VPC1 as the controller.

Make your own assessment:

Three other YouTube videos of 'David' have similar descriptions including the selfsame affiliate link to the VI Labs website.

dikrek wrote:

Amen Ptah Ra wrote:

Good thing is:  PIANOTEQ PRO might allow any, including David, to benefit from its individual note parameter adjustments or at least until a desired sound is reached.  However it also could require an awful lot of effort from David, if he'd ever like really to acquire his own copy.

Right now possibly it might be just worth all the time and effort it could require of him (no matter how steep a learning curve).

My point is:  Presets widely by end users had been viewed as starting points but seldom end results.

David is blind, FYI

You personally, dikrek, have left out one glaring omission: David is blind but he's also your buddy or associate in business probably with you to draw sells from MODARTT by both your affiliation at this forum and his at VI Labs and its or his very own piano software.  Which is Modern D.  That he's directly promoting via the video you posted at the start of this thread of yours.

He as stated earlier at least has posted three (3) other YouTube videos of his not only endorsing but specifically marketing the VI Labs Modern D concert grand library to YouTube viewers.

Do you deny you're doing any canvasing at this forum?

dikrek wrote:

I’m curious if there’s a cohort of people that have a sensitivity to something in the Pianoteq sound.

Thanks, so that’s why I’m thinking if we could figure out WHAT it is that’s missing, we could help propel the user experience to the next level. I’m sure the Modartt folks are doing their own research on this but the larger collective may stumble upon something they haven’t.

Like maybe VI Labs Modern D concert grand library?  (The quote {above} just seems a sales pitch to people who like to layer samples with PIANOTEQ.)

To me, for example, I can tweak it enough where it sounds (not just plays) more like a piano, but clearly whatever I’m doing isn’t enough for the people that are bothered by that sound.

Perhaps you mean the folks, the competitors at VI Labs.

If we can discover what it is that’s missing, we’re a step ahead.

Right, step away from —somebody purchasing— a sample library 'David's' own...

He’s not a friend, just someone I’ve seen be always incredibly critical of Pianoteq so I was wondering if I could craft a preset he’d find good.

...nothing to be gained here but perhaps useful tweaks that will satisfy a classical pianist...

Draw your own conclusion:

While you may immediately conclude this post amounts to no more than wild speculation on my part, you've still to consider whether or not sincerely 'David' is just willing merely to help out the competition (that is) MODARTT!

Amen Ptah Ra wrote:

...

Whoa buddy

It's very far from the sound of an acoustic piano (live or recorded).

I’m happy with Pianoteq, and if I can help in any way to make it even better, why not.

In your case, how much have you experimented to see what makes it less synthetic?

Can you describe what aspects sound synthetic? After my tweaks David admitted it mostly sounds like a piano to him aside from notes above a certain point.

Did you try my preset in that Dropbox link at the beginning?

dv wrote:

daniel_r328 wrote:

Whoa buddy

Yes! And I thought that I was being harsh with my sentence

dv wrote:

It's very far from the sound of an acoustic piano (live or recorded).

which I should have probably phrased less strongly. Yes, it's synthetic and yes I can tell it's not an acoustic piano even in casual listening, but it's not "very far" as I wrote (I got carried too much).

And I agree completely with

dikrek wrote:

I’m happy with Pianoteq, and if I can help in any way to make it even better, why not.

even to the point of suggesting to Modartt to actually hire some of these "haters" to see if they can help finding out the root cause of this discrepancy in sound and therefore help the fine developers cover that "blind spot" (pardon the pun) and improve pianoteq!!

In your case, how much have you experimented to see what makes it less synthetic?

Did you try my preset in that Dropbox link at the beginning?

Can you describe what aspects sound synthetic? After my tweaks David admitted it mostly sounds like a piano to him aside from notes above a certain point.

say yes wrote:

dikrek wrote:

In your case, how much have you experimented to see what makes it less synthetic?

Did you try my preset in that Dropbox link at the beginning?

Can you describe what aspects sound synthetic? After my tweaks David admitted it mostly sounds like a piano to him aside from notes above a certain point.

My opinion is similar to David's. The current shortcomings of Pianoteq is the high notes, and the low notes are also slightly inferior to the middle notes, but I don't think that's a big problem.
I feel that the hammer noise of the high notes and the tail of the note sound separate rather than naturally blended. Another point is that the hammer noise of each key is too similar. Although there is a gradient in it, as the pitch gets higher, the hammer gets smaller, and the hammer noise gradually changes from heavy to bright. But they are really too similar among adjacent keys, which is particularly noticeable when playing rapid chromatic scales.
(Edit: In Pianoteq 9 there is a new parameter 'Hammer Tone'. Adding some randomness will help, but it can't be humanized. I suggest Modartt make it possible in the future.)
As for the synthetic sound, I think it has to do with the overly linear decay process. Especially in the strong chords of the mid-to-high range, I can detect that distinctive feeling characteristic of using ADSR and low-pass filter envelope. Although the decay behavior on a real piano is generally similar, it‘s not so perfect.

Did you try my preset in the folder in the first post? I think I’ve randomised the hammer hardness at least, plus several other parameters. I don’t think it decays linearly in that preset.

dikrek wrote:

If you can send me a MIDI file of your liking and a rendition of that same piece from YouTube or tell me what album and track to listen to, then I’ll try this (doesn’t need to be from the same MIDI file obviously if it’s a real piano).

You are so kind!

A performance that I love is this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiaH1mpODrk

The piano is good, but not great and there is perhaps more background hiss than some people would tolerate, but it sounds "clearly acoustic" to my ears.

I believe this is Liszt version of the piece which I could not find in either score or MIDI. I could find Pauer's version, which in my opinion is not as good and anyway you can't use the MIDI version since it's too "robotic" but I'm putting it here for completeness:
http://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/pi...cgi?id=497

So what does one old lad do? Try AI, right? I first tried basicpitch from spotify and the result was absolutely unusable. You could barely recognize the piece, many missing notes, I mean a high schooler with a B in music could have done a better job.
Would one get discouraged by that? Of course not, so I tried bytedance's piano_transcription and that blew my socks off. Not perfect (and in fact it has some errors and it emphasizes some of the performer's errors), but in my opinion perfectly capture the mood of the performance, the small parts of lyricism embedded in between the rage... the dynamics... I think it did a great job.

You can download it at https://forum.modartt.com/uploads.php?f...67.ogg.mid

I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do with it, and I thank you again for your time and patience!

dikrek wrote:

How different tastes are!

Does it mean you don't like that ? Or simply that it is very different compared to Debussy?

dikrek wrote:

Anyway, here's my attempt https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/almbpeap...2&dl=0

I don't quite know how to get the exact recording sound since these are mic and mastering choices I'd never make, but am I closer?

I did stuff like way increased hammer hardness and somewhat duplex, detuned stuff, more hammer and all other noises, and more.

Added a second version with a Fairchild 670 compressor.

I was not expecting the exact recording sound, and (perhaps because of my expectations being low) I find that you did a wonderful job in that regard, but I am not talking about those now, so let's just concentrate on the "acoustic-woody" vs "synthetic" sound.

I think you did the best job that I have heard with Pianoteq with the "growling bass"! By the way, is this v9? I haven't upgraded yet.... The incipit (first about 10 seconds) is simply fantastic and if I didn't know it was Pianoteq I could be fooled to think it was an acoustic piano, which is the first time that I experience that.

Unfortunately, the mid range lyrical parts have not that level of perfection. I mean, I like Pianoteq and they are acceptable to me, but I can see how they are different from an acoustic piano and how some people could hate them. Without having you to move to different times of the recording, the theme entering at the 11th second seem to be created by some sort of "wrong" hammers. Not exactly "too hard" but perhaps a bit "plasticy". The tone/timbre of the piano at that time is fine, it's just the attack that has that quality. I was actually tempted to add some hiss for fairness with the original recording to see if that made a difference, but I don't have any good source of hiss that I can tune.

These impressions are same for the whole recording: the busiest and more loud parts are really wonderful. The closest to an acoustic instrument that I've ever heard from Pianoteq (or any virtual piano, FWIW). In many places so close that's hard or even impossible for me to honestly say "I recognize it's a digital instrument and not an acoustic". All the soft parts though suffer from the problem above and in some places even the timbre itself is synthetic/plasticy. The worst part from that point of view is from 4'09" to 4'30" where I could clearly tell it's Pianoteq. Not just from the attack, but even the sustain is clearly "non-acoustic". In fairness you may have tried to closely match the original recording which I think suffer from the piano in that range being slightly out of tune (but still it's clearly recognizable as a slightly out-of-tune acoustic).

The best part of the lyrical ones you've got is the one from 6'20" to 6'27" which is still not perfect, but much, much closer to an acoustic than the examples I mentioned above (and the various similar parts of the piece). If you can make all the quiet/melodic parts like this one, it would be a massive improvement, and if you could even marginally improve those towards the "acoustic", you'd have reached the "holy grail" as far as I'm concerned.

But even if you can't improve that, I'm really impresse with what you've done so far! Hopefully you'll eventually share the FXP (or maybe sell it to Modartt )

Thanks a lot, really great job!

dikrek wrote:

Added a second version with a Fairchild 670 compressor.

Wow bravo! The Fairchild adds a lot of legitimacy and shows how close the tweaks in the model come to the instrument in the video.

To me the reverb still gives it away - it's too clean. I'd use a shorter tail (or an external slightly more advanced reverb plugin?), and maybe experiment with adding random jitter to some of the reverb parameters (eg tone?). What I'd also do is introduce a noise floor to the sound (ie white noise track) to avoid pickup perfection. One thing I don't have experience in but am curious about is to add some artificial analogue saturation to the chain as well. It adds a kind of smear to ensure overlapping resonances aren't as cleanly separated.

I know you're not on Pro but for the record, I've found that raising the Hammer Tone to around 0.4 on the midranges makes them sound more convincing to me.

daniel_r328 wrote:

dikrek wrote:

Added a second version with a Fairchild 670 compressor.

Wow bravo! The Fairchild adds a lot of legitimacy and shows how close the tweaks in the model come to the instrument in the video.

To me the reverb still gives it away - it's too clean. I'd use a shorter tail (or an external slightly more advanced reverb plugin?), and maybe experiment with adding random jitter to some of the reverb parameters (eg tone?). What I'd also do is introduce a noise floor to the sound (ie white noise track) to avoid pickup perfection. One thing I don't have experience in but am curious about is to add some artificial analogue saturation to the chain as well. It adds a kind of smear to ensure overlapping resonances aren't as cleanly separated.

I know you're not on Pro but for the record, I've found that raising the Hammer Tone to around 0.4 on the midranges makes them sound more convincing to me.

Thanks! Just added 2 more files, with 50% less hammer tone and 50% more (I can only affect the whole range but I'm curious how @dv will find that too).

Also removed the PTQ reverb and added a Lexicon 480L with the random hall mode, the tail should be - random

Plus some saturation with tape and more.

Which trends better now?

Used the sombre preset but modified. This time I'm not trying to match the recording really, but just to get a more accurate tone.

daniel_r328 wrote:

The Fairchild adds a lot of legitimacy and shows how close the tweaks in the model come to the instrument in the video.

...

To my ears at least the "more hammer tone" option sounds like a step in the right direction!

Funny how we hear things differently. Of the two original ones, I like the one without Fairchild marginally better, but the difference is small.

To my ears, overall, the two new ones are much worse than the two previous ones. So my order of preference (and by that I mean "possibility to be mistaken for *ANY* acoustic piano", not "taste" or "similarity to the orginal") is

- dv_5th_NY_Steinway_Jazz_modified.flac
- Fairchild
- many other default presets
- MoreHammer
- LessHammer

In these new ones with more or less hammer, all the growling bass that made me so excited is completely gone. The piano tone is completely replaced with a muffled, distant version of itself. On the soft/quiet/pp, lyrical parts, the MoreHammerTone version marginally improves the attack, for example the section between 11' to 30' is marginally better. Neither of the two versions improve from 4'09" to 4'30" (in fact it's overall worse) but the problem there was not only the attack. On the relatively good soft part at 6'20-6'27" the LessHammer make it degrade and the MoreHammer changes it marginally but not for the better nor for the worse.

So, in conclusion, if you can do what you have done for MoreHammer to affect *only and exclusively* the "soft" parts, then yes, this will be a step forward. Otherwise the previous version was much better.

For what is worth, I'm judging all of these from a middle-of-the-road Philips Open headphones

Thanks!