Pteq 9 - custom preset sound different - not in good way

I think you can run PT8 parallel to PT9 on the same license. Try it out

That does work, but it is introduces a level of complication that I'd prefer to avoid.

Since I’d been working on the very same piano model I like really to share my insight and maybe put things into some perspective for you and others whose work generally on presets is also challenging. You see, I'd been working on an S. Erard preset too in PIANOTEQ 8 (8.4.3) prior to the very day PIANOTEQ 9 was released.  In fact about a whole month I worked on many of my own custom presets of the piano inside the old version before I lastly loaded what seemed (then) my final into PIANOTEQ 9, but thereafter only continued my work on the preset within it (that is) inside the most recent release of the software.  Which now does seem itself to produce a piano sound having more detail and is slightly dark or just somehow darker than the previous S. Erard (1849).

My own undertaking starting in the older version and ending in the newer was complicated by indeed the lack of brightness er the thinness that is currently missing and that was very much present in the earlier model.  (Man, it seemed tedious too to try and compensate somehow.)

To try and sum things up and give just an idea of the difficulties I’d previously encountered, from PIANOTEQ 8 I had made presets of the piano model that eventually took on a total of ten (10) completely different custom iterations, all those saved by me before my arriving eventually at even more, a whole other eight (8) additional I created but inside PIANOTEQ 9.

(From the S. Erard alone, I went through a total eighteen {18} derivatives.  Each is with its own different sounding particulars.)

Anyway though I went through the eighteen (18) of the S. Erard 440 (1849), from ten (10) of the version 7.5 model in PIANOTEQ 8.4.3 to subsequently my eight (8) of the S. Erard 440 (1849) new model version 9.0 in PIANOTEQ 9.0.3, for the total of the eighteen (18), there just at each step of the way I took was a thing for me to learn… 

(Now as I endeavor, I appear hardly alone.  Apparently, I'm finding you as well as others might had experienced similar circumstances.)

From version 7.5 to the current version 9.0 of the S. Erard 440 factory model, obviously even the developers of it at MODARTT, step-by-step had something that they collectively theirselves needed to learn.

About your own preset, though a process is sometimes very long and arduous, my advice is just keep at it; if you’re like everybody else using it, just continue at it, since honestly you can eventually learn to make it sound whatever way that could end up ultimately a thing very rewarding and helpful to you as you endeavor yourself in your present project.

Consider possibly a download of this preset of mine if it can help you out somehow:

https://forum.modartt.com/file/9xxsesp5
short audio example
If by any chance you’d like to take away something from it or the audio recording of this S. Erard preset that you can hear at the forum available too is this link connected onto the audio since it’s already posted at another thread.

Although I’m making available temporarily the same preset used in the recording, I’ll take it down perhaps after a few days.

Each musical number inside the recorded audio was originally taken from a player piano performance out of the 1800s but since archived and reproduced as MIDI by Stanford University in northern (Palo Alto) California.

(How each was made into MIDI I may one way or another attempt to explain later.)

I got some possibly good news you may like.  Hopefully you will have gotten it just in the nick of time; perhaps you will if ole Saint Nick today has you still on his list.

(But at my previous post {above} I was referring to the scans of piano rolls, colloquially called “red welte” rolls since they typically use red paper).

Anyway, Herr Wilhelm, if I can just call you that, PG Music has recently released its newest version of Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Windows.  What about it you may find that’s very interesting is its AI Stems & Notes feature.  Supposedly it splits polyphonic audio, say from a piano or guitar, into MIDI and even transcribes it!

(Although some report of a few alleged problems, to me those appear likely results of human er user error.)

The former released macOS version is what I currently use.  From my own experience, the  Band-in-a-Box software does take quite a learning curve though it is nothing too difficult for me or apparently someone else to grasp.

I’m including a direct quote from pgmucic.com:

If you need to get it, some help is always available.

You may like to consider otherwise a purchase of a used M1 Apple Mini like the one I got brand new.  That’s if you’re continually running into problems on Windows.

From the App Store available on my computer I downloaded a free copy of Piano Transcriptionist which itself can derive MIDI from audio and as well produce music notation.  (It’s been demonstrated partly on my entry within MODARTT VIDEO CONTEST 2025.)

Just take a look at it and see er hear what it can do for any piano audio recording.

I’ve already supplied a link: Watch as I Try and Replace my Ex (Patrice Rushen) by AI and PIANOTEQ.

Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Windows is available from PG Music via this link.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

What a nice surprise, Thank you for this Informations.
I do have BiaB, and while the stem splitter is at par with the many others available, the AI Notes tool is at par as well. Not better than the others I have tried. My last experiment was using melodyne to "clean" the audio before handing it over to the AI Notes tool. But the resulting sheet music still would need so much work to get something usefull in the end that I cannot justify the time. I am better of using Notation software to produce something that looks like proper notation.

The cloud based tool PianoConvert is worth a try and the cost seems fair. Glad they have a German version as well, because my french is none existent.
Hope dies last!

By the way, i watched your contest entry. Well done. And the singing was the icing on the cake. Thank you for sharing.

I hope you had a good time celebrating christmas and I wish you a peacefull new year.