Damper Noise and slow key release realism

Thanks Alexis, that was actually helpful.

I tried what you suggested, and increasing Damping duration does get me closer to the effect I was looking for. For example, with Damper Noise around 8 and Damping duration around 3, I can get a more convincing result when I release a key very slowly.

The part that still feels wrong to me is that the same kind of effect seems to carry over too much across the rest of the release range. If I release the key quickly, the effect is shorter, yes, but it is still very audible and too exposed.

What I would expect in reality is something more blended into the note’s decay, not a clearly detached layer that remains easy to hear across different release speeds. In Pianoteq, once I push the settings enough to get the slow-release effect I want, I also start hearing an unpleasant release layer during more normal playing, which makes the result feel less realistic.

So my issue now is not really how to make the slow release audible — Damping duration does help with that — but how to get that effect without it becoming too obvious and too persistent in the rest of the release behavior.

Did you manage to balance that somehow?

Thanks, not yet — I haven’t experimented with Damper position so far.

At the moment I’ve mainly been pushing Damper Noise and Damping duration to exaggerated values just to make the behavior easier to hear and isolate. It does seem like there may be a usable balance in there somewhere.

That said, after more testing I’m not even sure Damping duration is the main factor for what I’m after. I actually ended up reducing it again, because I was trying to make the Damper Noise stand out more clearly on very slow key releases.

My impression now is that note-off velocity is doing a lot of the work here.

The problem I still hear is that Damper Noise seems too indiscriminate. It does not seem to respond enough to the overall gesture. In particular, it does not seem to take note-on velocity into account in a very meaningful way.

What I would expect is something more like this:

- if the note is played softly, damper noise should generally remain quite subtle

- if the note is played hard but released quickly, the damper effect should be brief and mostly folded into the note’s decay

- if the key is released very slowly, then the damper effect should become more exposed and slightly longer

What I’m hearing instead is that once Damper Noise is raised enough to get the slow-release effect I want, it also becomes too audible in situations where I would expect it to stay much more buried.

So ideally I would love to have some kind of response curve for Damper Noise intensity / volume as a function of note-off value, and maybe even note-on value too. That would make much more sense to me musically.

I’m attaching an audio example from a sampled piano that illustrates more or less the behavior I’m expecting:

the first strikes are different note-on velocities, always with soft release

from around 0:30 onward, the strikes are again different note-on velocities, but now with fast release

https://forum.modartt.com/uploads.php?f...e%2001.mp3

To me, that kind of behavior feels much closer to what I expect from a real piano action.

Does that sound consistent with your understanding of how Pianoteq currently handles it?

that would be a nice feature . That said , it can be done today if you use pianoteq as a VST3 in a DAW with scripting facility such as reaper as all pianoteq parameters are exposed . So using  midi mapping in pianoteq you can link any set or multiple parameters in a script that intercept note-on and note-off events and modify the parameters you want to adjust prior to rendition by the model. Nowadays , you don’t even need to be a programmer , you submit the challenge to ChatGPT and it write the script for you . But if I can done within pianoteq own workflow it would very convenient.

What I want to express is not that there are any bugs internally, but rather to allow automation between MIDI events (e.g. Note On/Off velocity) and slider parameters. Just as Pianistically put it.

Edit: I found that currently, we can click midi learn on a certain slider and then press a key to achieve a similar effect (parameters change with Note On velocity), but this key no longer produces sound. I think it would work if this could be extended to per-key functionality without preventing the sound.

there is some confusion in the thread between aftertouch as a physical property of actions in synthetisers or old clavichord ( bebung effect) related to the fact that pressure applied when the key is fully pressed impacts the sound . This effect doesn’t work on pianos and when the key is fully pressed , nothing will modify the sound until the hammer resets . The confusion comes from the fact that Yamaha ( disklavier ) and some softwares use the aftertouch C control which is not in use for virtual piano libraries as a vector to carry out additional information on damper position when additional optical  sensors providing  additional key  position exists . With midi 1.0 and classical triple sensors , no valid information is available as there are no sensors between the middle sensor and the top sensor and no valid timing as there is no time stamp in midi 1.0 messages so the only valid timings are those provided by the host that are not precise enough given midi jitter . So bottom line the only valid info is the note off velocity which is calculated by the digital piano firmware and  is calculated using timing measured between middle sensor and top sensor . Note that ‘aftertouch’ fixed value provided by keyboards such as Yamaha P525  using unused aftertouch CC cannot really be exploited in an efficient way  as there  are no physical sensors measuring intermediary key position a part middle sensor and no precise timing as based on midi 1.0 .

By all you mention, thus far, it seems that only you are after some sort of consistency out of the Damping duration.  Right?

PIANOTEQ as I understand it, does appear to remain very consistentt with the example I’d produced already but in that particularly about: 2:56 and then again at 3:10 of the piano recording (below) which I reposted (just to make it convenient):

https://soundcloud.com/user-75091580/ca...al_sharing

(Curiously, I hear abrupt er somewhat subtle shifts around the points noted (above).  They seem perplexing as possibly outcomes from dampers landing on strings, but also resulting in varying tones?  Perhaps they were intended only as dramatic mechanical piano effects by the tunes’ composer…. He did live in a time when the most popular music of the day was mainly brought by player pianos and at the very beginnings of modern industrialization, partly some —or of some who were really partying happily— just labeled the gay nineties.)

If now you’re somehow inferring PIANOTEQ ACTiON fails even to come close to your expectation of anything you consider a real piano that’s been sampled, personally, I would like to see now er hear just what specifically is your evidence; not simply the sample from another piano altogether…

Have you taken the time to consider you are just mistakenly following an inaccurately gotten Note-off velocity map?

Take a look at Direct sound duration, if you will; see if it helps you out now, as of this reply, though earlier my suggestion was in fact Damper position which always can affect string behavior and its resonances, particularly at the dampers themselves.

Do you hear talk of getting rid of it?  (Laugh.)

Seriously, Damping duration is the software parameter if I were you I’d adjust and also if it’ll just allow me to either shorten or lengthen the response from dampers before I especially strike any key, or, depress a pedal or otherwise even release my sustain.  To me it appears nothing at all like a completely different parameter (that is) the presumed pliable Hammer hardness; that though might refer indeed to the contrary, the weight of mass overall, whether hard or soft material, but entirely separate felt found virtually within each of the virtual hammers.

Honestly, davidizquierdo82, if you do mean to listen to the piece “Carillon” and pay any close attention to some of the effects of the dampers, it’s been intended for very loud playback on high quality speakers or monitors.  Personally I myself do hear it played on my own monitors mostly, largely the same brand basically, although older probably a priced much lesser model, foreseeably a downgrade from yours from the same manufacturer.