Which is the acoustic grand?

I'm going to stick my neck out here and be the first one to reply to this.

The first and third pianos both sound pretty authentic to me, but if I have to choose one, I'll say that the first piano is the real grand. Maybe it's the sense of space  or a slightly imperfect tuning of unisons, or something else that's intangible, but it feels/sounds more real to me.

The second snippet sounds bright, tinny and somewhat artificial to me.

It is quite difficult to tell!

I too think that number 1 sounds the most natural, and also the best. 

Out of 2 and 3, I prefer 3, possibly due mostly to the extra ambience.

Greg.

OK, I'll accept two responses as enough.

The first snippet is played by Andras Schiff (Hungarian born concert pianist, living in Britain).    http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/p...67,00.html

According to what I can ascertain, he mostly plays Bosendorfers.  To me the sound doesn't seem to be a Steinway, but I may well be wrong - if anyone thinks it sounds like a Steinway, I'll listen.

The second snippet is Pianoteq K1, with the mics placed above and below the piano.  Mic one:  0.660, 0.860, 0.300  Mic two:  0.840, 0.880, 1.440.

All other parameters are stock, except I increased the reverb a bit.

The third snippet is interesting because when I compared the Schiff recording and the second recording, I though that they were strikingly similar - except that the high notes seemed to ring too much in PT.

So for the third snippet, I reduced the Impedance as follows:
At C1, 0.00, At C4, 0.74, from C5 and higher, 0.48.

I never really played around to get optimum values, so these Imp values could probably be improved.

I also softened the hammers for the third snippet (0.20, 0.54, and 1.00).  This is very soft.

Interestingly the friend I often refer to on this forum (he rebuilds pianos and presently has seven grand in his place from a 4'-11" Yamaha to a C7 Yamaha), chose the third snippet as the real piano.  He's played just about everything there is including concert Steinways, Baldwins, Kawais, and Bosendorfers.

This wasn't a test to see how smart or knowledgeable anyone was, but to show how really good Pianoteq can be.

What are everybody's thoughts and opinions?

I think we are in good hands.

Glenn

EDIT - Graham, I'd guess that the very soft hammers had something to do with the muffled sound.

Yes.  The background hiss is the giveaway.  Next time maybe do a longer piece recording with mics on the grand and with some nice studio monitors and a subwoofer with pianoteq.

Otherwise I could not tell if 1 or 3 was acoustic.  But if you put a piece with a lot of lower notes in there I think I would be able to tell because of release noise and string ring on the acoustic base notes.

Anyway, each update gets closer to perfection.  The K1 grand is a great instrument in its own right.  Pianoteq treble is great.  The bass is getting closer.  Get a Hamburg Steinway in your studio and nail that bass sound down, release modeling and all!

I wish I'd listened before I saw the answers! I think I'd have got it right though.

To me the second does sound too thin and metallic and in the third the reverb doesn't sound convincing so I think I'd have gone for number one. The third piano tone is excellent though and played with a good convolution reverb I think you'd be hard pressed to tell it wasn't a real piano.

Glenn could you post your fxp? In the standard version we can't make the impedance changes you made - ta!

I've listened a few times. They all sounded good to me. The 1st and 3rd sound like you could hear the atmosphere of the room, especially in number 3, while the 2nd sounded much cleaner and more detailed, as if its recorded straight from the strings. Maybe you could try adding the room effect in the 'Reverberation Drop-down' menu and slow down the 'Sound Speed.' Maybe a couple more mics to beef up the sound. Otherwise there's not much in it.

I've noticed this same thing when listening different recordings of real grand pianos playing the same piece. It's almost like something has been added or lost during the recording session.

Nice to compare :-)
I don't believe, that all three snippets are recorder by concert pianists. In the last two there is a mistake in the rest. C minor chord before the scale is released too early, Beethoven wrote one eight there. Also the scale is not steady.
Anyway the third snippet is very close to the acoustic grand, I like this sound very much.

Thank you all for your time, effort, and comments.

I appreciate this, and of course I may even learn from the comments.

Glenn

Glenn, What is the RC2? I couldn't load the fxp file?