Topic by ernst

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Topic: Extended bass range request

Hey there,
first of all: the improvements in v.3.6.1 are great. Pitchbend and note-offs now work separately on each Midichannel. Thanks a lot!!
One more request I would like to submit: That there might be more bass notes, lower than 21, as on a Boesendorfer Imperial right down to 12.
What do you think? Is it possible?
Or even a whole Boesendorfer model? Or are there problems with Boesendorfer? I would pay for an add-on!
Best regards,
Ernst

Last edited by ernst (14-06-2010 16:51)

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Reply by DonSmith

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Re: Extended bass range request

Would it be possible to add a parameter to the design section that will allow you to increase the weight/thickness of the strings? This might increase the bass. Also one that allows you to change soundboard material, similar to the Carbon piano in the C3 piano.

Reply by Siriosys

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Re: Extended bass range request

ernst wrote:

Hey there,
first of all: the improvements in v.3.6.1 are great. Pitchbend and note-offs now work separately on each Midichannel. Thanks a lot!!
One more request I would like to submit: That there might be more bass notes, lower than 21, as on a Boesendorfer Imperial right down to 12.
What do you think? Is it possible?
Or even a whole Boesendorfer model? Or are there problems with Boesendorfer? I would pay for an add-on!
Best regards,
Ernst


If there was a whole Module based on a faithful reproduction of the Bosendorfer Imperial grands, I'd pay double the price of an add-on pack!!! 

Having the pleasure and privilege of spending quite some time practising and playing on one, I can completely empathize with your request!!   They're absolutely gorgeous instruments with a Bass that I believe is unrivaled in the Piano world.

Reply by dhalfen

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Re: Extended bass range request

Siriosys wrote:

If there was a whole Module based on a faithful reproduction of the Bosendorfer Imperial grands, I'd pay double the price of an add-on pack!!! 

Having the pleasure and privilege of spending quite some time practising and playing on one, I can completely empathize with your request!!   They're absolutely gorgeous instruments with a Bass that I believe is unrivaled in the Piano world.

No argument here -- you're absolutely right! 

I believe the only things holding them back from a Bösendorfer model are:

(a) The availability of intimate access to a single, outstanding model (say, a 280 or 290) for direct, detailed analysis.

(b) Possible licensing issues with Bösendorfer itself, should any "official" connection be made. 

A Bösendorfer model would be a welcome addition -- let's hope that maybe it'll surface as a "built-in" piano by version 4.

"Our developers, who art in Toulouse, hallowed be thy physical-models.
Thy version 4 come, thy new instruments be done, in the computer as it is in the wood!"

Reply by DonSmith

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Re: Extended bass range request

dhalfen wrote:

(b) Possible licensing issues with Bösendorfer itself, should any "official" connection be made.

I hope not. All the sampled sets have copied the life out of one, also Roland's V-Piano. Bösendorfer don't seem that restrictive in this respect.

Last edited by DonSmith (15-06-2010 18:28)

Reply by Cellomangler

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Re: Extended bass range request

Call it a fahrvergnügenteq then...   I don't think copyright can restrict reasonable facsimiles of audio sounds that are produced virtually -but of course you cannot freely use licensed product names in the marketing of your own products.  But it does bring up many time-honored questions:
Is it illegal to own a machine that makes copies of currency or is it only illegal to print copies.. or only illegal if you try to use counterfeit currency?   J. S. G. Boggs sold US handpainted currency for it's face value and was arrested several times but acquitted.  Can Selmer copyright the sound of its saxophones?  If you build your own sax for resale and it ends up sounding just like a Selmer, have you violated copyright?  You can't make prints of famous paintings and sell them without paying royalties to the owners but what if you have a machine that makes a virtual Picasso by utilizing artistic modeling techniques that generate an array of dots in a matrix without using a digitally sampled reference version?  And if you don't call it a Picasso, even if it looks just like Nude, Green Leaves and Bust?  If I sing Happy Birthday to a tree in the middle of a forest, do I still owe AOL Time Warner royalties?  What were we talking about...?
Oh yeah... Boosin'doofuses...  But I do also dig the sound of that instrument, though I've only heard in recordings, which vaguely resembles that name........

"Downing a fifth results in diminished capacity."

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Reply by studiokids

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Re: Extended bass range request

It may seem wonderful to have an excellent imitation Steinway, Boesendorfer, Fazioli, et cetera to pretend to play. I have some software that makes a Shure SM57 sound like a Neumann U87 (especially if I use a singer who sounds like Pavarotti). That's why I purchased a Chinese Geely GE - just like the Rolls Royce Phantom - to bring the talent to my studio. Okay, so enough of this nonsense. I have owned a Steinway, I have performed on many Boesendorfers, and currently have a Baldwin 9' SD10 and a Yamaha C7f at home in my studio. And I have the PianoTeq. The PianoTeq has its own wonderful sound, I believe the finest grand piano plug in to be had, an absolute joy to play (especially when used with Acousticas IR's), a true musical instrument. It will never be a Steinway,Boesendorfer, Fazioli or a Costco Wurlitzer and I would never want it to be. The PianoTeq stands on its own excellence and rightfully so. You can go out and buy a Boesendorfer Imperial and without extensive training sound like amateur night at the local Pawn shop. I'm sure the talent designing the PianoTeq are well aware of what a great piano sound is. What they haven't managed to capture -yet - and what is missing in all piano modules and plug ins is how the string vibrates (the up/down motion sound of the strings vibrating) immediately following the initial attack. Just play one note on an acoustic piano and hold that note and listen and you will hear the string sound undulate down and up in a gradually less deep and lengthening wave pattern (picture drawing a wavy line, at first a deep dip then up down elongating as the line grows progressively more shallow). This is the heart and soul of a true piano sound. (My description is inadequate in describing this phenomenon). All sampled pianos, such as Ivory, Roland, et cetera, only have the sound of the note with none of the evolving "undulation" - much like the eyes of a well crafted robot. In this regard PianoTeq also lacks this "magic" of the piano sound (I am not thinking sympathetic resonance, which, in the main, is o.k.). I want PianoTeq to sound like PianoTeq, to stand on its own, not like a piece of artificial crab meat, but as the true and "real" piano it is. I love paying $4000 for a new set of hammers on one of my pianos - because of its singularly unique personality. And I wait in eager anticipation for the 4.0 release of PianoTeq from Modartt's gifted technicians. Most pianists do not know what to do with or how to play a Boesendorfer or Steinway, that is short of practicing 5 hours a day for the past 20 years. For now a PianoTeq is a great and privileged place to start that path.

Reply by dhalfen

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Re: Extended bass range request

Cellomangler wrote:

If I sing Happy Birthday to a tree in the middle of a forest, do I still owe AOL Time Warner royalties?

That's the kind of line that makes the cereal milk shoot through the nose! 

studiokids wrote:

You can go out and buy a Boesendorfer Imperial and without extensive training sound like amateur night at the local Pawn shop.

Pearls before swine, eh? 

studiokids wrote:

I'm sure the talent designing the PianoTeq are well aware of what a great piano sound is. What they haven't managed to capture -yet - and what is missing in all piano modules and plug ins is how the string vibrates (the up/down motion sound of the strings vibrating) immediately following the initial attack. Just play one note on an acoustic piano and hold that note and listen and you will hear the string sound undulate down and up in a gradually less deep and lengthening wave pattern (picture drawing a wavy line, at first a deep dip then up down elongating as the line grows progressively more shallow). This is the heart and soul of a true piano sound. (My description is inadequate in describing this phenomenon). All sampled pianos, such as Ivory, Roland, et cetera, only have the sound of the note with none of the evolving "undulation" - much like the eyes of a well crafted robot. In this regard PianoTeq also lacks this "magic" of the piano sound (I am not thinking sympathetic resonance, which, in the main, is o.k.).

All-in-all, your post is a very rational, sensible explanation of the "it's-a-piano-but-it's-NOT-a-piano" problem.  BUT I would say that Pianoteq already has some of the "magic" undulation already;  granted, no one who truly knows pianos is going to confuse the sustain between "real" and "modelled" in a direct, non-effects-influenced (and non-RECORDED) A-B comparison, but I personally enjoy the Pianoteq sustain as much as that of a "real" piano, for exactly the reason you cite:   

"The PianoTeq stands on its own excellence and rightfully so."

Indeed, if one treats Pianoteq as yet another "piano," as an individual instrument, and not as merely an attempt to copy other instruments directly, then one should be truly satisfied with the product.

(Let the sample-meisters worry about copying the Steinways and Bechsteins and Boesendorfers...  BECAUSE that's all which they can do, ultimately!)

"Our developers, who art in Toulouse, hallowed be thy physical-models.
Thy version 4 come, thy new instruments be done, in the computer as it is in the wood!"

Reply by Luc Henrion

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Re: Extended bass range request

but anyway, an extended bass range option would be welcome: think about the  electric bass guitars with 5 strings or more, instead of the basic 4. It helps putting somme "thunder" in your music when needed. OK, back to my piano, I'm not near my 5 hours today yet ;-)

BTW: my very first solo album (to be re-issued soon!) was recorded on a Bösendorfer Imperial, what a marvelous instrument !

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Reply by Cellomangler

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Re: Extended bass range request

Luc Henrion wrote:

BTW: my very first solo album (to be re-issued soon!) was recorded on a Bösendorfer Imperial, what a marvelous instrument !

Was that "Galerie" ?

"Downing a fifth results in diminished capacity."

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Reply by Luc Henrion

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Re: Extended bass range request

Yep :-)

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Reply by DonSmith

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Re: Extended bass range request

dhalfen wrote:

(Let the sample-meisters worry about copying the Steinways and Bechsteins and Boesendorfers...  BECAUSE that's all which they can do, ultimately!)

But Pianoteq has already modelled a Bechstein, Yamaha, Erard and  CP-80.

Reply by dhalfen

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Re: Extended bass range request

DonSmith wrote:

But Pianoteq has already modelled a Bechstein, Yamaha, Erard and  CP-80.

Oh, Don, I know that (and, of course, you know I do!) -- I refer to those folks who are looking for solutions strictly from the sample-minded spectrum of the universe.  These folks are always in search of the "perfect copy" (quite the oxymoron), so they'll always be questing after the "perfect" Bechstein or Erard.

Having no direct experience with a real model of either sort, I can't say whether or not the Pianoteq "Bechstein" and/or "Erard" are perfect copies of the originals.  (Though, knowing how MODARTT works after 2+ years of my own experience with them, I would have to think they're pretty DARN close to the originals...)

BUT I can happily say that they're highly-enjoyable instruments in their own right, even had they come from the "Fruit Of The Loom" factory. 

"Our developers, who art in Toulouse, hallowed be thy physical-models.
Thy version 4 come, thy new instruments be done, in the computer as it is in the wood!"

Reply by Beto-Music

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Re: Extended bass range request

Do you think Yamaha C5 it's a great close copy of the original ?

dhalfen wrote:
DonSmith wrote:

But Pianoteq has already modelled a Bechstein, Yamaha, Erard and  CP-80.

Oh, Don, I know that (and, of course, you know I do!) -- I refer to those folks who are looking for solutions strictly from the sample-minded spectrum of the universe.  These folks are always in search of the "perfect copy" (quite the oxymoron), so they'll always be questing after the "perfect" Bechstein or Erard.

Having no direct experience with a real model of either sort, I can't say whether or not the Pianoteq "Bechstein" and/or "Erard" are perfect copies of the originals.  (Though, knowing how MODARTT works after 2+ years of my own experience with them, I would have to think they're pretty DARN close to the originals...)

BUT I can happily say that they're highly-enjoyable instruments in their own right, even had they come from the "Fruit Of The Loom" factory.