Help pleae

Thanks for the input, obviously there is an element of subjectivity, but compared to TruePiano the sounds seem very boxy and tinny even after turning of reverb and limiter. Sorry, but its true for my ears, makes the pianos unuseable.
I am going through a quality amp and Tannoy Reveals - these are OK for other stuff. I am Win 64

I am wondring if there was any other parameters worth a tweak?

Piano sound is very subjective thing, that's for sure. And speaking about these taste related qualities is a very difficult thing...

Maybe I can get some kind of an idea what ZeroZero means with "boxy", "tinny" or "hollow" sound of Pianoteq... It's just some sound quality that is there, you have to accept it or not. Some people hear it, some people obviously don't hear it. Some people want to overemphasize it, others refuse to hear it at all. I'm personally fan of pianoteq project but still I remember very well having similar feelings when I downloaded my first PTQ-demo (now years ago). "Boxy" maybe means something like listening to piano which is not really present to you, coming from somewhere distant. Nowadays I feel that this is something which is very unique to PTQ: it can really produce sounds that are in some space. That's why many classical oriented pianists tend to like it (I think).

But still there's some "hollow", "synthy" or "plastic" (versus "woody"; that's my own term to describe it. It's more concrete term when you compare cheap plastic speakers to professional wooden speakers: cheap plastic speakers sound "plastic" also) character. But in my resent opinion we have to be merciful to modeling: models are getting better and better little by little and it's not an easy task to try to model such a complex thing as piano sound. Same problematic is obviously there in other models like VB3 (B3 Organ emulation), Lounge Lizard (E-piano) or any brass or string instrument emulations.

Many fans of modeling (myself included) put expressiveness ahead of ultimate truthfulness of real thing. Even "real thing" is very subject idea: are you after for a sound that's typical in recordings or sound that's surrounding you when you play an acoustic piano? IMO PTQ can catch both quite well: of course you have make all those settings to match these conditions.

Greg I listened to it. Subjectively I didnt care for the sound. I think that some it was the speakers or the system that was being recorded it sounded like so many Yamaha (high end keyboards). Thru this was also the same kind of hollow boxiness, like there was edges but no body (thats an exageration but something like the middel was emaciated). True Pianos diamond does not sound like this (to me) perhaps others reading this thread could listen to some of their demos.

I still like PianoTeq electric painos, and the interface is good, but I must confess I have fussy ears and their are only two modelling pianos I can tolerate, it seems, (I have not heard too many though), TruePianos Diamond and the painos in the new Nord Stage. The pianos in my Nord Electro are just awful - I could not use them they are like toys.

I would not have believed that modelling could bring that natural resonance ot a string, but it can do - in the examples cited above.

Just carrying on the discussion.. the dowload on TruePianos is small, so I think (guess) their not sampled. The Nord Electro also has a very small memory  - megaqbytes, so I thought this was also modelled - its sounds like it came from a 70s amusement arcade, or a Bontempi organ, terrible and unsuseable as a sound.

Busy today but will get round to looking at the mic position thing and seeing what I can do elsewhere. Painoteq is great for options but you have got to be able to use them WELL, i am sure, to get the best from the app.. so I acknowledge any judgement by me is premature.

I have heard a piano on the Nord stage (new one) and it was superb in my book, better than the many sampled pianos I have accrued in my studio by a leap and a mile. I would rate this as the best I have ever heard, followed closely by the Ivory.

Its often the case that the 'demos' given by sites are much better than  the sound YOU get because of many variables, one can also get seduced by the track rather than the instrument.

The sound I heard from the NORD was made by ME and EVEN that sounded luxuriant. I would describe it as vibrant, with exceptional resonance for m the lower octaves, very nicely balanced over the whole keyboard, very responsive - rainbowish luxuriant colourful and above all classy.

ramblings:

Heard a lot of VST painos such as tghe NAitve instruments stuff - not enough for my ears not enough detail and poor recording. I have noted the VSL paino is HUGH! but the Vienna stuff I own is not great just more epxensive than say East West. The East West piano is IMO too hollywoody for me.T he Stenbierg one is good I hear.

Yet more ramblings...

So I end this ramble for a lust for the NORD Stage. I did have trouble when I found out that some controls on the Electro did not send out MIDI CC meaning that I cannot change octaves on my keyboard when its running a standalone - pretty poor that, like having a PC that does not send email. Clavia can have their flaws.

Yes TruePainos is my goto piano - I use it for practising, but only the Diamond sample the rest are over tweaked. IMO. Thanks for the info about the stage, I will probably end up buying this as its the only all rounder I know, and I do expect to play hammond stuff. I also own a KEYB but this is another story .. a great keyboard very heavy (you need muscle to gig with it, but the software has a noise floor like a real hammond difficult to use in a studio.

Does the Nord Stage have any issues sending MIDI CC for knobs other than the drawbars? I would like to be able to control a Native instruments B4 and possibly TruePainos from a laptop. I also have other synths like omnishpere and Absytnth which could be set up to receivve CC from ALL of the knobs on the Stage - no matter what their orginal purpose is.

I know what you mean about the noisy keyboards my electro 2 is very noise compared to my Axiom 61 - rwhich has a lovely responsive feel but is built as a 'disposable' keyboard definitly too fragile for gigging.

its good to chat this with others feel free to post.

Espcially if you have opinions on a good gigging keyboard.

Thank you for your efforts Heinke. I have loaded the fxp and played it. Sorry but I find again that Paino teq does not cut it for authenicity. This one sounds a bit like a cross between an upright and a Rhodes - a nice sound but not the piano. I still go back to the diamond on the TruePiano Diamond its more like a grand crisper and lighter with resonance and airyness in the bass.
I am beginning to feel that PianoTeq is not going to cut it even though it has a great interface and some very nice electric pianos (which are worth purchasing). Their seems to be something missing in the core sound of all of the 'real' pianos, there is a fogginess, a lack of clarity, some glassiness seems to be lacking too, I dont mean vulgarity, I mean a brightness of timbre, a distinctiveness. I can hear the partials but they have a mash potatoe tone.

Yes subjective, its waht you try to emulate whether its a bosendorfer or a steinway an upright or honky tonk with drawing pins on the hammers. Whether its in the Albert HAll and your in seat 32b or if its in Birdland (check out Waves convolution rerverbs for the 'real' thing here)  and your at the back in a crowd its all a different sound.

I dont think the tuning is the thing for me - I realise that the average home paino is detuned, and there are other scales than the equal temp sound, but \i am looking for clarity across all keys and I think any oter scale will add murk rather than detract it (overall). Thanks for the idea though.

I will keep trying to tweak Pianoteq but

Thanks everyone - I know I have been critical, but I dont mean to be too down on the product iuts verty decent in many ways and we all have different ears.

I've downloaded it again with the new 1.5 version and played the diamond
I'm so used to the PTQ resonance and sustain that I started to mix them together. True Piano and a PTQ C3 preset. Was interesting to play.
Let's see what tomorrow will bring...

V-piano could be a great product if Roland kept developing it further. Unfortunately my experience is that this company is too busy of putting new things to market, so they don't care to give too much or anything to those customers who have bought their over 5000 euros V-piano for example...

Have you downloaded and tried the set of "historical instruments"? Try the Erard (and the other pianos). It may be closer to what you want. The M3 piano also might get you closer to the desired sound.

(I myself forget just how many pianos there are in PianoTeq. Let's see...there are three pianos by default (K1, C3, M3), with interesting variations, such as the "C3 Worn-out" and the "M3 Flamenco Sketches." Then there's the Erard, the Bechstein, the Graf, and all of the others that can be changed a lot with edits. Then there's the YC5 add-on, which I play as often as I can. May be too bright for what you want, since it's a Yamaha sound. But there's a lot to try on the other instruments.

Maybe you could find a recording of the piano sound\timbre that you like and post it. That would let us make better suggestions.

HI jake
I listened to a lot of the demos, as I say its easy to get seduced by the artist rather than the hardware, the Erad came closer to what I am hearing in my head but the demo had hardly any bottom end in it, where there were bass notes they were played sostenuto. This seems to be a good model of an early piano where the art of getting the most resonance from a string(s) was not yet evolved, but nevertheless their were quality instruments.
I am busy emulating snatches of the demos on my trial version and seeing what I get - I cant say I am that close to the demo maybe its my set up, maybe its the way the recording was done - I am not sure.

Hello Mr. ZZ,

Please have a listen to this clip uploaded to the users section.  Is this tone any less nasal- or boxy-sounding to your ears? 

http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads.p...0Piano.mp3

Whaddya think?

Joe

Here're demos from Lady D:
http://www.nordkeyboards.com/main.asp?t...Nord_Piano

I've downloaded those samples to my Electro 3 and I like its woodness or whatever to make it warm and natural. I also have Roland RD700GX running there Supernatural Piano so I have those two to compare. As I said earlier Lady D is nice, warm and natural but it can be little bit difficult on stage. This is mostly cause my Electro doesn't have parameters to adjust velocity scales or dynamic range (only simple EQ). On the other hand Roland sounds little more synthetic (its partly based on V-piano technology) but it's very playable, expressive and liable on stage. With "liable" I mean that it works quite well in any place (small room to noisy stage, terrible acoustics etc.). And with Roland there're many many adjustments to make it to fit your musical demands.

Just to make sure, I'm not advertising or supporting any of those companies (it's different if they offer me a deal some day ) they're all good in their own way. With my experience with hardware pianos, I would really check them carefully if was buying one. And for example in this 1500-2000 euros price range  there're quite many competitors with very different pros and cons.

I agree - that sounds like a real piano. If that's Pianoteq, I want the FXP pronto.  This is very interesting!

Greg.

Hello Messrs. Gilles, Skip and ZeroZero,

Actually the piano in this mp3 really IS a New York Steinway, a Model M (5'7") about 30 years old, and in need of tuning.  I de-noised the hiss in the recording, and even added a tad too much reverberation to make the instrument sound less real.  You are all to be congratulated for your good ears and the courage to suggest this was a real piano. 

The piano is in a church sanctuary, and was thoroughly tuned only last June.  This shows how having air conditioning turned off (and resulting high humidity during an exceptionally warm and humid summer) can wreak havoc on the tuning of even a decent Steinway grand.  I will re-tune the piano after this upcoming weekend, so as to have it ready for when the choir resumes singing during church services.

Cheers,

Joe

You know I read a lot of criticism of Pianoteq on various forums and some of the comments can be extreme, like Pianoteq sounds disgusting, horrible, I can't bear to listen to it etc. but this recording puts me in even more awe of the technical achievement Modartt have managed with PTQ. It may not be 100% convincing yet but my god it's close! Even the metallic quality that my gut tells me is wrong in PTQ is there in that Steinway recording. Pianoteq can get soooo close that sound that it's spooky! It just reinforces how absurdly exaggerated these criticisms of PTQ are.

Putting my finger on the differences is so difficult now. There's a percussive woody quality to the attack on a real piano that isn't quite there yet in PTQ I think and it's still maybe a little too metallic even in K1 when you dig in. Back off the hammer hardness a little and it goes a bit muddy.

A point that is often overlooked is that with a real paino there are compromises too, you need to constantly pay attention to the tuning, the feel of the keyboard is set and often irregular over its rangew, its heavy and cumbersome and in most peoples living room there is no room for a grand. Also you cant simply plugin in ear phones and make as much noise as you want.
Everyone criticises DAW painos but they are always in tune, or you can often tune them to exotic scales, they can change personality from honky to pure, ot rbrn mutate into a harpsichord take up little room in your study.
I treal terms the argument  is often not about what is the best tone.

Z