erichlof wrote:...but I believe Pianoteq handles certain elements through various sliders that are split up. For instance, DirectSound = Decay? Damper efficiency = Release? Impedance = Attack? I know that they are not the classic Moog-type filters, but they kind of perform the same functions on a string tone.
You broach a complex subject, here. An ADSR envelope is a way of controlling an already recorded note, while the physical modelling behind PianoTeq is instead emulating the way that the components of a piano react to the force of the hammer blow. Some of these components seem similar to the ADSR stages, but they don't correspond directly. For example, one way to extend the decay of a note in PianoTeq is to move the Direct duration slider to the left. In fact, you'll probably want to reduce the Impedance with this setting, since the decay will otherwise be too long. (The less Direct duration of the strings, the less energy is quickly lost to the air and the soundboard, and thus the more energy is transferred slowly to the soundboard.)
Impedance isn't the same as the Attack stage. It's instead the density of the soundboard wood, essentially--its mass. So increasing the impedance doesn't delay the onset of the note, like increasing the Attack length on an ADSR envelope. The increase will instead delay the rate at which the vibrations progress through the soundboard. Think of impedance as meaning resistance or inertia. Thus setting a low impedance means that the sound moves through the soundboard as though it was cardboard, producing little sustain or decay. Conversely, with a medium or high Direct duration setting, increasing the impedance\mass also extends the decay, but with a different timbre from that created by reducing the Direct duration. Adjusting the degree to which both of these parameters control the decay has a large effect on the timbre of the decay.
The Damper duration does correspond more closely to the Release stage on an ADSR envelope, but the effect differs significantly. Increasing the Damper duration increases the amount of time it takes for the note to die, but only some freqs are left exposed as the weight and felt of the damper overcome the forces moving the strings. (Moving the damper position lets you change the position of the damper and thus what freq and its multiples are left exposed or cut off earliest.) Using an ADSR envelope, the Release stage instead prolongs the release of all of the freqs.
It helps to think of the panels in PianoTeq as corresponding to the elements that contribute, in chronological order, to the transmission of the force to the strings and then the soundboard and then to the air, with the leftmost\earliest panel representing the make-up of the strings prior to the arrival of the force of the hammer strike on them. This way sanity lies, more or less. (At least one exception, here: the length of the strings\their inharmonicity is defined later, in the right-most, Design panel.) In other words, thinking in terms of an ASDR envelope creates a mental block because it encourages thinking of stages of a note as it sounds from start to end, whereas the panels in PT are instead laid out to control the physical things in a piano that affect the sound in chronological order, and these are not always the same.
So...there are similarities that one naturally seeks when coming from a sampling background, as I and most people here did, but sampling is more an attempt to emulate the effect of the physical components by changing the envelope of a note, while modelling instead attempts to recreate the components and how they interact to create the note, so the elements that are controlled differ, even though the intended result is similar.
Not to lecture. The above description is a simplification, since the way the elements interact is actually more complex. The more I experiment in PianoTeq, the more I see I have to learn. Looking forward to what you discover. It's a journey. And a real trip.
Last edited by Jake Johnson (13-01-2011 08:29)
