Pianoteq 4 impressions!. (Page 3 of 5)

i am pretty impressed. for me the d4 spacious with a small room reverb and duration with no pre-delay to add a bit more colour to the attack, and dynamics up to 50 percent, sounds very very good.  i will purchase the play version when it arrives. i will then have this and the two famous presets from my gem rpx to choose from ! this is much much better than version 3 and the v piano. roland supernatural is also fantastic but i would only buy a sound module as i dont require another keyboard.

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I don't think that's entirely fair.  There are people between those two extremes too, some have posted on this thread.

How about you post two clips, one rendered with your preferred sample lib, the other with the closest PT sound (to your ears)?  I think Modartt can always use the feedback of what exactly users want, and maybe someone here is willing to tweak a sound to get close to your sample library (sorry it's not me, not enough time).  That would be interesting.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but do you mind if I ask what equipment you are using for listening? Which monitors or which headphones? I ask partly because of my own experience: After using a pair of AKG K240's for some time, I recently left them for a pair of Sennheisser 280's, and then left them in favor of listening to music and PianoTeq using monitors. Pianoteq comes through very differently on the AKG's. I much prefer the sound of the Senns and the monitors.

I'm not accusing your equipment or your ears. Just curious.

Not liking the sound of Steinway is completely legitimate.

Myself, I prefer the sound of Bösendorfer far more!

The K1 appears is PT4 but not the M3 or C3. I can only find them on the legacy downloads for PT3. Can you please clarify
Thanks

Yes, download the legacy file (v3.ptq) for the improved versions of M3 and C3.

So time to get involved into discussion, too. I think the D4 is an instrument with great potential, I like it especially in the upper registers. But I also noticed that it has certain overtones that are so strong that I hear them as individual notes which is quite unpleasant. Especially around C2-D2 (I'm not very familiar with english note names but I mean the 2nd C,D from the left on an ordinary piano keyboard) These overtones become quite annoying. I think C2 is the worst key. So I tried to identify the harmonics responsible for that noise and removed them around these notes with the spectrum profile function in note edit. The resulting fxp can be found in the fxp corner where I also added an mp3 demo showing how the piano sounds with- and without(lets better say reduced) that "metallic noise".

FXP: http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads.php?id=1478

I also have to mention that I've heard this phenomenon on an actual grand, too. It is a small Steinway (could be A?) that has one key in the bass range where I can hear one overtone standing out very strongly. So It can't be said this is unrealistic, but I would not buy a grand that shows such things

Need some help...
Can anyone with a pro version try to emulate a sound from TruePianos diamond module please?
I love that sound, that attack and clarity but phasing issues make it unusable for me.
If anyone can emulate and share a fxp for v4 I would be extremly grateful

V4 is a big improvement indeed, low and highs in D4 are near perfection now but I notice lack of quality in mid range...actually it's really obvious...can this be improved with pro version?

Here are my first impressions!

I love the new features and improved reverb.
I was hoping for a loop function in the midi player. Some other users asked for this too. No worries!
I love the scaleability of the GUI, something I wish more developers would implement.

I find the sound of the bass and the higher notes of D4 wonderful.
At first, I was disappointed with the sound in the middle range which I feel lacks the shimmer and movement of overtones in a real piano. After adjusting the Q settings for a longer decay, increasing cut off, decreasing direct sound duration and increasing unison width I was a little happier with the results.

I feel that Modartt need to work on the complexity of the decay portion of the note in the mid range of the keyboard.

I have some links to some recordings of real pianos which I think demonstrate what I mean.

http://soundcloud.com/fulvia1973/debuss...agment-pt4

http://soundcloud.com/fulvia1973/debuss...agment-pt4

http://soundcloud.com/fulvia1973/soft-m...-of-season

I'm especially fond of both the piano sound and the room ambience in the Debussy recordings. If anyone can help guide me how to recreate these I would be very appreciative.

Some other thoughts...

...There have been some useful comments on this thread...someone mentioned that the Steinway D has its own characteristic sound and that it is not to everyone's taste. I agree! In Moddart's defence, they are showcasing one instrument here, and there will be likely more instuments to follow which embrace their improved modelling.

...There was some talk above, about categorising users...I'm probably like many others here...I'm really fond of Pianoteq, and for me, that is because it is not just about the end result being a singular authentic piano sound; it is also about providing something which is extremely flexible, good value, a communal discourse and intelligent debate, and great support from Modartt, playability, the sense of development, and a range of instruments (more needs to be said about the brilliance of the Rhodes/Wurlitzer e-pianos, and the historical keyboards which were freebies!!). These are some of the reasons why many people (including myself) do "love" Pianoteq, and they are all good reasons which go beyond the shear exacting accuracy of the sound itself!

...For just over 40 years or so, synth developers have tried to recreate the sound of the real piano (and musicans have been impatient for exacting accuracy). It has been one of their most difficult ambitions owing to the complexity of the task. If anyone really nails it, then it will be Modartt. I can't see sampling technology achieving this, because, in a real piano the sounds of vibrating strings interact with one another; they vibrate the cabinet and the air, and the sound waves move in the air and interact. Static recordings of notes played cannot achieve this complexity. What a beast of a task to try and replicate this with algorithms, but I support Modartt all the way as this seems to be the best approach available and they are doing a fantastic job.

thanks, i will do it next week

I agree with comments that Pianoteq 4 sounds significantly more real in the midrange than version 3, and that it is a major upgrade, for other reasons as well.  But does it sound like a real piano if you AB the two? I don’t think so. I played the D4 demo and then played the Vintage D. There’s just no comparison in terms of piano realism.

But if you play the D4 alone, not comparing it to anything else, it stands up very well, as I think the version 3 instruments do also. If we think of Pianoteq as an instrument in it’s own right, it’s truly excellent. Under the right circumstances it’s a more than convincing piano substitute.

I recently completed a solo piano album which uses the Pianoteq C3 extensively. I waited like everyone else for version 4, then I couldn’t wait any longer. A major consideration for me was that, to discriminating ears, the piano sound was less than convincing. I found myself listening very critically to my tracks, but even so I’d find myself forgetting about the sound and getting involved with the music. Of course, this was my own music But I think it applies that, because Pianoteq is a real instrument, we find it easy to lose ourselves while playing it, and become involved with the music when we’re listening to it recorded.

Pianoteq continues to improve and narrow the realism gap, but will it ever completely close that gap? I think nothing will ever sound completely like a piano except a piano, and I’m happy about that.

If anyone would like to hear demos from my solo piano album which uses Pianoteq extensively, you can go here: http://michaelhagglund.com

Michael

thank you

PS: you can move out the "note edit" window, and expand it as you wish (like zooming)

Once again, Modartt thinks one step ahead

I'm glad I pushed the zooming feature, I didn't figure out that was also applied on undocked note edit windows!!! Thanks, guys!

You could detach the panel from the inter face, then resize it by dragging the bottom right corner. It would be nice if you could do the same with the virtual keyboard.

Already suggested above by imyself

I wouldn't worry about sliders. This behavior enables greater precision.

That behavior is BY DESIGN. Move left-right for normal precision. Move up-down for finer precisoin.

I agree with you on the undo behavior. The value should only be registered in an undo block AFTER you let go of the mouse button. I am sure Modartt is going to fix it - perhaps we should've been wary of this during the beta test.

Oh, sorry for misreading you. I see now what you were trying to say.

Btw, a B4 would be amazing, I hope it is in the works.

Good one!

Best way to drag perfectly orthogonally is using the mouse wheel (if you have one of course...)

My mouse wheel, at least, sometimes takes 2 numeric steps per click, instead of a wanted single one. So wheeling's a bit hit and miss still. However, a right click then a keyboard entry of the desired value into the resulting popup is as definite, and single-stepped, as the guy finding many Undo's a pain (sorry, forget the moniker) could ask.

The new slider behavior IS a pain to encounter. Reminds one of the original mouse types, where behavior like it meant it was time the clean the ball-felt off.

Meantime, I cocked my head at the Volume and Dynamic sliders, and saw they are perfect analogies for the Brightness and Contrast controls on a TV. So here we have a Steinway D pianoforte that can be zero-Piano/zero-Forte (full left crank of Dynamic) or a PPPP/FFFF instrument (full right) at will. More usefully, one can adjust the 'shades-of-grey' present in any performance not as-per a relationship between touch and volume set by the manufacturer, but as-per a setting of one's own liking. Beat that, Steinway.

And my first impression of the sound is, I greatly like having Bass to throw away, instead of having not enough of it. Thank YOU Team.

Reducing the range of some parameters in Options\Midi will help in letting you move in smaller increments. (There are only 127 steps in midi, so if a parameter has a wide range between the highest and lowest setting, each step will be larger.)