The Impossible Dream

They never said you could create -any- sound, in fact they said you coudn't create C1 by modifying a K1 for example, we get what they say and what we can modify.

As you can see, there are many fxp  that willcomplement the presets, because on piano sound there is no -better or best-, you have to take into account what kind of music you want to play, what kind of sound do you like, for me, many presets are good, love some fxp and  I created my own preset for the kind of music I wanted to play. Also between the community of Pianoteq there are very dedicated musicians that create awesome fxp.

You may not feel Pianoteq is enough and use it as a layer, I only use D4 and I have almost every sample out there, for me D4 was the dream sound I ever wanted so as you can see, this is a very personal subject.

I think that PianoTeq is a great training tool for understanding piano design (not that I do!)
This makes it ideal for instructing budding, and even accomplished piano technicians and for other
educational purposes. And you get a great set of pianos to do this with to boot!

Best Regards,

Chris

Well, you'll get many answers, this is surely a nice topic. For me, owning only a few sample-based pianos before, Pianoteq indeed is a dream come true. What is lacking is mainly my own skills to use all the features we get in "pro" best. As others said, this is so much a matter of taste that of course there is no "definitive" statement to be made, from who ever. I still love the old models (those Walter, Schaf, Schöffstoss, Graf for example) and LOVE the Bechstein, with a few changings I did for myself. Now I think a lot of pianoteq-players would disagree...
Just that nothing I had before gives me 1710th of the variety I have now.

I agree with you, there are sounds we might never see "accomplished". And it is extremely difficult to give us such a variety of superb sounds, that must be true also.
Did you lately played, say 5 of your favourite pieces, with a few different models you didn't touch since some time? I do that often, or look what I changed for my K1 and C3 and try similar things in D4 or the old luvly Bechstein, Pleyel...usually I am surprised about the sounds I get, and change from there. Highly personal, and no results (yet) to put into fxp corner, but this way is a first step to get nearer to what you like. And in the pro version of course learning what can be done. I'd be happy like on christmas about more tutorials for that, and about some guide from a "in the know"-tech (like: "usually, if you slightly change XYZ in the lowest register, you'd get ABC, and if you tried 123 maybe you could..." ;-)).

Nice topic. Sound is an endless story, but mainly I'm impressed and happy with what we got with p4.

Not everyone... I'd add that one needs to clean the wax out of their ears, toss the tin cans and string and play the instrument through a decent sound path. Pianoteq 4 is the best piano emulation that I have ever played.

Have you tried the different eq-settings on the HS80M? (specially the mid...)

If you get supernatural powers to change the pieces of a real Grand piano, like changing the hardness of wood, hardness of hammers, lenht of the harp and sound board, unisson etc...   you would find that's not easy to create a perfect piano sound of  your dreams.

Pianoteq require some patience to adjust the model, just as a real piano would require.

Patience Daniel-Son...

All that's true, but based on their track record Modartt will not be making a breakout pure-harmonics-mixing instrument.

Though if any team's better kitted up to do it we aren't hearing about it. Perhaps an arm within the team might take shape and have a go at it, see if it flies. I'd buy. Been waiting for such a thing since the Amiga.

Imagine a hybridising  instrument that inherits pianoforte's ADSR envelope (a limitation) as default, but with tinkering capability like Note Edit addressed to the various sections of it, and polyphonic aftertouch addressed particularly to the Decay section.

Now throw in a Clarinet formant, for example, for the Note Edit to tinker with, and it'd be interesting. Pianists might love its abilities, organists, composers definitely. Some of them anyway, non-purists all.

And like when I heard of Pianoteq, I'd buy. Take all of twenty minutes.

Depends what one regards as "impossible".
Ultimately one could fuss over a Steinway D or Bosendorder as "still imperfect".
If one had both of those the impossible dream would probably be a piano with the best attributes of each of them.

To me PTQ is an interesting adjustable instrument, there are too many pre-sets for me to fully explore, most of them are quite acceptable.
I probably should have bought the Play(now "Stage") version instead of the one with too many knobs, switches, sliders & do-dadds (for me) to be useful.
I regard it as a sandbox for sound experimenters, which is a FINE pastime in and of itself - IMO.
As a matter of "perspective" I can have a good time on a hideously neglected upright with a few broken strings, making music being more important than achieving "sound fidelity", or whatever term one wants to fling around.
I still have a great time playing my now decades old U220 piano module, in fact I play that more than PTQ. 
It is already there, I don't have to lug a laptop to the keyboard, start up programs, plug midi cables, etc. 
I can just sit down and spontaneously play for a few minutes (which could become an hour or more) without having to "set up to play".

For folk like me there may be a market for a DP with PTQ Stage already "integrated" into it.
Except for the fact that I already have keyboard, amp, speakers, etc. (-:

Physis is doing modelling in a DP, so they believe that there is a market for it.
I don't know how many knobs, switches, sliders, do-dadds are user available on that.

Not something I have any interest in doing, but I imagine that just about any continuous controller could be connected to just about any of the PTQ user accessible controls.
Whether it would be practical or even desirable to "fade" between different pianos over the course of a few bars or a turnaround... is debatable.

I suppose if there was an SDK one could write external scripts to gradually change all the FPX settings - or hook up an air turn and do it in a single foot stomp :-D

What bass shaker have you experimented with? I was unaware of these, and just looked them up. These "tactile transducers" seem to be popular. (There is at least one video about attaching one to a waterbed on Youtube.)

It seems as though some of them have a wider range than others and can produce audible results.  I wonder what would happen if one or two were attached to a piece of wood with good acoustic properties. Like a soundboard, for example.

Or to a larger piece of wood the size of a piano or a wall. I've wanted a wall-sized speaker for a long time.