Pianoteq 3.0 First Impressions (Page 1 of 2)

Looks and sounds fantastic! Big congratulations and thanks to Modartt!

One more time just finished my first session with Version 3 ,Super ,I do own all the latest piano vsts yes they are all good but , One thing they lack is that magic that pianoteq has the ability to express yourself without  thinking about  of the short comings of the software (while playing, recording, etc..) , In Pianoteq you load it up and play no second thought about will I have drop outs , will i have total control over my velocity is my drive good enough and many other feelings that you get as you use other libraries

not to mention Pianoteq has total control on all aspects

Again BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO !

you have to down load the other file provided its the bottom of the same page as your upgrade you'll see this

"Legacy

For users who want to get the exact sound of the first PIANOTEQ versions also provide these PTQ files in the instrument table page. " the link is the word instruments

As I said in my post, I have V2 legacy models installed correctly. It's just that V2 .fxp's don't get loaded at all! To substantiate my claim, see the next two screenshots:

Here I correctly loaded M1 jazz instrument, and it plays normally.

Here you can see that .fxp's from user area aren't loaded, and you can see on top that Erard etc. are greyed out for those presets. BUT, I can load Erard and all KiViR instruments just fine! I just can't load V2 fxp's. Which is strange, because in beta I was able to do that.

The trial version is fantastic!
I'll probably buy it once it's ok for Receptor use...

I think the bass has been overdone now, and I also think the sound is very muddy overall, to the extent that I prefer the V2.3 C2 and S.Erard instruments. I do think there is some nice character in the C3 bass notes though - some nice metallic overtones.

I absolutely *love* the electric pianos!

Greg.

Note that I haven't tried Erard in V3 yet - I haven't loaded the V2.3 instruments yet. I may well prefer Erard in V3 too!

Greg.

I agree with this - I found the C3 bass to have nice character as you say, but my impression is that the treble isn't as bright and clear (muddy).  Could this be that it's a relative comparison?  Don't know but will be doing some recording and comparing in a wave editor (A/B comparisons).

I was pretty much using the V2.3 C2 Chamber as my favourite, but after a few hours experimenting last night, I find that much to my surprise the Erard Binaural with the headphones in the pianist's position to be very nice (or with my head in the piano!).  I wasn't terribly impressed with the V2.3 Erard, whereas for many users it was their favourite.

I'm coming to the conclusion that that this topic can be very subjective, and is also largely affected by one's sound system.  I suspect that much of the (perceived) variation is due to individual systems.

The microphone placement in V3.0 can dramatically affect the sound.  I put one mic on the floor below the curve and I thought the bass sound might bounce the speakers off my desk.

Glenn

I don't have such dynamic problems as you, Beto. It's weird Oo'

Great, it works now! Btw, I still haven't got an e-mail regarding EPs... ^^'

Now in ACTION tab you can set the number of strings which have dampers!

No problem! It's solved now :D

Thanks for the clarification - I couldn't quite figure this one out.

The manual reads, "All keys with midi note number greater than this value have no damper".  I'd never seen the keys numbered before - my midi sequencer is missing this value.  It shows velocity and duration in addition to C# or whatever, but no number for C#5 for example.

Glenn

Strongly agreed, and my understanding is that bass response in particular is HIGHLY variable. 

Greg.

There is several problematic notes yet. Maybe this version should keep more time in beta testing.
When playing Bach's prelude, the note E3 pressed, keeped, and followed by note F3, creates a huge tremolo quite anoying.  (I mean E3 as the third E in a complete octave)

The problems are more noticiable while playing simple and slow music.

Additional Impressions (all positive):

1.  The new interface with the ease of saving modifications (with names) to the presets pianos is very useful.  I've modified at least four using the binaural settings.

2.  Dragging and dropping Add-ons etc. to the Pianoteq interface is very useful too.

3.  But most importantly to me is that I no longer hear occasional clicks when playing live or playing a midi file (my piano generates continuous damper pedal control numbers from zero to 127 and this takes a lot of computational power - a typical file will have up to ten consecutive values between individual notes).  In fact I have midi files that literally have more damper controls than notes (controller 64).

Glenn

Definately.
Different speakers and different rooms (or different headphones) will have hugely different bass responses -
in particular, the resonant modes of rooms will make some frequencies boom and others much quieter.
Anyone griping about their bass is being a bit silly if they're not taking those factors into account.

I agree - I'm actually sorry I said anything - even if I were right (which is highly doubtful) it's so easy to adjust that it's a non-issue anyway. Sorry!

UPDATE: I've steepened my velocity curve a bit and I'm enjoying it a lot more now. (doh)  I made the mistake of using my eyes to check the velocity response instead of my ears.

Greg.

Thanks for the tip, I'll try it.

Glenn

I am still sitting on the fence whether to buy this product or not. Earlier this week I downloaded trial version 2.3, and suddenly, there is 3.0 Big surprise to newbie like me.

Found the previous version basically OK, except sadly lacking in the bass, but that's fixed now. It sounds overall much better. So that's the good point.

However, I really wanted to buy it for the free add-on historical pianofortes, but there is none here to try out. That's the bad point for me.

The only historical instruments we can sample is a not convincing enough sounding French double harpsichord, but we have only one keyboard to play it with. NO stop control either (such an instrument would have 8' + 4' on manual I, 8' and Lute on Manual 2, plus a coupler). So, there is no way to authentically play such a French double at all. It's regretful that this instrument is included in the trial version.
But why don't you make the historical add-ons available in the trial version? It's a kind of make or break situation for me.

Thanks for this and the other advice. So far, though, I have noticed an improvement by doing the opposite - I have made the velocity response steeper (tapering off near the end so that 127 still maps to 127, though). I can still play softy easily, but it is easier to make notes stand out when I want them to - before they weren't quite bright enough (for my taste).  This way, the rich bass notes are not "hiding" the mid-range notes like they were initially.  Nevertheless I will try both your suggestions and report back.

Greg.

I like this surprisingly free update very much. Also the quick bug fixing was really great. The sound of C3 is all I wanted by tweaking V2.3 presets to the limit.

There is an interesting thing I recognized several days befor  V3 was published. I always worked with PTQ in Nuendo and there I programmed my presets. Then I tested Samplitude V10 and PTQ in there and from the first Key strikes on I knew that PTQ sounded very different compared playing it in NUENDO! (same Keyboard, same Room; same setting at all) All of my FXP's where useless and sounded very strange. I checked if there was a difference with velocity-but no-this was not the reason. Actually I didn't find a reason it was just a matter of fact that it sounded much better in Samplitude.
So this shows that it's hard to comunicate about the sound of PTQ with other users not having the same setups. The change of the Host app. changed the sound competly, even on the same computer. (And I don't want to say that Nuendo is not a good software)
I'm telling this to everyone how is wondering about the different opinions people on this forum site are often having. 180 degree opinions (experiances) from my own (or your own). My conclusion about this is, that It's very hard to talk about the sound of PTQ without recording something to Audio and then talking about if you like it or not. I made many productions with my (now) strange sounding FXP's and it did work, because it worked in my special setup. The same FXP sounds strange in an other setup.  ( I'm not  interested why-anymore, it made me sick%%%§§§€€€)

Now with PTQ 3 I like the sound much more from the beginning, so I don't have to tweak Overtones. I just played with the Mic positions (I like much) and the EQ (much better now). The sound is nearly perfect for me now (maby just on my computer so I nail it to audio ASAP not to loose it ).

One thing about V3 I could like someday: The virtual room where the micro's are placed could be adjustable (shape,damping etc) this would be the crown on this excellent piece of work. I did'nt expect this huge step within a free update! (I'm not able to think about a pro Version without the fear I need the master of arts first)
Congratulations Modartt!! And Thanx for beeing patient.

(Greg: Occurs to me that we may be talking about different things--I should add that I sometimes reduce those upper three partials when playing a lot of chords in the middle of the keyboard. You may be talking about something else entirely.)

Just an update on my mid-range issue: I don't have any problem with other instruments such as C2, S.Erard and M3.  I wonder whether C3 is just a bit too "refined" for me at the moment.    Note that I am also wondering whether part of the problem may be that Pianoteq does not yet model the interaction *between* strings for *chords*. I.e, if I crank sympathetic resonance up to max, chords still sound identical to how they did without any sympathetic resonance, whereas as we know staccato playing with other notes held yields a huge sympathetic resonance.  When this sympathetic resonance is modelled fully, I *surmise* that there will be a sort of slow phasing/chorusing that will occur for chords, which isn't happening at the moment. 

Note that I realise Global Resonance does change the way chords sound, but I don't think this effect produces the type of thing I am seeking.

Other than this slight issue I am having with the C3 instrument, I am enjoying V3.0 immensely.  As an experiment I fired up Gigapiano 1.0 which I hadn't played for a very long time,  and other than the nice stereo ambience which it has, it sounded like a toy in comparison to
Pianoteq.

UPDATE: If you're wondering, YES, I do prefer the C3 Wornout preset to the other C3 presets.

Greg.