Topic by Camreals

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Topic: Help! What DP / laptop / speakers for fortepiano sounds in Pianoteq?

I’m looking to buy a DP plus software to replicate early pianos familiar to Mozart and Schubert. I have just discovered the beautiful fortepiano sounds bundled with the Pianoteq package, from MODARTT. Listen to the wonderful, singing tones of the Walter, Graf and Schöffstoss pianos, which you can hear on http://www.pianoteq.com/listen_historical.

However, I should be grateful for advice on what DP I should buy. It seems to me that all I need is a good, variably weighted, piano touch, plus sustaining and una corda pedals, coupled with good sound, and the software will do the rest. Would the Roland HP203 do the job? Is an extra £800 or so for HP207’s better speakers worth it? Or, should I output from the laptop to dedicated audio equipment?

I also need a suitable laptop. Judging from various posts on the Pianoworld forum, my earlier assumption that any old laptop will do (I have a 4-year old 3 gig HP) appears wide of the mark. I need to buy a new laptop anyway. One post suggests a “high end gaming machine”. Other posts emphasise the sound card, e.g. the Lexicon “Alpha” or Audigy4. A secondary function of the DP keyboard will be to input music to create Sibelius scores on the laptop.

Any suggestions?

Reply by EvilDragon

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Re: Help! What DP / laptop / speakers for fortepiano sounds in Pianoteq?

I will suggest you for a new laptop. Get an Intel Core2Duo laptop, at least 2 GHz (more if you can), with at least 2 GB of DDR2 RAM (more if you can). Get an external soundcard (forget Audigy, that's gamer crap, not good for low latency audio) - a neat choice would be E-MU 0404 USB, it's not too expensive, and it has great ASIO drivers which can have really low latency.

Now a question for you - will you be using XP, Vista or Windows 7? 23-bit or 64-bit? I suggest using XP 32-bit because it's still the fastest and doesn't take up much RAM when you tweak it (also, do a Google search for "DuX Win XP XP3" and you will find a very tweaked WinXP build which takes UNDER 100 MB of RAM when loaded!).

About your MIDI controller, take a good look at Studiologic controllers as well.

Hard work and guts!

Reply by Glenn NK

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Re: Help! What DP / laptop / speakers for fortepiano sounds in Pianoteq?

Camreals wrote:

It seems to me that all I need is a good, variably weighted, piano touch, plus sustaining and una corda pedals, coupled with good sound, and the software will do the rest. Would the Roland HP203 do the job? Is an extra £800 or so for HP207’s better speakers worth it? Or, should I output from the laptop to dedicated audio equipment?  Any suggestions?

I wouldn't be interested in a DP that couldn't generate damper control values from zero to 127.  Fortunately both my Rolands did/do this.  This gives one far more control.  Most midi files DL'd from the net have two values (zero and 127 - dampers down and dampers fully up). Some have a third value of 64 which gives a bit more control.

In all probability, the HP203 will do this as would the HP207.  Unfortunately the specs don't say, and very few salespeople even know what this is.  A full range of values allows damper control that would otherwise only be found on a good acoustic grand.

"Better speakers" is a bit subjective - to some, better speakers are near field powered monitors.  The speakers in most DPs aren't loaded properly (in a sealed acoustic box) or ported (exception being the very high end ones that look like a small grand piano).

Heed the Dragon's suggestion of the EMU - they have real ASIO drivers that function (as opposed to the generic ASIO4ALL) that doesn't always work.

http://www.pgmusic.com/ubbthreads/showf...;fpart=all

The comments by Lex Nahumury are interesting - and I believe accurate.  Reading the forums, it seems that some people are OK with ASIO4ALL, some aren't.

Glenn

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Reply by Michael H

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Re: Help! What DP / laptop / speakers for fortepiano sounds in Pianoteq?

I'd suggest outputting the laptop's sounds, regardless of what soundcard you're using, to a separate audio system and not using a digital piano's speaker system.
The DP manufacturers set up their speakers and amps and even the cavity within the instruments for best reproduction of THEIR sounds, not someone else's. You'd most likely be disappointed if you don't use external amplification/speakers.

If your main interest is Pianoteq's sounds, or other computer generated sounds, a nice controller, such as EvilDragon suggested, would be plenty adequate, and would save you money too.

Reply by Michael H

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Re: Help! What DP / laptop / speakers for fortepiano sounds in Pianoteq?

Also, progressive damper control, such as Glenn mentioned, could be acheived on any keyboard controller that has an assignable continuous controller pedal input.

Reply by EvilDragon

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Re: Help! What DP / laptop / speakers for fortepiano sounds in Pianoteq?

Michael H wrote:

Also, progressive damper control, such as Glenn mentioned, could be acheived on any keyboard controller that has an assignable continuous controller pedal input.

Or the ones that explicitly support progressive damper pedals via continuous damper pedal inputs.

Hard work and guts!

Reply by Michael H

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Re: Help! What DP / laptop / speakers for fortepiano sounds in Pianoteq?

EvilDragon wrote:

Or the ones that explicitly support progressive damper pedals via continuous damper pedal inputs.

Right, like some of the Studiologics that you were mentioning. On my vintage Yamaha KX88 I have to do it by the cc pedal method.

Reply by sigasa

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Re: Help! What DP / laptop / speakers for fortepiano sounds in Pianoteq?

If I were you, I would go play one of the Yamaha CLP 370 or 380 DP's but make sure it has the wooden white keys. These high end Yamaha DP's have Yamahas best DP action. It is called the NL2 action (or NW - Natural Wood). I seriously recommend that you give it a try before making your final decision. Also, these pianos include all three pedals. Another piece of advice would be to steer clear of Rolands synthetic ivory keytops. They are ok at first but after a time the most played notes begin to get rougher! Check out the forums on this and you'll see what I mean. If I was going to buy a new DP I would buy a high end CLP with wooden white keys.

Reply by Glenn NK

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Re: Help! What DP / laptop / speakers for fortepiano sounds in Pianoteq?

I've DL'd hundreds literally hundreds of midi files, and very few have more than three damper control values (most only two).  This seems to indicate that many DPs do not send these signals or record them to a midi file.

The only site I can think of offhand with files with the full range is the Minnesota e-Piano Competitions (the midis are recorded on Disclavier Yamahas acoustic grands).

Glenn

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