The Blüthner is great; what next? (Page 2 of 3)

A toy piano would be nice.

Well, for example ...

When I use the D4 Classical (AB) as my sound, I find that the lower registers produce a sound with a sort of "snort" to it.  As I move toward the higher registers it becomes less pronounced.   So, what I usually do is blend that sound with my ES7 Concert Grand with the Pianoteq sound getting about 25 to 35 percent of the mixture.   My ES7 sound gives me a cleaner/clearer sound and the Pianoteq gives it more body/warmth.   That works for me.

I would just like to see the Pianoteq sound get cleaned up and produce a more clear sound with the parameters available to add the warmth.

I posted snort_0.mp3 as an example of the Pianoteq snort.

I started with Minuet and decided that was not going to demonstrate it,  so I switched to just playing various notes.   It became more exaggerated after I reduced the WAV file to an MP3 file.   Now, it almost sounds like a loose speaker, but it is not that.

Getting an example of the ES7 blended is more of a challenge because I use audacity to capture the sound after my mixer and for some reason I am having difficulty doing that at the moment.   If I figure it out I will post that later.

Well, I don't think I hear it. Could you note where you hear it in the mp3--as in the time locations in X:XX format? Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong sound when I think of a snort--an abrupt, resonant expiration of air, possibly with a distinct pitch. Lower pitched than a sneeze? I might hear something at around 0:31-35, but I hear it as rattling that may be distortion or may be the harp resonance.

Custral, you are hearing an end of milkshake sound that runs into the treble? Your snuffle may be what I hear, but I think it may be distortion.

Well, another term might be ... raspy.

It begins, as is most obvious, as soon as I start playing the low notes and disappears with the very high octave near the end.   It does sound like distortion.

Sure ... 13-25  and 30 - 42.

In each of those ranges, the "raspy" sound is most apparent at the beginning of the range and then it begins to lessen as it moves toward the end of the range.

Update:  I just listened again and the raspy sound begins again at 100 and continues to the end of the mp3.   In this case, the raspy sound gets worse as I am moving down the keyboard.

If the limiter is enabled, of course it's gonna distort if you push the volume... Or even if it's disabled, then you get clipping if you play enough notes to tip over 0 dBFS.

Ok, there appears to be agreement that the issue is distortion.

Well, let me describe the environment in which that sound is being recorded.

I am using the  D4 Classical (BA) option exactly as it is pre-defined.

The recording is taking place within the auto-recording feature of Pianoteq.

I select a set of notes using the File option of RECENTLY PLAYED ON THE KEYBOARD and then save it in WAV form and reduce it down to an mp3 file.

Note: the mp3 file seems to be a bit more distorted than the wav file but not much.

So, given this environment, I would expect the parameters that "might" be the issue in all of this to be set at what Modartt considers a "normal" position and should not be contributing to any distortion.

It might be interesting for someone else to upload a similar file using the same EXACT environment as a means of comparison.

I understand the wav file is also distorted, but your mp3 compression is set way too low at 64kbps. You should use at least 160kbps.

I don't hear any distortion in my setup with the out-of-the-box use of D4 that you describe. There must be something else. What are your internal and external sample rates and what physical interface do you use?

Thank you for the suggestion.   However, since others are not experiencing what I am with this issue, I prefer to deal with the RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX version of the environment so as not to end up with a long string of "Try this" options to clutter the issue.

It is my belief (hope)  that it should work just fine the way it is and if it doesn't then there must be a reason which is separate from the Pianoteq settings.   So, for now, I prefer to leave things as is until we notice something that is different from users without a problem.

I meant external USB devices like Focusrite, M-Audio and Tascam that most people use. Did you try with a larger audio buffer, yours is pretty low, especially if you use built-in audio chips not really made for ASIO. Just a suggestion. I use 256 samples, 5.3 ms and can't hear any latency. This is a limit of my gear of course.

To me Pianoteq_woof sounds normal now (not perfect, normal...). That's what I would hear, so maybe the distortion problem came from a too low buffer size. Skipping samples could cause strange sounds. If I recompress your 320kbps to 64 it only adds a very small amount of harmonic distortion, so that was not really the cause.

If you don't like what you hear in Pianoteq_woof, then it's now a matter of taste.

I wish they'd find a decent Bechstein to model. The one in the legacy presets is so horrible, that personally I consider it to be an insult to the name.

I played a reconditioned Bechstein grand at a National Trust stately home last month, and it was absolutely beautiful - full, warm and incredibly responsive; absolutely nothing even remotely like the bright, tinny preset in Pianoteq.

I really don't understand why some of those legacy presets are still included or made easily available, as they do absolutely nothing for the reputation of this amazing product.

Pianos differ even if you take two models of the same brand, and sometimes even the same models of the same brand.

The Bechstein model in pianoteq was a add-on, a quite early add on, and based in a very old Bechstein (from 1896) that  have being tunned for pop for many years.
In Pro Version you can try to retune it to classic  bit, changing the hammer hardness in diferente ways along key range, ...and other things.

But I agree that the actual models of pianoteq, like U4 specially, are way mone natural than old ones, and a new Bechstein would be certaintly amazing.

This may be of interest to you. I had done in the past precisely the same thing : mixing D4 with the internal sound of my Yamaha P-80, older and short samples but still sounding pretty good, especially in the attack.

http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads.p...80_mix.mp3

Be aware that this means retuning in Pianoteq each note that is slightly mistuned as compared to the samples.

In these tests, usually, if I remember well, I repeat a pattern first pianoteq alone then I add or remove the samples by sliding the keyboard's volume. What I recall is how similar D4 was with the P-80 samples (not said in the P-80 documentation is what instrument was sampled, could be a large Yamaha, could be Steinway or a mix)

I found D4 and the P-80 samples amazingly similar in this test, so I didn't pursue that path (as it would imply retuning each preset that I wanted to use)

If you agree that Blüthner and U4 are already improved over D4, I would take confidence that the improving model will bridge the gap sooner than you think...

Actually, I'm really enjoying the new Bright_Open_Grand FXP available over in the FXP Corner, which does a pretty good job of replicating the brighter mid-tones I recall from the vintage M&H I started playing on.  In many of the D4 presets, the middle octaves sound muffled to my ear; this FXP has a brightness and clarity that sets it apart from the other D4 presets.

The blüthner is indeed awesome, i really like it.

After playing it for a while though, i do have one question about it.... in the mid range, around the middle C, there seems to be some kind of weird octave-doubling effect, like there are strings an octave higher resonating. Is this normal, does it sound like that on a real Blüthner?

I think I'm hearing that the ES7 has a little more of the fundamental in the tone, or maybe more of the fundamental and second, or less amplitude on the other partials.

I wonder if some of what we have taken to calling the huff comes from the Delay setting in the Effects, or from the Initial delay setting in the Reverb. Might be worth some experimentation.

ddascher: might be a stupid question, but where can one listen to this recording?

/* edit */ nm, found it

got postjumped.... anyway thanks

It's probably due the fourth string in the last 3 octaves:

"The Blüthner aliquot system uses an additional (hence fourth) string in each note of the top three piano octaves"

Bluethner is awesome! Best virtual instrument I've ever owned. My own preferences for Pianoteq developments are, in order:

1. Improve low and high end (more resonant, natural bass; less tinny high end) of Bluethner and Steinway. PT is already so close and closing the gap quickly!

2. Add Bosendorfer when done with (1) - the bass would be unreal

Eventually, it would of course be great to see the amazing PT level of quality applied to all the other classes of instruments including:

- Concert harp (harpsichords Blanchett and Grimaldi are excellent and are also plucked instruments, and few really good virtual harps exist)

- Concert guitar

- Upright bass (plucked at first)

- Church organ

- More percussion

- Brass, woodwinds

- Strings

But even if all they offered was the Bluethner, I'd be happy.

Aside from continued improvement of the piano models, I would love to see a concert harp add-on. Perhaps include a couple Celtic harp models as well.  I have some excellent sampled harps but I love the convenience of having so many great instruments within Pianoteq.  I would think a harp model would not be greatly outside of the modeling parameters of a piano.  I was surprised at how great the steel pans add-on sounds and would have thought there was more complexity than such an efficient program could deliver.
  I look forward to what ever model is next!
         -Perry-

I might refer you to the Hauptwerk website, because instead of a generic "church organ", years of work have already captured individual pipe organs from around the world.  Here's the URL:

http://www.hauptwerk.com/learn-more/overview/

Regarding hardware on which to play these sampled organs, there are 2-, 3-, and 4 manual stacks of keyboards available, plus pedalboards, and touch screens are also available with which to operate the various stops.

http://www.midiworks.ca/

Of course, one may operate Hauptwerk organs from a single keyboard.  As a user, beta tester and performer of demos of certain Hauptwerk sampled pipe organs, I can attest that the software loads the entire sampled organs into the computer's RAM.  Some of the larger organs are able to swallow 32GB of RAM, or even more.

Cheers,

Joe