Recreating a specific upright piano sound

Hello Ole,
These are references tracks, and in no case are my own music composition.
It is the piano sound that I am after, with the same timbre and coloration.
I agree that a real piano will never be surpassed by any library or samples, but still I am looking for something that would be close.

At one time, Pianoteq ran a pretty wide-ranging set of examples as Tutorials in sound-matching from recorded piano sound to imitation via Pianoteq. They seem to have been dropped nowadays. However surely they still exist, so if you ask Modartt, maybe a copy can be resurrected for you.

Hi Edmond.  If you end up using Pianoteq, I think you will be able to get pretty close to the sound you want. Just after a quick listen, I would soften the hammer hardness of piano and mezzo and maybe raise it a bit for forte.  The examples you gave sound pretty dark / warm at most velocities, while still being able to have a note stand out pretty sharply at high velocities.
  I'm in a noisey (construction) environment this morning but I took a quick test with the U4 Upright in Pro. I just played in the same note range as your examples.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2l0c55y8y5osn...0Piano.mp3

Studiocat, that is actually not bad at all, but I guess it lacks a bit this kind of 'over-used' piano.
Thanks a lot for the quick turnaround, and you actually described it best: pretty warm sound, but I'd correct and say being able to have a note stand out pretty sharply too.
One more thing, did you use any microphone setup?
Since I'm trying to recreate the live recording, I was also trying to mic the piano stereo front, 2x times mono from the back and 1 room, and route them to different output, so I could apply independent treatment.

and last but not least, is it possible to have a screen-grab of the settings or maybe a preset?
Thanks a bunch,

Custral, maybe you are referring to these workshops:
https://www.pianoteq.com/d4_in_action?s=d4_workshop ?
One important thing in those workshops is the order in which the parameters are adjusted.

Jason Beck aka Chilly Gonzales or simply Gonzales. The albums Solo Piano and Solo Piano II contain some of the best modern solo piano music you're likely to ever find. Bonus.

Perhaps it's worth noting that he seems to play with the front of the piano taken off, which probably affects the sound.

Thank you Studicat for that!
I'll give that (modifying the hammer hardness) a try.
I already added some wear to the piano, but what I meant is like to hear more of the key noises, not only the release sound, but the sound of the actual keys.

Key and pedal noise volume is adjusted in Action section.

Thank you, Philippe, that's them.

And edmond, notice Philippe's tip about order-of-ops, examining how that's borne out with the examples (each amplifying in its own way the 'bundle' of ops it needs at a particular stage); while if you have Pro, the FXP given for a stage will numerically spell out the detail summarised verbally, plus hinted at in pictures. Useful, those numbers, coming alive as they will, if you read the manual where it concerns the current parameter you've focused-down on.

Philippe comes from piano-tuning way back, which makes his use of hearing challenging, but don't let that put you off using your own for matching. May even wind up with better than a match, it's a possible.

I had an idea about synthetising directional mikes - line up 2 omnis of your 5 on your target, see how that goes. All it can do, bar succeed, is fail!

I've been spending a couple of hours on microphones placement, trying to recreate a live session: 2 mics in front, 2 mics behind and 1 somewhere in the room.
The  microphones behind the 'wall' are not getting the low end, but I guess it's because they're omni. They sound muffled behind the wall, and when I 'move' the wall, they're getting very close to the sound of the front mics. So I assume, I'd rather stick with 3 microphones, 2 front and one room.
Tried Studiocat's tip to lower the hardness of the hammers, got some decent sound, or at least this is what I thought, and then played along the velocity level.
Recorded a few bars, and when compared the sound is still 'muffled'.
I am surely missing some point, and would gladly have few more tips regarding this thing,
your thoughts?

No hope of matching the sound you want from where I sit. But having the Upright, while never having looked at it, hauled it out now, with aim : get it sounding handsome.

I used Elmar Gasanov's MIDIs from the Disklavier 2009 Competition running through a MIDI jukebox to Pianoteq as my test-pattern, because he's a touch-master (handsome is as does). Plus since 'muffled' is the foe chose the Open Upright, as likeliest place to beat it from.

"Recorded a few bars" sounds like your project aims to do just that, you are finally to Play your compositions. My jukebox/testpattern setup differs from that, and I'll come to fixing that later (easy, even if you don't have Pro). Bear the difference for now. I'll post a couple of FXPs to show stages.

You'll see immediately from the first FXP I've used a very obvious stereo miking setup, just 2 mikes - less confusion (= muffle). Less obvious are Stereo Width now 3.0, Level Compensation now Off (let the mikes tell their own distance-story). Lid starts completely Open, and left it that way (no muffling, see what the graphic does as you play with Lid, excellent facilitation if it does what it depicts). That ends the miking stage.

Looking around the GUI, turned these Off : Limiter Switch, Delay, Reverb.

At this point, listening showed very top octave had right timbre for an Upright but badly exaggerated Volume, completely out of whack at F..FF. Shouldn't have been happening on the simple miking, so, a puzzle.

Floundering for any obvious identifiable cause, first chose Equaliser's Medium preset for no big change, then diving into Pro's Note Edit facility, first added a severe rolloff for the top octave of Hammer Hardness Forte, then added a less-severe rolloff for Hammer Hardness Mezzo. That was an improvement, so I next added a rolloff in Volume, without any clear idea if this was a reality for an Acoustic piano, but since it helped, left it in.

End of changes for the first FXP.

Now still wondering what acoustically-real factor could show up as *Volume", it occurred to me the Disklavier Elmar was working on might have had lighter hammers than Elmar was used to in the problem range, causing him to overhit there. That would show up to my ears directly as a Volume-problem, if the hammers in that range for the Upright model Modartt worked from didn't match Disklavier's, were heavier. So yes, there can be a real difference between the pianos that record versus the pianos that replay, just on account of hammer weight differences... which are exactly what's to be expected of pianos everywhere (including those the Disklavier contestants practise on).

So, I expanded the Volume range rolled off by twice as much for the second FXP.

Listening around to other Disklavier contestants tells me I've now got some sort of handsome result, might have overdone/underdone it, according as this contestant and that fights thru from his own piano into Disklavier, and on into Modartt's Upright.

So, that's my jukebox aim and problem dealt with. While you can simply forget about any rolloffs needing
Pro, your own playing will naturally come to terms with your keyboard, just stick with the miking and GUI switchoffs shown, about as vanilla as possible (BIG plus), and an un-muffled and very articulate product from Modartt could  result for you.

That's all supposing the idea about hammer-weights showing up as Volume effects is good. Can't see why not for now.

Excuse my ignorance on this topic, but he uses the soft pedal a lot in most songs, and from what I've seen he plays a Bechstein with an unsual mechanism for softening the sound. It's a sort of leathery blanket that drops down inbetween hammer and string, or possibly just lands on the strings, when the pedal is pressed. Perhaps this can explain some of the characteristics of the sound? I don't know what this is called, never seen one in real life.

Btw, I didn't think Pianoteq actually took the front cover off the box when you opened up the top, I thought it was just an illustration in the front view of light coming in from above, since it fades the way it does... Covers are either on or off, not halfway dematerialised. Any word on this?

@edmond, if you quit this thread, you'll see in the Menu a forum called FXP Corner, because that's where to post FXPs, and my 2 are there as U4_Player_Open_0+ and _1+, the second with an MP3 to show it in action.

But those are for my jukebox aims with Disklavier. If the idea hammer-weights makes for Volume diffs is right, your own playing will converse sensibly with your keyboard to make the rolloffs to correct the Disklavier Volume diffs unnecessary, so only the miking and GUI switchoffs should be needed, for your playing to match the sound-result.

And if so, it'll go a long way to proving the idea, so that'll be interesting!

(But also, this exercise may show that investing in Pro, with its wonderful Note-by-Note sound-editing capabilities, is a most useful investment. I'd not have developed that idea without the facility being available, and that's even if it should be quite wrong. Having Pro helps.)

Will give these a try once I'm back home.. thank you @Custral for your input (no pun intended)

good luck with the lottery, but joke apart, yes Gonzo is somehow unique. Hopefully soon, you'll be able to play his compositions, with a recreation of his sound

Thank you Philippe, awesome fxp.

This file is per your request:

Chilly Gonzales.mp3

I love this piece!!! This is a simple sounding tune but clever, brilliant, chord structure. Magical. Maybe some people don’t realize it, but to me, so nice harmony, masterfully made - a beautiful piece. It inspire me to make music. Thanks for uploading, Amen Ptah Ra