Rattle and Lute Stop in Pianoteq 5, and historical temperaments

Along the same lines, the "Lute stop" was a harpsichord effect. A felt or leather mute was pressed against the strings near the bridge, producing an effect not unlike the "con sordino" effect on a violin. It muffled the higher harmonics of the string and shortened the sustain and decay, changing the harpsichord's sustaining sound into one that sounded a bit like plucking notes on the lute.

You wrote: "You still cannot change temperament/diapason in Stage. You need Standard or Pro for that."

Well, then, this is confusing and perhaps deceptive.

I have downloaded the demo Pianoteq 5 Stage, and it contains numerous presets with names like "J. Donahl Werkmeister III" and "J. Donahl mesotonic".

Do you mean to say that despite the names, that these temperaments will not actually work in Pianoteq 5 Stage?

You are incorrect on one point. You can change diapason (base pitch such as A=440 or otherwise) in Pianoteq 5 Stage, but not temperament. Changing diapason was available in Pianoteq 4 Stage as well.

I have noticed that there is one lone instrument in the demo Pianoteq 5 Stage that has the Rattle pedal, and that is the I. Besendorfer (1829).

It seems that there are no instruments in the demo Pianoteq 5 Stage that use the Lute Stop pedal.

I understand that the developers have stated that a complete overhaul of the KiVR instrument set for Pianoteq 5 is still under development and forthcoming, and that it will continue to be free. There are several instruments in the KiVR set that have always needed a Lute Stop or a Rattle effect (and in some cases both effects, available independently), because the real-world instruments they are based on had such effects. I look forward to seeing the results of this work.

And here is some feedback to the Pianoteq developers:

I am very thankful that you created the Lute Stop and Rattle (Bassoon) pedal effects for Pianoteq 5. They will add a great deal of authenticity and musical usefulness to the harpsichord and early fortepiano instruments (once you get the KIViR library rewritten for Pianoteq 5). I will probably wait to pay for an upgrade to Pianoteq 5 until the KIViR for Pianoteq 5 update has been released.

It is really delightful to be able to play and sequence Mozart and Schubert piano repertoire on the KIViR pianofortes, which represent the kind of instruments that Mozart and Schubert actually owned.

I would like to see more harpsichord instruments from even earlier time periods. The history of the harpsichord spans around 300 years, from about 1500 to about 1800. The KIVir only features two instruments from 1697 and 1733; that's only 36 years apart. How about new instruments representing harpsichords from 1550, 1625, or 1780, for example? The timbre of the instruments were quite different across that time period.

From my limited understanding of harpsichord design, I believe that both of the KIVir harpsichords are essentially single-manual instruments with one "disposition". As I understand it, the real Blanchette harpsichord, which is a two-manual instrument, would have three completely different "choirs" or 5-octave sets of strings to play. On the real instrument, for example  one could play the lower manual and get one 8' choir, but then engage a coupler to bring in an entirely different set of 5 octaves of strings an octave higher, the 4' choir. Then on the upper manual there would be a third choir of 5 octaves of strings at 8' which would have a different timbre and dynamic level due to having a different set of plectra positioned closer to the nut, giving a more nasal timbre (nasard).

I haven't done much experimentation, but I imagine that the only way to simulate the 8' and 4' choirs coupled with Pianoteq would be to make a multi-track recording, with one track being the basic patch, and the second track being the same MIDI data transposed one octave higher, with a small timing offset so that the plucking of the strings in each choir wouldn't be exactly at the same time, to account for slight randomness in the mechanical jack mechanisms in a real harpsichord. I would imagine that if you were to figure out how to implement coupled choirs in live performance with Pianoteq, this would double or triple the required polyphony and the strain on the CPU.

If anybody else on this forum likes playing with the harpsichords and early pianofortes, please chime in.

Just wanted to chime in with the enthusiasm for harpsichord support in Pianoteq. And yes, I too would be delighted if further instruments were added. For the moment, I'll just look forward to the re-release of KIViR, hoping that some work went into the harpsichords as well. (By the way, I think the Pianoteq team has been doing a great job!)

I have in fact used two stage pianos to sort of emulate the two registers of the Grimaldi. At least on Linux with jackd, it's not a problem running two instances of standalone Pianoteq and using different settings (e.g. Grimaldi A on one, A+B on the other) for the two keyboards. Admittedly this was more of a chance experiment; when I upgraded to a VPC-1, I kept my old P-90 around mostly to try a "two piano" setup for four-handed play, and being short on storage space, I got a stackered stand. If I was using the harpsichord setup more frequently, and had the space and depth of pockets required, I'd probably opt for smaller (well, actually really just having less height than the VPC-1) keyboards where this kind of positioning would be less awkward. (On this note, I'm wondering what would be a good recommendation of an electronic keyboard suitable for harpsichord emulation? From limited experience of playing a historical one many years ago, I doubt the much improved recent mechanisms in the likes of the VPC-1 are a good match for the original feel, but would be even more uncomfortable with a light, plasticky electronic keyboard variant.)

It is also possible to use two Pianoteq instances with just one keyboard and splitting it at a certain note, but this will require a bit of work to set up the midi mapping, even more so if say duplication of one central octave is desired.

Just to clarify, all my tests were done on the 4.5 versions, I'll probably only get around to experimenting with this on v5 once the new KIViRs arrive and enthusiasm overcomes sense of other duties. ;-)

Best,
Dan