Topic: Simulating the player's perspective – Volume, Dynamics, and Velocity
This is the first of three topics that I wanted to ask about, based on issues that have come up with my installing a PNOscan II MIDI sensor rail from QRS and a stop rail into my 1885 upright Steinway "F" which I bought from Craigslist. I have posted the project here before, but I will repost the address to the Google photo album so you can understand what I've been trying to do. Basically, with a working antique acoustic upright piano, I am trying to tailor the controls and sound output from the piano working with Pianoteq so that there is as little as possible difference between playing the acoustic piano as compared to playing one of the modelled pianos, from the player's touch response and hearing perspective. (So far, I have fooled a few non-piano players, but I haven't convinced any real piano players! It's not that I'm looking to deceive anybody, but just that the ultimate modelled piano should sound so real that the player should not be able to discriminate whether she or he is listening to the real thing or the modeled thing.)
Here is my Steinway project photo album address: https://goo.gl/photos/mZ6UywoFz79DXAMr9
1) The first of three topics that I want to post is with respect to how do the Volume, Dynamics, and Velocity controls interact?
These three controls have me very confused, especially as other programs such as Native Instrument's Kontakt only have a volume and a velocity curve, without separate dynamics. If I understand the set up correctly, the volume control sets the amplification and the velocity curve allows you to map the response of signal to volume.
The VOLUME control in Pianoteq appears to do the same thing as the volume control in Native Instruments' Kontakt. Very similar to a volume knob on a preamplifier, and nothing else.
The VELOCITY curve in Pianoteq at first appears to do the same thing as it does in Kontakt but it does not. On the x-axis is the MIDI input velocity, from 0 to 127. The y-axis is marked in musical volume from ppp to fortissimo, but it is not really do that. It does appear to change the tone of the note as it is struck, as notes on a real piano which are hit with higher velocity have a "sharper" characteristic to them. Also, this curve does appear to have some affect on volume.
It is the DYNAMICS control that confuses me. The pop-up information tab shows that it controls loudness between pianissimo and fortissimo, but as I play with it it seems as if it is almost another type of curve control similar to the velocity control. In fact, I have made different velocity controls to match with different dynamics controls. If I want to use the entire range of dynamics, I have to be a bit less aggressive with my velocity curve, and vice versa.
On my own electronic piano set up, it is difficult to make a good velocity curve that uses all the values up to fortissimo, as that sounds too sharp and too loud to simulate my own acoustic piano. Perhaps it's more the fault of the MIDI sensor strip, which cannot differentiate between really, really fast and really, really, really, really fast, as that's where an acoustic piano starts getting that type of volume response.
For my own piano, I know that the MIDI signal coming to the computer out of my QRS PNOscan II MIDI strip needs a curve attached to it, "blunting" the high-end, otherwise the electronic piano sounds too "hot" as the velocities increase.
Also, at low velocities, there should probably be a threshold applied, as in a real piano there is a velocity of keystroke below which the hammer does not get "thrown" all the way to the strings – below this threshold you can depress the key slowly and get no sound but just leave the damper open.
Please tell me what you girls and guys have done with respect to your own instruments, and how to make the most out of these controls, especially if you are using MIDI output and Pianoteq on a real piano, setting it up so that all the different electronic model pianos will play with similar dynamics to your own acoustic piano.
- David
Sarasota, Florida
