Yes, I can agree: Pianoteq is very good, but is still not perfect in case of hammer-string interactions. Though the situation became much better after 4.5 version!
There are some little measures that can slightly help in tuning pianoteq for more realistic hammer hit and the woodness of the sound:
1. increasing hammer noise up to 1.20-1.40
2. increasing the volume of first tone in spectrum profile for few db (1-3), and decreasing of 7th and 8th.
For me another need for pianoteq is the "speed of sound fading setting" or something like this. Because, when you play pianoteq with headphones, you hear, that sound is too vocal. I.e. for me it has very loud "tail". Loudspeakers fix it, probably because of the natural atmospere and distance effect, but in headphones it creates very loud and obvious "background" on a pedal (may be it is realistic for playing in a small room, but not for recording - as mics usually cut/disperse this long "tail"). Decreasing impendance or increasing the Direct Sound Duration makes the sound less "vocal", but it strongly influences the timbre (and it's bad), and slightly - the loudness of string vibrations (that is needed). I tried "q factor" and cutoff but couldn't manage the satisfying results. May be one of the most appropriate desicions, in this case, that i've tried, was to play with one micro in output settings. But it simultaneously influences the quality of the timbre, making the sound poor.
This pianoteq characteristic is not critical, of course. But it would be better to have some opportunities to control it
Briefly the most required changes in future models for me are:
- more woody sound (оr setting for this parameter). Especially strong and woody ff and fff (as Emil Gilels, for example, had)
- better interaction of string-hammer (the moment of the hit is not realistic enough, in my opinion)
- setting for the loudness of sound tail (or the speed of fading). In classical recordings sound is obviously shorter, it decays quickly
But without any doubts, i love pianoteq! And truepianos, Ivory and etc. are far behind from it, when we speak about intonation and flexibility, the realism of realtime playing.
With best regards!
Last edited by Kridlatec (03-12-2013 19:21)
Pianoteq 6 Pro (D4, K2, Blüthner, Model B, Grotrian, Ant.Petrof)
Studiologic SL88Grand, Steinberg UR22mkII