Nasal-tones a half-a-second or so into sounds

Hello David,

As a professional piano tuner, and a person who beta tests and furnishes demos of Pianoteq models for Niclas and Philippe, I know exactly what you are experiencing as regards to the twang sound you hear when playing a real CFIII Yamaha:

You are hearing the "geometry" of the string's vibrational mode change from primarily in the vertical orientation (because in a real grand piano, the strings are struck vertically -- upward from below) to a mixed vertical and horizontal mode.  This is done by design!!!  Why?  If you look the bridge of a grand piano, you will notice that the string undergoes a kind of "jog" as the string crosses the bridge on its way to the hitch pins at the back of the piano.  This "jog" is introduced so as to encourage the strings to also vibrate with a horizontal component to its vibrational pattern!i  Why?  That's such that the vibration will be carried "parallel" to the bridge and follow the grains of the soundboard!  This is exactly why, when you play any piano, you can also hear the lower bass notes seem to come out of the right hand side of the piano, and the treble notes come out of the left side!

So, in fact, the "twang" that you described in your original thread -- happens to be the transition from strictly vertical-mode vibration ... to a combination of vertical- and horizontal-mode vibration.  In strict reality, the cross-sectional pattern of vibration is really that of an oval ... composed of vertical and horizontal components.

I must sadly concur that I have NEVER heard this true-to-life artifact in any sampled piano library that I have owned (including East West Quantum Leap, Synthogy, or Blüthner Digital Model One).  The microphones for sampled pianos are usually not located close enough to the strings where a person (who is seated at the keyboard with the grand piano's lid raised) will hear them.

Ahhhh!!!!  But you CAN hear this in Pianoteq; it reveals itself naturally about one-half second after the virtual string is struck by the virtual hammer.

Enough of my rambling.

Cheers,

Joe

P.S.  Are you aware that this "jog" feature on a piano's bridge ... IS Pianoteq's logo????  The only fault I found with the logo is that it is oriented in the wrong direction!!!!  I discussed this with Philippe, years ago, when I first acquired Pianoteq in Version 3.  Philippe told me that the geometry was taken from an "upright piano" rather than a "grand piano".  In fact, the two versions are opposite from one another.  Why?  Because in a grand piano, the strings are struck upward from below, and in an upright piano, the strings are struck sideways (essentially downward towards the soundboard) from "above" the soundboard.  Philippe told me that I was the very first person who noticed that inconsistency -- and as long as no one else noticed, Modartt would retain their "backwards" logo!

Lanny, sadly, my Pianoteq did not toast the bagels for my breakfast with my parents this morning.  But, in the flavor of Alton Brown's teachings, I would still not classify Pianoteq as a 'unitasker'.  And, no, I have not done much with the blooming controls.  I have only played with them a bit when working on my half-baked calliope preset, but am not skilled in their use (and I haven't found a way to get them to help my piano presets).

Joe, brilliant!  You have completed my lesson by fleshing-out the observation that I have made in the past and had forgotten when I wrote this morning's email. 

I do recall watching (in the past) the vibrations on a taught rubber-band change direction in a rotational axis, and I remember trying to trying to pluck strings and rubber bands to either enhance or decrease this behavior.  The longer the string, the more obvious, and audible, the transitions.  And, as I was just reading this morning about Erard's development of the agraffe in 1808, firmly fixing the end of the string to the bridge and thus to the soundboard (The Piano, Billboard Books, 2002, which I bought used on Amazon mainly for the images of historical pianos).  I guess, in theory, since all waves have the agraffe as a nodal point, the string shouldn't transfer sound to the soundboard this way, but I'm sure that it actually must.  While I did notice the diagonal offset of the string across the agraffe, I thought it was a way to increase the friction and security of the attachment point, much like wrapping a dockline angled as the first turn on a cleat.  Whether the diagonal causing a change of the string's vibration 90 degrees was intentional or a happy accident to increase the sound transmission to the soundboard, I do not know.  But I do know that in the mid 1800s, the two major players in Europe (the pre-Steinway period) were Erard and Pleyel - Chopin preferred the delicacy of the Pleyel, while the more dramatic Liszt preferred Erard.  As no doubt our ears will tell us, every "modern" piano (including those of Pleyel, as well as Steinway, and all others) followed the lessons of Erard and gave us the dynamic instruments that we know, playing so well next to orchestras and bands.  If the world followed the model of Pleyel, contemporary pianos would have been solo instruments in chambers and parlors until the likes of Leo Fender and his amplifiers!

Why sampled pianos don't have this transitional sound, I do not know, because the photos of piano sampling show the microphones way-closer than my ears are when I am at the keyboard.  I wonder if the recording engineers for sampled pianos intentionally edit this characteristic out because people don't expect to hear it - it sounds foreign when you don't hang-out near full-size concert pianos.  Well, I guess as I am learning piano for the past year or so and am seeking out these huge contraptions, I now know that this sound is normal and should be coveted instead of being shunned.

Thanks, Philippe!  Thanks, Joe!

I thought that the energy transfer to the soundboard happens even though the air that lies between the string and the soundboard,  but it seems that the bridge had to play an important a part.   Thanks.

My educated guess as to why you don't hear this effect prominently on your mothers Steinway Model M (5'7" btw) is that the unisons probably need to be tuned a little closer to each other.  I have tuned a number of Model M's and have distinctly heard the effect when the three trichords (from about F below middle C to about E above middle C --- are in very close tuning alignment with one another.  THAT'S when the effect is most prominent.  In fact, when I tune trichords (tones with three strings per note), I always tune the center string first, then tune the leftmost string so as to "bring out" the even harmonics (sounding as octave overtones) and, lastly, tune the rightmost string of the trichord to bring out the odd harmonics (fifth and third sounding overtones in higher overtone octaves).  All the while, this "singing" effect occurs just as the strings' vibrational modes change from primarily vertical ... to a mixture of vertical and horizontal, courtesy of the agraffe in the bridge.

Cheers,

Joe