Topic: Pianoteq and Bose L1 Model 2
Hi All,
I've been on Hiatus for 20 years after playing 12 years straight as a kid, before I stopped playing though, I bought a Kurzweil PC88mx in 97 which I used off and on till 2001 then I shelved it.
I found Pianoteq out by accident last week and bought the Standard Release before the summer sale ended. I ordered a USB to MIDI adaptor and once it arrived, I pulled out my keyboard and hooked it up to the notebook which is connected through the ToneMatch over to the Bose L1 Model 2. I played a few notes and was grinning ear to ear. I haven't stopped playing since.
My wife heard it and thought it was pretty cool but didn't really understand the implications of this. So on the weekend we went to Steinway to play on a real Model D while she was at the end of the room. I played a few notes up and down the keys I grinned even bigger, then played some songs for the wife to hear.
My wife now understands why I like Pianoteq through my setup so much. She said hearing the 180k Model D in person was nice, but lack of an acoustically designed room, microphone pickup and speakers didn't do that piano justice in person. She is not a music person but she could tell how much more real Pianoteq is from the other youtube examples of other VSTs.
I recommend that if you're a hardcore pianist that was looking for a portable 9Ft grand setup for concert, purchase the L1 Compact to start but if you can really afford speakers, I'd go all in on the Bose L1 Model 2 since it has enough juise for a room that has 500 people in it. The best part is that Bose focused on live instruments and it faithfully reproduces live instruments without modifying the frequencies unless you want it to through the ToneMatch adjustments.
I'm finally using my Bose for something it was designed to do with a virtual Concert Grand, virtual microphones, virtual rooms with a virtual recording studio. All the signals are then sent out digitally through the USB to the Tonematch for audio adjustments (which i leave flat and no mods like adding reverb) then digitally over to the L1 power stand which then converts it over to analog and out the speakers.
There is ZERO noise, ZERO feedback, ZERO recording humms, ZERO random microphone pickups that would occur on a real piano, no need for an anachoic chamber and more. I wish I could attach pictures to the posts so everyone could see how simple the setup is.
If you want to test it yourself, I'm sure a Bose dealer will let you hook your laptop up to it at the store to play midi files, it sounds amazing.
It sounds so amazing in fact that I've been working on transcribing this song so I could play it on my Virtual Grand.
