Topic: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

I have plan to buy 3 pack instrument add-on. I aim to Steingraber, Grotrian, and Bluthner. After a week try edit, customized, tweak them I decide remove Bluthner out of my collection.. and buy Steingraber and Grotrian.
I know many guys here love Bluthner, I love it too, especial the mid-high register, so sweet and glue... as I love CFX sound. Beautiful for pop music. (Yup, I'm not classical player)
But the low-mid of Bluthner is terrible to me.. so plastic and boxy, stuffy (from F1-D2). I try all tweak (Standard) but can't make it better. And it missing some attack hammer when compared to another model. When I play hard it sound make me lost inspiration.. so I think I will choose Steinway B instead. It's sound amazing, likes sound of Brian Culbertson . But I'm not buy it yet cause I still love Bluthner gluing sweeting sound..
So hard to decide
I think Modartt should retouch Bluthner, I feel it sound still in PTQ 4 engine :v. Just my opponion

Last edited by kaiyp123 (14-09-2018 17:41)

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

It is not so much the choice of piano as pairing the choice of piano with choice of a particular piece. Some pieces dwell on certain registers of the piano while others are notey or spacious. These dictate which piano to choose. BTW, I have played a real Grotrian in the local church here in town and just can't stand that it is just such a large instrument.

I have started composing customizing what I am playing to the sound of a particular piano.
Sometimes, after completing recording of a piece, I may run it through many pianos and presets
deciding on the piano at that point. And sometimes it's not so much the sound of the piano but the sound of the reverb that clinches the choice of the piano. I sometimes use 3rd party convolusion verbs like Altiverb or
EW Spaces. Much fun.

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

gtingley wrote:

It is not so much the choice of piano as pairing the choice of piano with choice of a particular piece. Some pieces dwell on certain registers of the piano while others are notey or spacious. These dictate which piano to choose. BTW, I have played a real Grotrian in the local church here in town and just can't stand that it is just such a large instrument.

I have started composing customizing what I am playing to the sound of a particular piano.
Sometimes, after completing recording of a piece, I may run it through many pianos and presets
deciding on the piano at that point. And sometimes it's not so much the sound of the piano but the sound of the reverb that clinches the choice of the piano. I sometimes use 3rd party convolusion verbs like Altiverb or
EW Spaces. Much fun.

Interesting.. I dont know why many users not like PTQ Grotrian, I not have chance to play it in real life, but in PTQ, It's pretty perfect to me, all from low to high. It's has own character..

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

I think a lot of us (specially new users) are trying to decide which piano to add to our roster... the funny thing is that it is such a subjective experience. My own opinion seems to change on a daily basis! One thing hasn't changed: I do not like the Grotrian at all. The qualities I look for are clarity, some good weight in the bass and mid, and complexity in higher harmonics.

The first extra one I got was the U4: it is very different (being an upright) and I find it is very good for blues and jazz. The Steingraeber...I love it one minute, then I find faults with it (too harsh in higher octaves, somehow nasal mid range), but it has a lot of character. My next purchase will probably be the Bluethner. The mid octaves  seem muffled to me in most presets, but I found that I need to tweak the velocity curve differently from the Steinway D for instance. Makes the middle octaves come alive! However, I still find that the middle octaves do not have enough dynamic range (nowhere as much as the Steinway D or the Steingraeber, for some reason). Also, The Bluether's low octaves have too much "bark" (the higher harmonics come too easily, even at moderate velocities). I assume the model is accurate and it is just the character of this piano...but I am trying to mitigate it. There are so many parameters! Anybody feels the same about the Bluethner?

PT 7.3 with Steinway B and D, U4 upright, YC5, Bechstein DG, Steingraeber, Ant. Petrov, Kremsegg Collection #2, Electric Pianos and Hohner Collection. http://antoinewcaron.com

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

I was re-reading myself....apologies for the lack of clarity (that's what happens when you post in a haste, late at night!).

1.When naming pianos, I was referring throughout to the Pianoteq models, not the real ones
2.My keyboard controller is a Roland FP-80 digital piano
3.to give you an idea of a piano sound I like (with "clarity, weight in the bass and mid, complex overtones in the higher notes": the Rudolf Serkin recording of Beethoven piano sonatas on CBS, I believe from 1963, https://youtu.be/6i9kWrnLf5I). I believe it's a Steinway. The YT sound is quite compressed...but you get the idea.
4. As for the Bluethner, I love the sound overall, but most of the presets seem to have a muffled quality around F2 to A4.The lower range is nice...at low velocities, but the
  overtones come in too fast even with moderate strikes (bark!). Adjusting the velocity curve works...but compounds the middle octaves muddiness. The high octaves have    a beautiful singing quality, but at high velocities, there is a harsh ringing that is hard to avoid. I think the only way to achieve all the "fixes" is to use note-per-note editing in the Pro version. I have the Standard for now...

PT 7.3 with Steinway B and D, U4 upright, YC5, Bechstein DG, Steingraeber, Ant. Petrov, Kremsegg Collection #2, Electric Pianos and Hohner Collection. http://antoinewcaron.com

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

In my case my headphones and monitor speakers aren't exactly a "matched pair", so I
use different piano's when playing one or the other. The Steingraeber really sounds perfect trough my monitors, but not trough my headphones. It's the opposite with the Bluhtner. So when playing with the headphones I use the Bluhtner, using speakers it's the Steingraeber.

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

aWc wrote:

I was re-reading myself....apologies for the lack of clarity (that's what happens when you post in a haste, late at night!).

1.When naming pianos, I was referring throughout to the Pianoteq models, not the real ones
2.My keyboard controller is a Roland FP-80 digital piano
3.to give you an idea of a piano sound I like (with "clarity, weight in the bass and mid, complex overtones in the higher notes": the Rudolf Serkin recording of Beethoven piano sonatas on CBS, I believe from 1963, https://youtu.be/6i9kWrnLf5I). I believe it's a Steinway. The YT sound is quite compressed...but you get the idea.
4. As for the Bluethner, I love the sound overall, but most of the presets seem to have a muffled quality around F2 to A4.The lower range is nice...at low velocities, but the
  overtones come in too fast even with moderate strikes (bark!). Adjusting the velocity curve works...but compounds the middle octaves muddiness. The high octaves have    a beautiful singing quality, but at high velocities, there is a harsh ringing that is hard to avoid. I think the only way to achieve all the "fixes" is to use note-per-note editing in the Pro version. I have the Standard for now...

Well, I gave it a lot of thought and finally decided for the ones in my signature. They pretty much cover the sonic canvas I want.

Pianoteq Pro Studio with Bösendorfer, Shigeru Kawai and Organteq

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

aWc wrote:

I was re-reading myself....apologies for the lack of clarity (that's what happens when you post in a haste, late at night!).

1.When naming pianos, I was referring throughout to the Pianoteq models, not the real ones
2.My keyboard controller is a Roland FP-80 digital piano
3.to give you an idea of a piano sound I like (with "clarity, weight in the bass and mid, complex overtones in the higher notes": the Rudolf Serkin recording of Beethoven piano sonatas on CBS, I believe from 1963, https://youtu.be/6i9kWrnLf5I). I believe it's a Steinway. The YT sound is quite compressed...but you get the idea.
4. As for the Bluethner, I love the sound overall, but most of the presets seem to have a muffled quality around F2 to A4.The lower range is nice...at low velocities, but the
  overtones come in too fast even with moderate strikes (bark!). Adjusting the velocity curve works...but compounds the middle octaves muddiness. The high octaves have    a beautiful singing quality, but at high velocities, there is a harsh ringing that is hard to avoid. I think the only way to achieve all the "fixes" is to use note-per-note editing in the Pro version. I have the Standard for now...

Thanks for your input. I have tried again Bluthner (Pianoteq Bluthner I mean ) but I still can't get comfortable with kind of lushing blurring of lo-mid sound singing... So I decided to go with Steinway B and will come back With Bluthner in another day I think it better ( maybe in Pianoteq 7 with more improved ) .  Anyway, it's just the feeling and the taste of each person. and the kind of music we play. I'm happy with my collection right now.

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

Doesn't make much sense tying different pianos to different music.  With an acoustic of course, you play everything on the one.  Unless you have more than one.
Usually, you can bet that an indefinitive sound somewhere in the registers can be alleviated by raising the volume, or some other action.
If all the pianos are based on the different models stated by Moddart, then we have to accept different characteristics come in to play.
Just learn to enjoy them; headphones and monitors will need to be the subject of separate tweaking for good results.

Last edited by peterws (17-09-2018 10:47)
I'm playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

peterws wrote:
"Doesn't make much sense tying different pianos to different music.  With an acoustic of course, you play everything on the one. "

This might explain why Steinways are so dominant (at least in the classic world): any type of music, era, genre sound good on them!
That being said, I love most of the other brands as well. The diversity of sounds is quite fascinating. But some are not quite as versatile as others, IMHO.
I did play a Beckstein in a music store...and everything sounded wonderful on it! I think in general Becksteins are very versatile as well.

PT 7.3 with Steinway B and D, U4 upright, YC5, Bechstein DG, Steingraeber, Ant. Petrov, Kremsegg Collection #2, Electric Pianos and Hohner Collection. http://antoinewcaron.com

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

peterws wrote:

Doesn't make much sense tying different pianos to different music.  With an acoustic of course, you play everything on the one.

aWc wrote:

This might explain why Steinways are so dominant (at least in the classic world): any type of music, era, genre sound good on them!

Everyone has different tastes, and some folks even commit themselves to playing Steinways exclusively (or bear the wrath of the great marketing behemoth)... but to my ear, Mozart (say) on a Steinway sounds about as grotesque as Debussy on a 1790s Walter, and give me a 1830s Pleyel for Chopin any day of the week, etc etc
I realize that some labor under the notion that the c1875 Steinway-type piano is the ultimate word for all keyboard instruments for all repertoire, but thankfully we have something like Pianoteq available by which multiple historically-appropriate instruments are available for whatever repertoire one might be inclined toward all in one box... why not at least take some of these for a spin and see how a given composer's ideas may have been influenced by the sort of instrument they actually had to work with?

cheers,
dj

Matthieu 7:6

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

well, Bach for a start.  What sounds better than Bach on a piano?  A harpsichord?  So much Bach just begs for light and shade; expression is everything; the guy was so far ahead of his time.  I bet he'd be in thrall to some of the digitals on offer now.  I bet they all would.
We are so fortunate!

I'm playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

peterws wrote:

So much Bach just begs for light and shade; expression is everything;

I don't disagree, and neither I think would Bach entirely (making exception for his obvious bent toward the "learned" style, vs something like the Empfindsamkeit of his son C.P.E.) as his known preference for music-making at home was the clavichord (which, incidentally, it would be wonderful to have a better model of in Pianoteq than the Neupert we currently have)... but it's simply impossible to articulate Bach's music in the way we know he spoke it on the modern piano, so one ends up making all sorts of "translations" which, no doubt lovely in their own right, objectively take us afield from Bach's actual conception.  For my part, not being possessed of the hubris to presume that my musicianship is in any way even close to being superior to that of Bach's, I prefer to try to listen and learn from the master on his own terms and not that dictated by the sort of translations necessary when using something like the modern piano.  An interesting experiment however is to play Bach on early pianos where one can achieve both coloristic effects and proper articulations... though it's a pity Bach was so dismissive of the Silbermanns he had available to him... if only he'd lived another 20 years or so I think he would have, quite literally, "changed his tune"!

the guy was so far ahead of his time.  I bet he'd be in thrall to some of the digitals on offer now.  I bet they all would.

We part ways here, I'm afraid: Bach et al, being indeed truly great, were emphatically composers of their time who demonstrably wrote idiomatically for the instruments they had at hand and, if we're going to play the idle conjecture game, I to the contrary bet they all would have written quite differently for the sort of instruments we have available today...


We are so fortunate!

But we're back in accord here...   We certainly are fortunate to have something like Pianoteq where it's possible to have all these amazing possibilities to try this stuff out for ones self and not be slavishly stuck to just one sort of piano as though it were the end-all-be-all of music making!

Matthieu 7:6

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

Something I omitted to mention was that Bach and his contemporaries shaped so much of our modern music in the so many genres (boxes) we place it; maybe the instruments of the day were perfectly adequate in this capacity, and helped it's rapid development instead of hindering it . . . . .

I'm playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

kaiyp123 wrote:

Thanks for your input. I have tried again Bluthner (Pianoteq Bluthner I mean ) but I still can't get comfortable with kind of lushing blurring of lo-mid sound singing... So I decided to go with Steinway B and will come back With Bluthner in another day I think it better ( maybe in Pianoteq 7 with more improved ) .  Anyway, it's just the feeling and the taste of each person. and the kind of music we play. I'm happy with my collection right now.

Agreed about the B! I had vastly overlooked the Steinway B model. Spent a lot of time on the demo, listened to my wife playing it too (!) and finally purchased it. It is incredibly nuanced and expressive. Some presets need a little push on the bass (on my system at least), that's about it. I keep tweaking my preset for the Bluethner and it's getting there. Interestingly, it doesn't really work for most of my pre-recorded tunes...but when I improvise and adapt to its tone, I really appreciate its massive sound! To be followed...

PT 7.3 with Steinway B and D, U4 upright, YC5, Bechstein DG, Steingraeber, Ant. Petrov, Kremsegg Collection #2, Electric Pianos and Hohner Collection. http://antoinewcaron.com

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

peterws wrote:

Something I omitted to mention was that Bach and his contemporaries shaped so much of our modern music in the so many genres (boxes) we place it; maybe the instruments of the day were perfectly adequate in this capacity, and helped it's rapid development instead of hindering it . . . . .

Bach ist mein Gott

Pianoteq Pro Studio with Bösendorfer, Shigeru Kawai and Organteq

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

Fleer wrote:
peterws wrote:

Something I omitted to mention was that Bach and his contemporaries shaped so much of our modern music in the so many genres (boxes) we place it; maybe the instruments of the day were perfectly adequate in this capacity, and helped it's rapid development instead of hindering it . . . . .

Bach ist mein Gott

Meanwhile ptq7's Bluethner ... (As far as I'm concerned, I keep - and use - the current Model 1 in my library, despite the tremendous progress of the latest Pianoteq instruments ...)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWCKzZDbCU0

Bruno

Last edited by bm (19-09-2018 06:11)

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

Wonderful indeed.

Pianoteq Pro Studio with Bösendorfer, Shigeru Kawai and Organteq

Re: Bluthner, so hard to decide !

kaiyp123 wrote:

I have plan to buy 3 pack instrument add-on. I aim to Steingraber, Grotrian, and Bluthner. After a week try edit, customized, tweak them I decide remove Bluthner out of my collection.. and buy Steingraber and Grotrian.
I know many guys here love Bluthner, I love it too, especial the mid-high register, so sweet and glue... as I love CFX sound. Beautiful for pop music. (Yup, I'm not classical player)
But the low-mid of Bluthner is terrible to me.. so plastic and boxy, stuffy (from F1-D2). I try all tweak (Standard) but can't make it better. And it missing some attack hammer when compared to another model. When I play hard it sound make me lost inspiration.. so I think I will choose Steinway B instead. It's sound amazing, likes sound of Brian Culbertson . But I'm not buy it yet cause I still love Bluthner gluing sweeting sound..
So hard to decide
I think Modartt should retouch Bluthner, I feel it sound still in PTQ 4 engine :v. Just my opponion

Perhaps you might post details of your Pianoteq settings and also your audio output system.   I say this as a very satisfied user of the Pianoteq 6 Standard with Blüthner Model One, as well as the Steinway B add-on.   I use a 100+100W Alesis power amplifier,  JBL stereo and sub speakers.   I was pleased with the add-on both before and after buying my 2016 Blüthner acoustic piano.   Perhaps you might review your keyboard calibration,   reduce the Pianoteq default volume and experiment with different dynamic range settings.
Failing that,  enjoy whatever add-ons you choose.
Ian

Last edited by Beemer (28-09-2018 18:34)