Sound issues since upgrade to 6.4

Hello Patrick,

first thing: not to take anything the wrong way hopefully, we all make mistakes, I am only assuming, like me, you are human - I'm trying to kill many birds with a single posting and hopefully helping others to boot

Are you freezing any parameters?

(understand it's low chance, since you say 'as soon as I press the pedal' but worth a quick check because low hanging fruit - in case the sustain pedal was customised to swap to the harmonics pedal, frozen that way and forgotten - just a quirky possibility - these things do happen - I often will find I've made one change but forget something from an hour earlier and thus be off-track for the next hour until "OH, I put a reverb on an Aux - and forgot to turn off Pianoteq's reverb - doh..").

Have you installed the very latest "new" version - It's currently 6.4.1

If those don't resolve things..

is it possible to post a recording of the issue happening in your room?

That would probably help the most frankly.

If you suspect that your room or earphones amplify a frequency associated with pedal noise generation - jump down to the 'b)' section below.

There is a theoretical checklist infinitely long!

Things like..

1
is it happening in a DAW? If so, check if a forgotten reverb plugin is running (unseen maybe on effects send, another channel or on master?).

2
overlooked harmonic pedal, errant mouse-clicked to 'down' position.

3
have you tried lowering piano pedal noise and/or key note-off noise (Action button, appropriate sliders to the left)

4 (this is not a decoy issue - but to a degree we all have it, not certain it would explain extraordinary differences between versions.. including because may be relevant)
If Pianoteq has made noticeable change to 'pedal noise' in your setup, with the update some frequencies may be accentuating for you because maybe your room/speakers/earphones may unfortunately be annoyingly boosting just in that very range to the point of ringing/amplifying too much in a weird washy sounding way. (I wonder if I can reproduce what you hear, by increasing a narrow band of certain frequencies).

You may have the only room or headphones in the world making that pronounced sound but logic would dictate that a cure is possible, if this is the overriding issue

-- there will be so many possibilities however, so next..

About EQ - in Pianoteq, there are 2 EQs.. I do see occasionally some comments about EQ by users who may be under-exposed to it (even with much experience, some users may still be shooting in the dark and going by gut feel instinct or the stars - but there are some simple but effective tricks which anyone can employ!). These are not dumb tools for noobs or an 'excuse' that Pianoteq hides faults with or something quite similarly daft - which is quite ridiculous - these tools are singularly powerful and more so esp. in tandem (or in series like 3 x EQU3 = 9 bands with essentially exponential potential, giving us god-level control, probably as good as any VSTi or better, not even kidding).

Also - maybe two ways of working can quickly be described.. quick and overall, compared to clean and clinical. Sometimes to sweeten a sound, a quick overall tweak can give rough indication of what's possible, then more critical decisions can come over the top of this.. like "maybe I can acheive a better similar result by cutting only, rather than boosting" - extrapolate, adjust everything accordingly - do loop.

a)
the EQ which may be most referred to, behind the "EQUALIZER" button is a pre-eq. Think of it as a way to sweeten the piano sound parameters before that data enters the engine room. (like add some heft to the cabinet by increasing bass - long flat lines are good - maybe I might recommend lifting the bass dot a notch and lowering the treble a notch, so you have just one long tilted line - but while it may drop some treble and raise the bass, that long line should NOT make just a few key here and there suddenly wrong. Worth considering in your sound designs - you can make any key or octave totally different to another neighbour with this EQ tool. Worth keeping in mind if you want to add 'candy' to just the octaves/keys pertaining to only the melody line in a pop song etc. or authentically recreate an existing piano with such things as really different registers).

b)
the second EQ is found behind the "EFFECTS" button, it's called "EQU3" - a tri band modern EQ with Q factor (widens or narrows target frequencies) which has its claws into the audio post-engine. Using this EQ may really help if the "ringing" is room related and here's what I'd do:

In an EQU3, right-click the centre dot.
In the gain text area, type in 25 and press enter
In the Q text area, type in 25 and press enter
(click anywhere to clear away the dialogue box)

You then see the lines in the EQ chart form a sharp peak with that dot at the top.

Play a midi file (or a recently played segment) via the player and grab the dot with the mouse and drag it left and right until you are certain that you hear that problem frequency amplified until it makes you want to tip the table - exacting issues should be really clearly identifiable using this method.

Next back in the right-click dialogue box again;

In the gain text area, type in -25
In the Q text area, make no change

Now you should see a downwardly flipped version of the first upwards peaking graph.

You've essentially surgically removed or trimmed (with your very own designer notch filter!) only that narrow range - just tweak the numbers above to adjust better to suit room conditions - you may not need/want to remove the entire frequency, just soften instead by lowering the Q factor to say 15 or the gain only down to -10 - whatever works. It's my experience, that it's easier to find frequency issues by using a boosted band first, then flipping it down - it's more hit-and-miss IMO if you begin with a lowered notch. Some might prefer to just notch it first though. Whatever works etc.. YMMV.

Hope that helps - if not - certainly more info (PC, audio type - incl. internal or external unit, speakers/headphones, something about the room maybe, plus whatever comes to mind as relevant).

Hi Hector, (also daxboeck, wondering how you are getting on)

I wonder what a real piano would sound like in your room, if it would ring too?

Sounds dumb - but probably first question to realistically answer for yourself.

Most people will have known issues with their gear (esp. if using budget equipment) and speaker placement and room (or if not, they could improve things by learning some audio 101 to improving their bedroom to make it more like a "studio" - it can totally change things up).

Maybe for young people growing up in recent decades, we're now always told we can make our own quality music at home (BTW we've been able to since earlier decades - just tech changes and the 'bar' to entry is lowering over the timeline).. but in essence, things like your room sounding bad, or a headphone pumping hard in a corky-mid range etc.. those are a practical (or impractical constant across the ages and will still take either: getting used to and not bothering trying to fix it, or fixing it as best we can - or replacing with either new speakers/headphones or a better audio treatment on the room - or hire a professional practice room or studio - or make a pristine studio environment at home.. a bedroom has always been the joke "sounds like they recorded it in their bedroom".

A very cheap soltution to sound treating a space, is a good pair of headphones.

If headphones are not preferred, then it will come down to treating your room or getting better speakers or at least learning some ideas about placement.. that could be such a 'free' fix to put them slightly further back from you, maybe move everything back a single foot further from the wall - the gist.

Pianoteq doesn't have this issue for me - and wishing I could 'magic wand' it away for those experiencing it. Until I graduate wizard college, this is my best magic..

Plenty have chosen to emulate real pianos realistically (some at great expense) - and if there were an inherently incorrect ringing sound which was heard on all systems, it would be quickly brought up in testing and eliminated stat, esp. going back to prior versions.

Pianoteq is scientific and evolves; like art it will be re-painted gradually, stroke by stroke with greater detail with every release.

What it can never do, is load up one day and fix your heavy-ringing room issue for you

To me, with no info of your system (speakers/headphones or anything else), seems like something about the wound bass strings (which is real) is generating tiny realistic buzz (which is real) but in your case that thin range is 'ringing' brassy in your room or headphones. That's the not-normal part on your end.

It's not rational to expect Pianoteq (at this point in history), nor any other audio or VST to fit 100% of rooms with perfect clarity.

There are audio tools to help you set up your room, they may cost money, but I think that if you're targeting this, you're probably up for some expenses (even if physical, like baffles or even egg cartons etc.).

But that should indeed be attacked with EQ - it's possible you miss something in those tools.

So, it could be possible that 99.999% of all users never hear that tiny range amped up - but your room/headphones do.

To help you directly, we'd probably need you to export audio which clearly demo's your issue.. If we can or cannot hear what you do, we'll be able to discuss it better.

Until then though..

just be sure to double-check that you understand this (quoted part), it's pretty standard professional audio engineering for taking out a frequency range small or large - and remember, you can use more than one EQU3 in a preset! - if you need to remove more than one frequency - also, maybe use a high cut (a right dot) so you can remove every high sound over a chosen frequency - again, this is not just a Pianoteq thing - it will apply to any audio for any production based reasoning.

I'd be interested to hear back if you have either more info, or some better results with the notching in the quote.