Topic: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

Long-time acoustic piano player. A couple of months ago I got a Korg D1 and bought PianoTeq Stage to go with it; I'm running 6.3 on a 2013 Macbook Air which despite its age seems more than adequate, no latency or other problems. I'm going with headphones for silent practice & good sound at a budget price. At the moment I have a Focusrite Scarlette for USB DAC going into a good tube hybrid headphone amp (Schiit Vali) to drive the 250 ohm model of Beyerdynamic DT 880 phones.

The sound is very good - except for one thing: Overly loud ringing of the undamped strings. I have mild right ear tinnitus and the ringing seems to bother it somewhat, even at moderate headphone volume levels. But even if I didn't have the tinnitus, I'd still think the ringing was excessive. For the Steinway D, which is my favorite model, this means that all the notes from G6# up have this ringing; for the Bluethner, my second favorite model, it's F6# and up.

In terms of what I can do about this -

1) Headphone EQ: The Equalizer built into PianoTeq does nada with this; removing or minimizing the Delay effect helps a little but not much. Supposedly the Beyerdynamic DT 880 phones do have a slight upwards bump in their treble; I have a frequency graph for them (obtained via a consumer-grade, high-latency headphone EQ app), and I can try using the low-latency Apple EQ plugin to knock that bump down a bit and see if that helps. Haven't tried this yet but will shortly.

2) Upgrading to PianoTeq Standard: Would this give me enough control over the model to reduce this ringing? I'm not sure it would. Inside the "Design" panel on the demo version of Standard, the "Cutoff" feature can limit high overtones, but this presumably would effect all 88 notes; the Bluethner features "Aliquot strings" for the undamped register; and the Steinway has the "Duplex scale" feature. How far would these features go to reduce ringing above G6# or F6#, versus what can be done in the Pro model? There is a previous thread on this topic that mentions Cutoff and Resonance in particular: https://www.forum-pianoteq.com/viewtopic.php?id=272

3) Upgrading to Pro: Presumably I could then work directly on each of these high notes to reduce ringing??

Any other thoughts/tips? I have also tried wearing the kind of ear plugs that you can wear to concerts, or that professional musicians can wear if they are playing in a loud situation, but they sound awful w/ PianoTeq. I can also reduce the headphone volume, but too little volume really sucks away the lovely bass & midrange in PianoTeq & spoils the realism entirely.

Last edited by UsableThought (06-12-2018 11:17)

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

Have you tried a treble cut in EQ3 in the effects section? It's not the same as 'equalizer' - confusing, I know, but the manual explains the difference.

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

Yes, I have tried that - no better than the Equalizer panel as far as I can see. But thanks for the idea - I'll look again at the manual to see if I did it right, just in case.

Last edited by UsableThought (06-12-2018 15:01)

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

You can simply set the Last damper slider to max in PTQ Standard and then all the notes would get dampers. Of course that is highly unrealistic and deadens the sound - the sympathetic resonances of those ringing undamped higher strings is a big part of the piano sound. Then there's the sympathetic resonance slider which you could also decrease.

Only in Pianoteq Pro could you target specific keys to, say, change impedance/cutoff/Q for those higher keys.

Last edited by EvilDragon (06-12-2018 15:21)
Hard work and guts!

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

Don't forget that you can install a demo of Standard alongside Stage to try out the extra features. But you shouldn't feel forced into upgrading just to make your pianos playable. Exhaust all the possibilities available in Stage first. I made the mistake of assuming that EQ3 wasn't very controllable (it's not much to look at), but when you examine the 'right click' parameters it's actually very finely adjustable.

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

In Standard you could also reduce the volume of the offending notes one by one in Note Edit. As was suggested, you can use the demo version to try any possibility before buying.

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

deleted misinformation.

Last edited by Key Fumbler (31-05-2019 19:55)

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

Key Fumbler wrote:
Gilles wrote:

In Standard you could also reduce the volume of the offending notes one by one in Note Edit. As was suggested, you can use the demo version to try any possibility before buying.

Note edit is only in Pro, not Standard.

I have Pro but, from the manual:  ...This note per note adjustment is available in the Standard version only for tuning and volume.

Also, on the site:

[3] PIANOTEQ PRO lets you edit 30 parameters for each note on your keyboard. In PIANOTEQ Standard, you can explore this feature with the volume and the detune parameter.

Last edited by Gilles (06-12-2018 18:10)

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

Gilles wrote:
Key Fumbler wrote:
Gilles wrote:

In Standard you could also reduce the volume of the offending notes one by one in Note Edit. As was suggested, you can use the demo version to try any possibility before buying.

Note edit is only in Pro, not Standard.

I have Pro but, from the manual:  ...This note per note adjustment is available in the Standard version only for tuning and volume.

Also, on the site:

[3] PIANOTEQ PRO lets you edit 30 parameters for each note on your keyboard. In PIANOTEQ Standard, you can explore this feature with the volume and the detune parameter.


I have Standard, and I confirm that  per note adjustment of volume and tuning is available. To me, this alone is well worth the upgrade to Standard.

Last edited by aWc (06-12-2018 18:35)
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: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

You may get some comfort by physically reversing your headphones (from L/R to R/L) if none of the above good advice helps.

Hearing issues are not fun, if you love sound. There are all the above remedies, but of course, nothing is perfect in terms of everyone's infinitely different ears.

Compromises must be made if you need to protect your ears from further damage. It's not often spoken about but pianos can damage hearing, even if subtly. You can over a long number of years get used to louder bass on the left, and treble on the right. So turning your earphones around on your head can sound wrong - at least in the beginning. Persist and you're going to some extent toward training your ears, rather than hammering home a form of natural conditioning. If audio is not important, consider this poppycock and disregard (some like to try to keep ears balanced by not subjecting to long hours of strongly biased signals as much for health, as for work reasons).

If you can live with not using a player preset (bassy left and treble on right), try the "AB" presets which both Steinway D and the Bluethner have. They are good sounds (to me) but have more bass on the right and the higher trebles over on the left. It's maybe the way to play without maybe doing more lossy things to the preset, by changing behaviours/EQ too much etc.

Pianoteq Studio Bundle (Pro plus all instruments)  - Kawai MP11 digital piano - Yamaha HS8 monitors

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

You might try to lower the "duplex scale" setting or "aliquot strings" setting  (depending upon the piano you are using)

turning that slider way down will reduce undamped ringing...

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions.

dazric, I went back and played with Equ3 again. I'm familiar with parametric EQ from using it with electric guitar. Unfortunately, although it does reduce the ringing, it also leaves the lower registers dull.

My own idea for EQ'ing the 880 headphones to get rid of their upward "bump" from around 6kHz to 10kHz didn't work at all with the external Apple EQ plugin - the problem wasn't latency but degraded overall sound. However I found I can just add some extra control points to the Equalizer in PianoTeq to manage this. It helps a little which may be enough for the moment, as none of the pieces I'm currently working on spend much time in the very high registers.

At some point I may play around with the demo of Standard a bit more - thanks to everyone who proposed specific things to try out in Standard.

Lastly, Qexl, thanks for the idea of reversing headphones or else trying out the AB presets. I haven't tried either yet but I will - smart ideas that as you say might do a lot while reducing the quality of the piano model as little as possible.

Last edited by UsableThought (07-12-2018 05:22)

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

It can indeed be a very fine balancing act, adjusting the sound to your preference/tolerance level without squashing the life out of the piano. I have also found the harmonic ringing troublesome on some presets – but I don’t like to do too much meddling. After trying all sorts of things, I’ve finally settled on a very light touch of EQ in the treble (and sometimes the bass, if I find it a bit boomy).
Another thing you may find helpful is to experiment with the reverb settings. You don’t have to be stuck with the default reverb of any of the presets. A lot of them use Clean Studio or Jazz Studio, which I find very dry and rather severe, especially with headphones. I rather like the Piano Room 2 setting (not Piano Room 1 – I can’t seem to make that one work with anything). Try Piano Room 2 with a Player preset and see what you think. Adjust the mix level to taste.

Last edited by dazric (07-12-2018 10:48)

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

Qexl wrote:

You may get some comfort by physically reversing your headphones (from L/R to R/L)

Success! I found this did the trick for me. The first minute or so it seemed strange but I very quickly got used to it. And my right ear is more comfortable this way. Thanks again to all who replied.

P.S. to dazric - Thanks for the idea about reverb presets. I have been fiddling a bit w/ both Reverb & Delay, and actually I find that Delay typically contributes more to excess brightness (and thus excess "ringing") than Reverb, at least for the presets I tend to use. Typically I end up either deactivating Delay entirely, or else either sliding the wet/dry mix for Delay more towards "dry"; or else using the tone slider to make the delayed sound less bright.

Last edited by UsableThought (08-12-2018 07:10)

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

UsableThought wrote:

P.S. to dazric - Thanks for the idea about reverb presets. I have been fiddling a bit w/ both Reverb & Delay, and actually I find that Delay typically contributes more to excess brightness (and thus excess "ringing") than Reverb, at least for the presets I tend to use. Typically I end up either deactivating Delay entirely, or else either sliding the wet/dry mix for Delay more towards "dry"; or else using the tone slider to make the delayed sound less bright.

A little late to this thread, sorry, but if settings to the delay makes a difference, then consider moving the delay effect later in the effect chain. In most of the standard effect settings it is early in the chain.

Hardware: Studiologic SL 88s + SL Mixface, Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, Lenovo Yoga I5 Windows 10 Pro
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Other instruments: hammond (GSi VB3 II), saxophone (Selmer), harmonicas (Hohners)

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

Torsten B. Hagemann wrote:

A little late to this thread, sorry, but if settings to the delay makes a difference, then consider moving the delay effect later in the effect chain. In most of the standard effect settings it is early in the chain.

Thanks for the suggestion - my previous tweaks (especially wearing the headphones in reverse) are still working well, but I'm intrigued by your idea & will give it a try, just to see.

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

I've been working on this for a while. I find one of the easiest and most effective ways to lessen the ringing in upper treble, especially just after last damper, is to experiment with lid positions. Try 97 or 96 and 73 or 72. These are just a few useful positions in this regard.

Blessings,

Chris

Re: How to reduce unwanted ringing on the high undamped strings?

sigasa wrote:

I've been working on this for a while. I find one of the easiest and most effective ways to lessen the ringing in upper treble, especially just after last damper, is to experiment with lid positions. Try 97 or 96 and 73 or 72. These are just a few useful positions in this regard.

Thanks. However I only have the Stage version, and it doesn't seem to have this feature (at least that I can find). I'm guessing it's available only on Standard and/or Pro?