Vote Yes or No for Pres

Wow! I love how preams do own work. Sound is really good! Where I can get this one for try? And what configuration you used?

You have me quite confused.  From my take, the volume control in PIanoteq IS a preamp, as the line level output is thus modulated and sent out where it can input to a powered main amp with fixed amplification.  At least from the component audio system, that is the purpose of a preamp (volume modulation PRE-amplification).  This as as compared to a typical home 'integrated amplifier' unit, that has both pre-amp and amp in the same case, where the volume control changes the output of the pre-amplifier that feeds the main amplifier stage of the unit.

Yes, there is also easy confusion about mic preamps and speaker preamps which are two totally different pieces of hardware for different purposes, and additional confusion could arise for why there's a debate at all.

Microphone preamps (what we're generally discussing here) are the first electronic source in the recording chain.  Preamps provide phantom to microphones that need it and turn the otherwise-weak mic signal into something that can be recorded or mixed and recorded.  Most consumer and prosumer devices today have the recording hardware built into the preamp or the preamp built into the recording hardware, but in larger or older setups, these devices are separate.  Also, vintage microphone preamps operated using only vacuum tubes since solid-state/semiconductor hardware wasn't available yet.  These tubes were the backbone of amplification process taking the weak microphone signal and making it something that could put on recording media, much like the vacuum tube in a CRT monitor or a microwave takes the electronic energy of the wall outlet, mixes it with another weak signal and amplifies either into a visible image or heat source for cooking.

While effective and powerful, vacuum tubes (as Luc correctly says) are not remotely exact or consistent in their ability to accurately capture sound and will "color" the sound by adding a little distortion or noise to the recorded signal.  This fuzziness--caused by quantum properties of electromagnetism and thermodynamic information entropy as the current or signal is amplified--creates a slight warming and unifying effect to sound.  The noise floor rises and a little fuzzy/sizzling/crunchy sound is added to the entire output.  As the volume/amplification increase, the random sound/noise increases significantly and creates an "overdrive" distortion effect.  Without amplification, you have the same technology used in Edison's wax cylinder recordings, which required people to shout into the recording bell for the device to even start to pick up sound.

The vacuum tubes were not limited to use in microphone preamplifiers, but any electrical signal that needed amplification would pass through one or more vacuum tubes (tubes could be found in mic preamps, speaker preamps, stereos, mixing decks, effects devices, etc.).  While some traditions--like the classical music one--favored having minimal interference, rock and other modern genres liked the distortion enough that it was heavily amplified, controlled, and treated as a new instrument in the mixing process.  Tubes can also be used in any portion of the signal chain, and often are stacked--even in some classical applications if the tube doesn't have too much "saturation."  If my memory serves, much of the fuss about Abbey Road Studios (in addition to their Beetles and LSO prestige) is that they continue to have and maintain giant mixing decks that have an individually controllable vacuum tube (or "valves" as Brits call them) for each mixing slider, which creates their signature sound and makes those vintage mixing decks worth hundreds of thousands because of the maintenance and specialty hardware involved.

While microphone preamps are not to be confused with speaker preamps which convert digital or analog signal to power the drive magnets of speakers, both types of hardware were built on the same original vacuum technology and rock musicians liked it enough that electric guitars are connected to speaker cabinets with specially controllable amplifiers built into the cabinets that add rock's signature overdrive sound.

While vacuum tubes have been almost totally replaced by semiconductors for everything except some vacuum florescent displays (e.g. appliance clocks), radar, etc., the primary market for vacuum tubes is the music instrument and recording industry, because technicians and audiences both liked the fuzzy/crackle of the vacuum tube enough that we expect to hear it in most recording genres, even if it's extremely subtle.  You can either add it by using outboard hardware with vacuum tubes in it, or there are a variety of paid and free VSTs that provide a dedicate "vacuum" effect.

PTQ already has a built-in preamp/vacuum-tube emulator under Effects.  Select "Fuzz" and put the mix driver below 15%, the drive slider nearly anywhere (but I keep it below 5), and the level slider between -3db and 0db.  It's quite nice, if it's kept subtle.  The onboard presets are for the rock instruments, like Tines, which is unusable for most classical applications, but the settings above will give a subtly warm & vintage sound to any of the current PTQ presets.  Adjust to taste...   There are prepackaged virtual and physical systems which may work better for mastering--both free and paid, but the built-in solution sounds very nice to my ears and acceptable for experimentation and--perhaps--most production uses.

And dklein is right, the volume slider basically acts as a kind of solid-state transistor amplifier, but for the vintage vacuum tube sound which Amen Ptah Rah is after, the "Fuzz" effect is needed in addition to the volume slider.

Tape delay is a similar effect, but it's minor speed-ups and slow-downs of the tape recording media rather than increasing the noise floor.  Tape delay only really started to be common with multi-track tapes of the 1970s which replaced the cutting or etching of metal record masters for vinyl replication.  Tape delay applies over the top of the vacuum distortion.  It's a nice, mild effect that works extremely well with string ensembles but works nicely for most applications.  The delay is caused by the surface to the tape and minor variations in tape tension, speed, etc. as it's pulled through the recording head.  As tracks are moved from one tape to another during the recording and mixing process, the recorded sound has more and more subtle time artifacts.  This sound is especially desirable in classical music and film scoring settings.  Spitfire Audio, for example, takes care to create all of their string sample libraries on tape machines to add a gentle "crunch" that you expect from strings in film music applications.  I don't believe there's a native Tape Delay emulator in PTQ, but I believe Adobe Audition or Cubase have some options built-in and there are number of purchased and free VSTs, much like the variety of tube emulators in any DAW (though tube emulators outnumber tape emulators at least 5-to-1).

Very thorough overview of how vacuum tubes provide amplification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube
Excellent in-depth review of the history of "tube sound": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_sound
Abbey Road's reworked old vacuum amplifiers updated for digital recording flows: https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/chandler-...47-review/
Example of how complicated and quiet the wax cylinder approach was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n2b0NdL6_E
Example of how vinyl records are/were made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yy_DHW4SgI
Example of recording to tape: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI7S5bwxX8w

Prince, I’m happy to find you hear a really good sound coming from preamps!  I’ve some more examples if you or anyone else is interested.  They’re in my other post, Compare Pianoteq Recordings with and without Preamps.

Since Arturia has made demos of its preamp plugins available, you can download them of course from any of its webpages.

Have a look at this address: https://www.arturia.com/products/softwa...e/1973-pre.

I used the Arturia company’s Arturia Pre 1973 plugin in the preamp example (above).  Settings used are all default, including those of the PIANOTEQ preset Steinway B Improv.  Which I chose to record the somewhat now famous jazz standard written by George Gershwin and entitled “I Loves You, Porky,” that is from the original American opera Porky and Bess which was created by the Gershwins, by George along with his brother Ira Gershwin.

About Arturia, as a modeling company much like MODARTT, it is certainly no newcomer to modeled hardware —even music instruments— as it once offered modeled brass instruments including a trumpet, trombone and saxophone.  I still have a copy of this BRASS virtual instruments software.  Although it became a legacy item (presumably as interests in it fell).

Please, point me in the direction of some free stuff.

tmyoung - Excellent post.  Thanks for teaching me (and others). 

I tried your Fuzz settings, and realize that this is not what I am after, since I personally see pianoteq as a way to emulate an acoustic piano in from of me.  But, for coloring of recordings, these techniques add, well, 'patina' to the sound.

Now I want to point out, according to Philippe Guillaume himself, U87 mics themselves as well as all the others which have been modeled from real world hardware, undeniably, already add noticeable color to your piano recordings and playing possibly piano (PIANOTEQ) also:

See forum post: https://forum.modartt.com/viewtopic.php...51#p964851.

Personally, I sometimes prefer to use flavor instead of color in my own descriptions of sounds.  But, if I’m going to describe any as color that befits a U87 mic, specifically, I right now want to see the spectrum of it ostensibly increased by preamps becoming additions welcomed well within PIANOTEQ, definitely!  Clearly they could become convenient customizations to the PIANOTEQ end user to affect any software preset Spectrum profile, and by significantly larger interface graphics, once included among the count of software EFFECTS parameters.

Preamps could further broaden, admittedly, the color gamut available presently in PIANOTEQ!

I take it, your vote is probably for preamps and very much in favor of them because you’re a man who —when it is in front of you— likes some occasional ‘patina.’

Well said.

A nearly identical word-for-word entry, to the one just above, has already been posted under another forum topic.  To which entry I've twice already responded.  (Two responses to it from me appear under the topic heading Compare Pianoteq Recordings with and without Preamps at the MODARTT forum, Recordings featuring Pianoteq and Organteq.)

Now I got about the same word-for-word personal note entry addressed to me again long after I posted a couple of previous responses. 

Joe, I got it the first time  —when first I read it!

To me it is elaborate.  This topic I created has been intended for anybody wanting to determine, er find out whether preamps are necessary or unnecessary. 

People, I have to speak frankly.  (Sure always anybody is free to express his view one way or another.)

Indeed by that other topic, you did as you essentially tried to guess which or at whichever was playing  —when supposedly you were to compare one (recording) to another!  It just seems a setup to fail!

I would argue, if I may, preamps are continually in broad usage today when —more often than not— they are employed in the thousands of studios that contribute to modern record collections  —including classical, jazz, and others.  So, maybe the past you mentioned was just yesterday, or even less than twenty-four (24) hours ago. 

Contrarily, in my view the music recorded by VSTs without preamps is surely that which represents more of an artistic choice, if not purely an economical one (that is) as it so happens in a minority opposite more conventional or better received instrument recordings made otherwise with preamps.  Which the latter are the overwhelmingly greater majority, popularly, in music since the preamps became absolute necessities within the studios.  They just are standard studio equipment!

This point is the one I'm attempting to make clear right now.  Pianoteq users like you and I have become increasingly encapsulated as zealots about it.  Some definitely are wearing blinders.  As artsy as I am or totally enthused about piano modeling, I too now have to look at things realistically.

The bottom line here is; PIANOTEQ PRO users may become especially interested to learn, millions of familiar music listeners as buyers of the music are very appreciative just as sells and purchases of this music already made possible from the preamps that are now in debate do matter-of-factly demonstrate  —and they willingly will pay in towering amounts to get any of it!

Anyone, before you cast your final vote either for or against preamps, you may want to consider all your sample libraries are of instruments sampled through preamps.  At one point or another they might now necessitate preamp readjustments, if you’re thinking to compensate for any embedded or original recorded tone, color, or character that has subsequently been stamped into the initial recordings.

Needless to say, I would think now PIANOTEQ presets, which also utilize microphones however modeled from a manufacturer’s microphone selection, require some preamp adjustments too, if the original selection of microphones as offered by the manufacturer were designed particularly in conjunction with preamp usage in mind.

Seriously, you would want to amplify any tone, color, or character which a manufacturer might have intended or built into a specialty microphone advertised by an highly publicized market brochure sparsely showing the true specs belonging to the audio equipment (that is) if you’re really serious about your own special piano recordings  —enough to capture closer character conceptualizations out of any such performances.

Have to say; anyway whatever makes a matched microphone pair ain’t always gonna show up in the specs sheets!

Special preamp equipment has been primarily designed by engineers to meet their expert needs in very sophisticated applications of microphone signal amplification  —as it pertains to anyone well trained miking an instrument.

I shall attempt to show this kind of equipment when modeled will meet also your needs and specifically many of those belonging to the PIANOTEQ PRO users.

i listened to both recordings several times.  i can't be sure that i'm hearing a significant difference between them, but on the other hand that could reflect my poor equipment.  what i can definitely say is that (as a jazz pianist) i really enjoyed your performance of this tune.  great job.

ok sorry about the confusion with the performer. whoever it is is doing a great job.

anyway, i always appreciate these threads that discuss audio processing and present different options to help me get the holy grail sound in my own recordings.  i always learn a lot.  they're a great resource.

Thanks for posting this. My "real" recording experience indeed is much more about as "clean" as possible instead of "flavored", but in the end, most of the time it's the pianist herself/himself that has the last word ! Let me tell you a very recent experience: in february, I had to record Liszt "années de pèlerinage" (1st year)  and the following week "Goldberg variations".
The pianist who recorded Liszt (on his Steinway D) refused my AKG 414 pair in favor of... KM184's ! He wanted a "brilliant" sound, and sure, he got it !
The pianist who recorded the Goldberg variations (on her Steinway B) asked for the AKG's and asked if I could have even a softer sound... So what ? ;-)

Oof!  How did I totally miss the Amp feature/setting under the FX selector!?  Between Amp and Fuzz, you can get excellent on-board results!  I recommend starting with the "Grand Piano Stage" setting, but perhaps lowering the mix if it's too "present."

Thanks for the pointer towards that part of the optional FX chain inside PTQ.

As of this posting votes show a majority 83.33% over 16.67%, disfavors preamps.

But, I truly wonder if PIANOTEQ users are really making informed decisions or just going with what's in their guts.  Few if any have stated the rationales behind their now voting against the preamps.  Which honestly to me is telling in itself.  I’m getting the impression software users view preamps as just unclean and too dirty and filthy to sustain classical idioms to them probably best preserved by purely digital sounds.  No surprise now nobody wants any coloration applied to the music of Beethoven!

It appears no self respecting musician nor new user could ever have wanted even any wine with his dinner music, and really only prefers fast food served in a styrofoam tray next to a paper bag in which is a diet coke labeled sugar free.

When today’s music can go from chamber, to jazz, and to rock, and hip hop, I have myself to wonder if the young new breed of piano players, that often post to this digital forum, is one only wanting to place its selfish desire before music listeners, who could someday constitute its general audience.  Those which definitely like to hear music but are far from being the creative and talented artist you are still deserve to hear the best an industry has to offer!   Long before this digital age began, people listened to a large variety of famous piano pieces on the records they had collected.  Which they enjoyed immensely.  Which were recorded with microphone preamps. 

Only now the burgeoning artistic pianists who are also techno-savvy software end-users seemingly prefer playability over listenability.  (That’s seldom a forum topic.)

When I began to use PIANOTEQ v2.1 more than ten (10) years ago, it had no modeled mics, no perfect mics, no U87s, no C414s, and no single microphone clearly of any kind!  Currently PIANOTEQ v6.7 has no preamps (no perfect preamps and no modeled versions either).  Obviously, it has no preamps at all as of yet; it has none of any identifiable model per se.  Just as early versions had no mic, v6.7 has too no single preamp clearly of any kind!  Certainly, none is available right now within the software to make it sound somehow indistinguishable truly amongst familiar sounding piano recordings, those that are of the widely recorded wood bodied types. 

Although the sounds of which were recorded by physical microphones that connected to physical preamp hardware.  Which inside professional recording sessions in turn connected to desks.  Whether you like it or not, a preamp imparted a lot in those older recordings still enjoyed by listeners.  Matter-of-factly these recordings are the ones bought in droves by the many!

Since as PIANOTEQ admirably demonstrates, specific microphone brands and models can add various richly expressive colors to an otherwise bland piano digital recording —even an uncompressed format— to me preamps now also add something very special indeed.  You call it what you will; to me it is a listenable clue into a performer's own character.  A selection of preamps allows that when even the newest user as protégée piano performer can choose freely from among them.  That’s precisely because they like a blank canvas to which a painter applies his tapered brush might more than adequately convey the most colorful impression.  (Per any recording media a hardware preamp was no less than an extension of the music and instrument played and recorded by professionals.)

My initial comparisons posted previously include default settings only, because listeners were to hear very subtle differences from a preamp.  I have now provided an example of custom settings.  Which might allow you to get a better idea and lifelike representation (that is) of the actual character and personality of the live performer as likely (to my understanding) communicated even through the electronic impulses of a software or hardware transformer modeled inside the preamp:

https://soundcloud.com/user-75091580/i-...973-preamp
https://soundcloud.com/user-75091580/i-...973-preamp

One completely overlooked advantage of preamp uses that is before postproduction —as the name preamp implies— is by them you get to tone shape left, right, mid, and side microphone input separately.

Recently I've read several posts of users using elaborate loudspeaker schemes.  Configurable inputs which you can tone shape independently to your liking, might alleviate anything previous you had gotten with probably obtuse space consuming speaker arrangements and comfortably give greater individual control now by just two (2) speakers that are independent, especially, when they are truly tone and volume adjusted independent of each other.  Therefore within any possible space —regardless of its size and dimensions furnishing accoutrements— you're likely to get an highly customizable stereo image of this piano (that is) thereby in front of you via the two (speakers) tweaked apart from each other er equalized separately.

An example, perhaps two (2) is forthcoming!

Edit: well a lot changed including “imported” to “imparted” as I was maybe subconsciously thinking too much of the wine analogy, though California is my location.

Man, thoughts versus feelings, you really have something there!

You have examples, how whatever multiples you’ve done sound like preamp recordings?

Thanks.  As in my life 'preamp' has been a home audio reproduction phrase, I appreciated the educational yet entertaining "What is a Microphone Preamp?" video.