Topic: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

If I press sostenuto and sustain, play some notes, then release sustain and press again, play some notes, the RELEASE ALL pedals, played after that high notes that are obertones of the sustained note are heard very loud and last as long as If the pedal was pressed. What could that be?
Have a listen
https://soundcloud.com/axisforward/2020...kN6IstLVCu


Ant. Petrof prelude room size 19 m

https://soundcloud.com/axisforward/2020...11-seconds

Last edited by Romariozen (23-05-2020 16:39)

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

Perhaps these are due to the upper ranges of pianos being undamped, so they will resonate both with and without the sustain pedal being depressed.

- David

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

As someone without access to a real piano (and almost no experience trying to play one), I'd ask if this was the way an acoustic piano (or a particular model) behaves ?

Also it would help to know what Pianoteq version(s) and model(s) you have tried this on and found it to (a) happen and (b) not happen.  A bug report is probably going to need that info anyway.

Might help to have your midi sequence for this as well, so a "standardized" test can be made with it.  Could you upload it ?

StephenG

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

sjgcit wrote:

if this was the way an acoustic piano (or a particular model) behaves ?

Yes. This is a normal behavior for acoustic piano.

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

Your recording sounds as if you've silently pressed some keys with the left hand, and are still holding those keys after the pedals are released.  The resonance we hear at the end is from one or two bass strings that still have the damper lifted.  If you've let go of all pedals *and* all keys before you play the staccato high notes, and you're still getting that echo, then it's a bug.

Can you post your MIDI file, to see if other people can reproduce the same behaviour?

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

sjgcit wrote:

As someone without access to a real piano (and almost no experience trying to play one), I'd ask if this was the way an acoustic piano (or a particular model) behaves ?

Also it would help to know what Pianoteq version(s) and model(s) you have tried this on and found it to (a) happen and (b) not happen.  A bug report is probably going to need that info anyway.

Might help to have your midi sequence for this as well, so a "standardized" test can be made with it.  Could you upload it ?


Well, I didn't find how I can upload midi and preset options. Here is the secong recording, it seems more to be a bug. If you press sustain, then with it sustenuto without releasing sustain, the sound becoms too resonant for a while
https://soundcloud.com/axisforward/2020...11-seconds

Ant. Petrof prelude modified (room size 19 m)

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

Romariozen wrote:

Here is the secong recording, it seems more to be a bug. If you press sustain, then with it sustenuto without releasing sustain, the sound becoms too resonant for a while

First I'd like to comment that this is actually a rather bizarre thing to do. What is it you think should happen? The sustain pedal lifts all dampers, while the sostenuto pedal 'holds' dampers in place that are lifted at the time you press it.

In other words: if you first lift all the dampers by pressing sustain, and then press sostenuto and release the sustain pedal, at least one "correct" implementation would indeed be that all dampers stay up, as they were all up when you pressed the sostenuto pedal.

Second, I actually have confirmed this described behaviour just now with a recent-ish Kawai baby grand. In practice I expect different mechanical implementations of sostenuto to maybe behave slightly differently, since as I already mentioned this use case is actually a rather bizarre thing to do, at least to my mind. I half-expected the poor little Kawai to completely give up and just leave some random dampers up, or something equally strange.

(Also this is a completely different thing to what you described at first, i.e. sympathetic resonance of bass and medium strings without any pedals pressed. This is also the reason people have been asking for MIDI I think. Reproducing a bug in software just from description is nearly impossible, as perception and interpretation tend to get in the way.)

Last edited by kalessin (23-05-2020 17:30)
Pianoteq 6 Standard (Steinway D&B, Grotrian, Petrof, Steingraeber, Bechstein, Blüthner, K2, YC5, U4, Kremsegg 1&2, Karsten, Electric, Hohner)

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

kalessin wrote:
Romariozen wrote:

Here is the secong recording, it seems more to be a bug. If you press sustain, then with it sustenuto without releasing sustain, the sound becoms too resonant for a while

First I'd like to comment that this is actually a rather bizarre thing to do. What is it you think should happen? The sustain pedal lifts all dampers, while the sostenuto pedal 'holds' dampers in place that are lifted at the time you press it.

In other words: if you first lift all the dampers by pressing sustain, and then press sostenuto and release the sustain pedal, at least one "correct" implementation would indeed be that all dampers stay up, as they were all up when you pressed the sostenuto pedal.

Second, I actually have confirmed this described behaviour just now with a recent-ish Kawai baby grand. In practice I expect different mechanical implementations of sostenuto to maybe behave slightly differently, since as I already mentioned this use case is actually a rather bizarre thing to do, at least to my mind. I half-expected the poor little Kawai to completely give up and just leave some random dampers up, or something equally strange.

(Also this is a completely different thing to what you described at first, i.e. sympathetic resonance of bass and medium strings without any pedals pressed. This is also the reason people have been asking for MIDI I think. Reproducing a bug in software just from description is nearly impossible, as perception and interpretation tend to get in the way.)

I'd like to give an example where you want to use 2 pedals simultaneously.  Watch Chopin's nocturne 48 n1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7mntyrW3HU time code 1:50  4-5 bar. You sostenuto C-C octave whilst sustaning thirds, then you release sustain to shut down thirds and play C-E-G-E on the refreshed space and lasting C-C octave as Chopin intended. There is another way to do it but I like this one.

I'll clarify that I release all pedals before I press some notes that have this reverb effect for some time. You can hear in the second link that the first playing chord before all pedals is clear and shuts down quickly after lifting up the keys.

I have found that not only notes that are obertones have this reverb slowly dying effect. This is definetly not the natural reverb or something that was supposed to be, as this dying reverb sound is very loud and can not be found before I do this trick with the pedals. Here is 1 more example https://soundcloud.com/axisforward/2020...12-seconds

Last edited by Romariozen (23-05-2020 18:29)

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

I tried to listen to your last three recordings, but they all went to a page saying "This track was not found. Maybe it has been removed."  Might be a problem with your soundcloud privacy settings?

Romariozen wrote:

I'd like to give an example where you want to use 2 pedals simultaneously...

Yes, but in that example you press the sostenuto pedal *first*, and sustain afterwards.  What you were describing earlier seemed like the opposite.  If you press the sustain pedal first, then the sostenuto pedal should do nothing.

Romariozen wrote:

How can I post MIDI?

Near the top of your screen, you should see a row of links that say Forums ... User list ... Rules ...   The seventh one along is "Shared files".  Click there and you'll go to a page where you can upload.

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

Romariozen wrote:

I'd like to give an example where you want to use 2 pedals simultaneously.  Watch Chopin's nocturne 48 n1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7mntyrW3HU time code 1:50  4-5 bar. You sostenuto C-C octave whilst sustaning thirds, then you release sustain to shut down thirds and play C-E-G-E on the refreshed space and lasting C-C octave as Chopin intended. There is another way to do it but I like this one.

I did not say "two pedals simultaneously never make sense". In fact, if you press a chord, then press sostenuto, thus holding those specific dampers up, then use sustain for lifting/dropping all the other dampers while holding sostenuto all the time to keep the original chord's dampers up, that can absolutely make sense. But pressing the sostenuto pedal while/after the sustain pedal is pressed down does not make much sense, as it just acts as a copy of the sustain pedal, i.e. it will just be holding all the dampers up.

That said, I have identified an artifact I too would classify as a bug, but it depends on using the two pedals in exactly the bizarre fashion I described:
1. Press the sustain pedal
2. Press the sostenuto pedal while still pressing sustain
3. Release the sustain pedal
4. Play a chord; sostenuto acts just like sustain now, which is to be expected
5. Release the chord and the pedal
6. The main string sounds are dampened immediately, but the sympathetic resonance simulation actually seems to linger for about half a second before it too is abruptly cut off

This behaviour is indeed incorrect, as in this specific scenario releasing sostenuto should sound exactly like releasing sustain. But I still maintain this is a bizarre corner case of little practical import. It would be nice if it got fixed by Modartt, but I wouldn't call it exactly urgent either.

Addendum: I have two sets of Kontakt-based sample instruments (Session Keys and Native Instruments), and I played around with them for a bit and neither is getting pedalling completely right. The SK instruments have a completely broken implementation that actually drops the dampers on all the strings when you press sustain while sostenuto-ing specific keys (i.e. play/hold a chord, press/hold sostenuto, release the keys, press sustain (while still holding sostenuto) and immediately hear all notes being dampened, it's quite fascinating). The SK implementation also cuts off repeat notes when pressing sustain after the first key press, which is a very old sustain bug many electronic instruments used to have. Both implementations also ignore the dampers being raised by sustain, i.e.: press/hold sustain, play/hold a chord, press/hold sostenuto, release keys, release sustain and magically only the dampers for the chord stay up, which is not what an actual physical sostenuto pedal would do, as it IMHO simply cannot for mechanical reasons. Maybe this is what he OP expected to happen.

Last edited by kalessin (24-05-2020 09:38)
Pianoteq 6 Standard (Steinway D&B, Grotrian, Petrof, Steingraeber, Bechstein, Blüthner, K2, YC5, U4, Kremsegg 1&2, Karsten, Electric, Hohner)

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

kalessin wrote:

That said, I have identified an artifact I too would classify as a bug...This behaviour is indeed incorrect, as in this specific scenario releasing sostenuto should sound exactly like releasing sustain. But I still maintain this is a bizarre corner case of little practical import. It would be nice if it got fixed by Modartt, but I wouldn't call it exactly urgent either.

I've reproduced this (Pianoteq 6.7 on Linux).  And agree that it's harmless.  Fixing the bug wouldn't enable you to make any sounds that you can't already make.

It seems that the extra resonance lasts for just over a second after the sostenuto pedal is released, whether that's after the sustain pedal is released or a fraction of a second before.  And if the sostenuto pedal goes down first, there's no problem (for me).

Romariozen, does this answer your question, or are you having problems even when the sostenuto pedal goes down first?  If it's still a problem for you, please post those MIDI files!

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

Romariozen wrote:

I'd like to give an example where you want to use 2 pedals simultaneously.  Watch Chopin's nocturne 48 n1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7mntyrW3HU time code 1:50  4-5 bar. You sostenuto C-C octave whilst sustaning thirds, then you release sustain to shut down thirds and play C-E-G-E on the refreshed space and lasting C-C octave as Chopin intended. There is another way to do it but I like this one.

Without addressing your issue surrounding unwanted "obertones", as a matter of historical fact & interest Chopin never had a sostenuto pedal on any of the instruments he used, and thus obviously never used it in any of his works.  If you're using it in the playing of his music then I'd suggest that there's something seriously amiss with your interpretation/technique, unless you believe that you're somehow a superior pianist to Chopin, in which case there would seem to be other issues at play...

edit:
PS by "you" I don't necessarily mean you, Romariozen, per se but rather anyone (including Arthur Rubinstein) who thus mangles Chopin.
PPS for anyone who's interested, here's an informative thesis on the development of the "modern" (ie 1875 Steinway-stye) pedaling setup: https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file...1428503747, as well as Sandra Rosenblum's critical discussion of Rowland's History...: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/v...ontext=ppr

Last edited by francine (24-05-2020 10:39)

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

francine wrote:

PS by "you" I don't necessarily mean you, Romariozen, per se but rather anyone (including Arthur Rubinstein) who thus mangles Chopin.

Of course this is absolutely OT and in any case a very weak argument. It not only overly emphasises authorial intent, it also proposes a view of art as something static, while sacrificing the right of an artist to interpreting a work to a fictitious ideal of 'accuracy' or 'authenticity', while in reality there just is no such thing. If you take this argument to its logical conclusion, this would also declare anathema any modern interpretation of Goethe or Shakespeare for example, and while I realise there are people who do just that, I do not think they are doing either author any justice. Especially Shakespeare would probably have some very inventive language for them, but maybe that's just my imagination.

We do play Bach on modern pianos with an iron frame, steel strings and equal temperament in favour of a specially tuned clavichord nowadays, and hopefully pretty much everybody agrees that is not 'mangling' his works. There is still discussion on how literal we should take Beethoven's "sempre e senza sordini", and that's perfectly okay. As is pedaling a Chopin piece slightly differently than (we assume) he himself probably did.

Pianoteq 6 Standard (Steinway D&B, Grotrian, Petrof, Steingraeber, Bechstein, Blüthner, K2, YC5, U4, Kremsegg 1&2, Karsten, Electric, Hohner)

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

kalessin wrote:

Of course this is absolutely OT and in any case a very weak argument. It not only overly emphasises authorial intent, it also proposes a view of art as something static, while sacrificing the right of an artist to interpreting a work to a fictitious ideal of 'accuracy' or 'authenticity', while in reality there just is no such thing. If you take this argument to its logical conclusion, this would also declare anathema any modern interpretation of Goethe or Shakespeare for example, and while I realise there are people who do just that, I do not think they are doing either author any justice. Especially Shakespeare would probably have some very inventive language for them, but maybe that's just my imagination.

We do play Bach on modern pianos with an iron frame, steel strings and equal temperament in favour of a specially tuned clavichord nowadays, and hopefully pretty much everybody agrees that is not 'mangling' his works. There is still discussion on how literal we should take Beethoven's "sempre e senza sordini", and that's perfectly okay. As is pedaling a Chopin piece slightly differently than (we assume) he himself probably did.

OT we can agree on, but that's about it.
At issue is not "intention", but rather an understanding, or an apparent lack there of, of the parameters (as given by some 'musical author') by which one might arrive at a reasonably musically-informed interpretation of said author's own works.  "The right of an artist" is just the sort of juvenile, self-entitled approach that reveals either, at best, a gross lack of education or, more likely, a willful ignorance born out of hubris, both of which seem profoundly disrespectful of the true authority which such masters as Chopin, particularly as concerns the performance of their own works, have been so good as to bequeath us...  unless you feel that Chopin (et al) and his instructions as we have them (ie the score) are no real authority at all?  that all those indications provided by the score (slurs, dots, wedges, etc) are really just window dressing which he 'randomly put in there, and your own sensibilities are actually superior?  Or perhaps it's just the notion of authority at all which rankles you?  Further, your comparative example from the world of literature is apples-to-oranges... but in that vein, what if "my interpretation" tells me that Goethe's or Shakespeare's text should be changed—instead of "to be, or not to be (etc)" to something like "yo, izzle or no-shwizzle, that's the jamb"—because it's my "right" as an "artist"... 'that OK with you?  I realize it's the 21st century and, in the spirit of being "woke", anything and everything is fair game in these decadent days, and the more irreverent the better it would largely seem, but (call me old-fashioned) I prefer to study the works of the great composers and see what they can tell me, and not the other way around.  As well, your notion that trying to respect and learn from the composer's instructions beyond mere propaedeutic intervalic & rhythmic content somehow ossifies the work, inhibiting its >Immerwerdenheit< (as Adorno would have it), is simply quatsch.
As for Bach, I'm not at all sure that "pretty much everybody agrees" on appropriate choice of instruments, unless by "everybody" you mean the swath of "musicians" who still, surprisingly (or not?), have their prejudiced heads stuck back in the 20th century, marketing victims of the notion that the 1875 Steinway is the end-all-be-all of keyboard development...

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

Perhaps we could start a separate thread for performance practices and interpretation?  I'd really like to hear back from Romariozen about whether we've solved the Pianoteq problem -- I hope we haven't scared them away with this discussion, and I hope the conversation can stay civil and respectful.

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

hanysz wrote:

I'd really like to hear back from Romariozen about whether we've solved the Pianoteq problem -- I hope we haven't scared them away with this discussion, and I hope the conversation can stay civil and respectful.

Emphatically agreed.

Last edited by kalessin (24-05-2020 14:37)
Pianoteq 6 Standard (Steinway D&B, Grotrian, Petrof, Steingraeber, Bechstein, Blüthner, K2, YC5, U4, Kremsegg 1&2, Karsten, Electric, Hohner)

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

hanysz wrote:
kalessin wrote:

That said, I have identified an artifact I too would classify as a bug...This behaviour is indeed incorrect, as in this specific scenario releasing sostenuto should sound exactly like releasing sustain. But I still maintain this is a bizarre corner case of little practical import. It would be nice if it got fixed by Modartt, but I wouldn't call it exactly urgent either.

I've reproduced this (Pianoteq 6.7 on Linux).  And agree that it's harmless.  Fixing the bug wouldn't enable you to make any sounds that you can't already make.

It seems that the extra resonance lasts for just over a second after the sostenuto pedal is released, whether that's after the sustain pedal is released or a fraction of a second before.  And if the sostenuto pedal goes down first, there's no problem (for me).

Romariozen, does this answer your question, or are you having problems even when the sostenuto pedal goes down first?  If it's still a problem for you, please post those MIDI files!


I made the links work.

I have also uploaded MIDI

https://forum.modartt.com/uploads.php?f...econds.mid

And if the sostenuto pedal goes down first, there's no problem (for me).

I lifted up all pedals simultaneously right after releasing the chord

Note in the second link (where there are 20 notes, MIDI file is relative to this recording), with the first play there is no huge reverb as it is supposed to be because this is prelude without any modifications except for room size 19 m

For some reason I can barely reproduce the same effect today only 1 out of 20 attempts right after switching pianos have a success


https://soundcloud.com/axisforward/2020...12-seconds
https://soundcloud.com/axisforward/2020...11-seconds

Last edited by Romariozen (24-05-2020 14:59)

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

1 more
https://soundcloud.com/axisforward/2020...10-seconds

https://forum.modartt.com/uploads.php?f...281%29.mid

Last edited by Romariozen (24-05-2020 15:33)

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

Thanks for posting the MIDI files.  I've checked: you're letting go of both pedals, there aren't any stuck keys, the sound still echoes after the pedal comes up, same when I play it through my copy of Pianoteq as in your recording.  And this isn't how acoustic pianos behave.  It really does look like a bug.  But, as discussed above, not a serious one.

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

Hi all,

We have released Pianoteq version 6.7.2, which should fix this issue with the sostenuto pedal.

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

julien wrote:

Hi all,

We have released Pianoteq version 6.7.2, which should fix this issue with the sostenuto pedal.

Thanks very much

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

julien wrote:

Hi all,

We have released Pianoteq version 6.7.2, which should fix this issue with the sostenuto pedal.


Well... we have updated version 6.7.2 again because the previous fix broke the sostenuto in a different way -- sorry for that.

Re: Bug or real modelling? (I guess bug)

Its Normal Dude. Not A Bug