I love the Steinway D in the lower registers but the non-musical noise in the upper registers is a bit strong for my taste. As a point of reference, the amount of noise in the Steinway B is just right to my ears in this regard. Is there away to adjust this? If so, would I need the standard version to acces this or would I need the pro version?
Hi B-chan,
there's no possibility to understand exactly what you are hearing in your space but I'll put some ideas forward which I feel fundamental to this.
If you have a desire or need to change or regulate very specific physical things about a piano, like a good piano tech would be able to do in person with a real piano, like altering unison width and balance, these and other voicing settings which go beyond this, many you will find included in Standard.
But, certainly, if you feel you'd appreciate control over this type of treble range alone, whilst standard does give more tools than Stage allowing editing many aspect of the whole piano, Pro will allow you ways to only operate for instance, on a select range of notes or per-note which allows you to keep everything about the bass you love unchanged, while altering just a few octaves, or notes.
So in general, Standard tools will mostly alter overall tone in all ranges - so possibly Pro allows therefore less concerns for "balancing edits", faster, deeper changes etc.
From what you describe though, it may be possible to alter "Equalizer" a little. You haven't mentioned if you've tried certain things like it - but in case you're not sure how these work well for us..
Try clicking the Equalizer button as a first step, and try lowering a little treble. (intuitively, you can use dots and drag them up or down, right-click them to adjust precisely by typing in numbers if it's important to be exact).
So many ways to apply EQ, it can seem tricky at first - but, you don't need Standard for this and other "Effects" which also include a extra EQ tools.
The extra EQ tools inside Effects is called EQ3, which are parametric type EQ.
With these you can shape greatly or in small notches. You can click and drag the middle dot up (it will increase a small frequency band, you will hear that 'character' boosted too much).
Then just drag the dot left and right, until you hear the tonal range you don't want.
When you've discerned that frequency range by ear, made a few short experiments to be sure it's 'the one to remove' - then lower that dot to below the line, so you are effectively disallowing it in the piano.
You might find, lowering it by only under 2dB might be well enough - and by lowing or raising things in larger numbers, you may have less genuine success in helping along your presets.
Last thing, I would take note of that frequency - because, you might be better sometimes to find it with EQ3 tool, but then close it, use the main EQ to create a small 3 dot cut of 1 or 2 dB at that same frequency instead - just a few thoughts.
I'm not sure what preset you're using but, you can select the below text, copy, then paste that by right-clicking in the Equalizer pane..
Equalizer = [116, 183, 300, 1530, 4000; +1.9, 0, -2.0, +1.0, 0]
See if that helps, it's the "cinematic" preset's EQ curve with a 1dB cut in an upper-mid frequency..
if that works to an extent, it may give you clues or serve as a nice starting point for you.
Hope that helps with this.
I second everything Qexl said, and I would add that you're probably wanting to reduce the amount of sound from the duplex scale, which is a setting available in both Standard and Pro. The duplex increases the strength of the overtones of higher strings, which I would guess is the "non-musical sound" you mention. Standard allows you to globally reduce the strength of the duplex, and Pro allows you to change the duplex on a note-by-note basis. (Pro is probably not necessary for this or most circumstances but nice to have if you want near-total control of PTQ for recreating historical pianos or doing complete sound design and engineering for production workflows.)
I would recommend trying the Demo version of Standard to see if working with the parameters like Duplex Scaling under the "Design" section fix the issue, since it's free to try and will give you a fairly good sense of whether Standard would solve the problem for you. That is, if Qexl's (very good) EQ suggestion doesn't completely take care of the issue.
Great points tm. Duplex scale is an excellent suggestion to try early on. Also, definitely worthwhile to try the demo to see if the extras can help you make exactly the kind of piano sound you want to hear.
Just had a thought while re-visiting the topic - B-chan didn't describe the 'noise' - so just in case it's a help..
in Stage, you can lower 'key release noise' and 'sustain pedal noise'.
in Standard & Pro you can do a whole lot more (like change hammers in 3 velocity ranges etc.).
Yes, some find that true with a Steinway having a distinct key noise: but that’s been found perhaps reportedly more often in a Steinway B preset than otherwise any Steinway D.
Anyway a pro copy does seem your best bet for individual (register) adjustments.
I love the Steinway D in the lower registers but the non-musical noise in the upper registers is a bit strong for my taste. As a point of reference, the amount of noise in the Steinway B is just right to my ears in this regard. Is there away to adjust this? If so, would I need the standard version to acces this or would I need the pro version?
Perhaps you are referring to the physical noise of the key-presses and releases. If so, reduce the hammer noise in the Voicing panel of Pianoteq, and the key release noise in the Action section of the Panel at lower right of the Pianoteq interface.
Thanks for the suggestions. I tried adjusting the hammer noise in Standard and that's the one. I found dialing that back a bit helps. Too much makes the low registers lose their impact. The key release noise and EQ were good ideas to try but they didn't affect what's been catching my ear. It looks like I would need the Pro version to do exactly what I want but I think that adjustment in the Standard version should get me close enough.
It's nice to know there's an active and supportive community here.
Thanks for the suggestions. I tried adjusting the hammer noise in Standard and that's the one. I found dialing that back a bit helps. Too much makes the low registers lose their impact. The key release noise and EQ were good ideas to try but they didn't affect what's been catching my ear. It looks like I would need the Pro version to do exactly what I want but I think that adjustment in the Standard version should get me close enough.
I agree, but I think there is a more general problem with the hammer noise on the Steinway models and others. I am listening on a powerful PC with a pro audio interface and reference headphones. I have the pro version of Painoteq, and without the pro version I would have to record the top 2 octaves separately to the rest of the registers. As you say, adjusting the hammer noise across the board removes the warmth and some impact from the lower registers. I would say the default balance of the hammer noise across the whole range is wrong on many models. Also the hammer noise in the top 2 octaves does not sound as natural as a high quality sampled piano. So far this is my only criticism of Pianoteq, I do like it, but it seems a shame that I can't recommend it to friends unless they get the pro version.