Can I separate the hammer noise from the rest?

With Pro or Standard, it's possible to separate most of the hammer sound but there is still some remaining string sound since they are intertwined in the model. But, using the layer feature, I made a preset by superposing the dry hammers with the Mistral Cinematic with pretty good results. The advantage is you can easily (in Pro or Standard) play with the proportion of hammers you want by moving the volume slider. I guess this preset would not work in Stage though...

Layer FXP: https://forum.modartt.com/file/wb9rs7p

Satie Gymnopédie: https://forum.modartt.com/uploads.php?f...pedie1.mp3

Really love that sound Gilles!

Good tool Key Fumbler too - that makes things easy (it could replace 3 different tools I like for that kind of thing).

Here's a pretty cool thing to do to isolate hammer noise (mostly, as mentioned above, Pianoteq's hammers will cause some expected resonances which could be rolled off using EQ and/or attenuated by reducing Q and other controls if being extra fussy - but this example is "just do it" variety to show this is more or less doable even without too much effort)..

- Just play something (short improve for example)
- now load in Pianoteq's auto-recorded MIDI of that.

So now we need to export audio - and here's the trick..

- with the MIDI loaded, turn hammer noise to OFF and export the short piece.
- with the MIDI still loaded, turn hammer noise to FULL and export again.

Now, there are 2 audio files which are exactly the same, except one has hammer noise, while the other does not.

Using a DAW or something like Audacity (a free audio editor),

you can load BOTH audio files into a project (to mix together),

and on either of these audio files, just invert left and right channels (different tools in different hosts should be built in).

What you hear will be as close as possible to ONLY hammer sounds and the resonances they generate.

That resultant audio may be much quieter, so turning up volume and other things like EQ could be tweaked, or indeed a tool like the one Key Fumber recommended above, can of course bring out the hammer's noise to its full from there.

Here's an example (using Petrof Mistral - Player preset, reverb off, delay off)..

Before example (with hammers up FULL) just to give a notion of the piano we begin with here..

petrof mistral clean example improv no reverb

After processing as described to isolate the hammers alone (Volume up, some EQ to push the attack and a little oomph)

petrof mistral example improv hammers isolated

Lastly, just one of infinite 'fantasy' ideas for those 2 mixed together to really accentuate the hammers, with extra FX (reverb, EQ, console emulation, compressor/limiter - the 'After' track flipped again to be more additive instead of subtractive).

petrof mistral example improv fantasy mix    

Cheers, hope that's a bit if fun to try out

Funny because this is something I had asked for a long time ago: the possibility to choose the hammer sound from a collection. It took this user request to make me realize that the Layer function now permits this. Nothing stopping you from mixing the hammer of the U4 or the Pleyel for example, with a grand piano and hear something different in the attack.

For example, here is that same gymnopédie on a Bluethner fitted with U4 hammers:

https://forum.modartt.com/uploads.php?f...uthnU4.mp3

Different proportions here. Also the Freeze function makes it easy to scan through various combinations by editing each preset of the layer while keeping the parameters fixed

Thank you so much for your suggestions and for the beautiful examples!
I never would have expected that detailed answers.

I have a lot to try out now!

@ Qexl: Funny that to bounced audios - one with inverted channels - do not completely cancel them out each other.
There must be some "round robin" thing working in the background, so to speak.

@ Key FumblerI: I used your settings and cut away the last remaining frequencies of the sound of vibrating strings
with a narrow EQ just for one note to make this example.
Here the hammer sound continues playing but without string sounds

https://forum.modartt.com/uploads.php?file=hammer.mp3

Has anyone compared Eventides Physion with Transgressor for controlling the hammer sound? Looking at the manual for Physion, I see that the program lets the user do things like apply a separate reverb to the transients or change the dynamic range of just the transients or the "body" of the sound. I can imagine that being valuable in small doses. It also offers Transgressor's ability to apply different EQ's to the transients and the rest of the sound.

Surprises me that the Eventide plugin is $179, while Transgressor goes on sale now and then for $29 or so.

(Sorry to toot my own thread, but here is the thread in which Transgressor was discussed, with sound examples that get better as the thread goes on, as I learned to use the program. Note that all of the recordings were made using older versions of both Pianoteq and Transgressor: https://forum.modartt.com/viewtopic.php?id=6189 )

What a fun idea - and a trick borrowed from Spectral Layers perhaps? Love it