Topic by riskun

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Topic: Pianoteq freezes on Midi Setup

I am a new user and installed Pianoteq using the MIDI output from a QRS optical strip on a nice Bluthner Grand. The latency is frankly annoying. The Piano is muted but not completely silent and the delay in my headphones is quite obvious.

I am using a quite new Dell laptop with an i7 chip @2.6 GHz. It uses an on the motherboard sound card. Realtek Audio. Shows ASIO in pianoteq.

I have read the forums and did all kinds of tweaks to the laptop setup to try and improve. I have two immediate issues.

1. When I change anything in Audio MIDI Setup, the setup screen freezes and I then have to use Task Manager to shut down Pianoteq.

2. In the actual settings I only have multiples of 88 as options, whereas the suggestion is to use buffer sizes that are multiples of 64.

Reply by Irmin

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Re: Pianoteq freezes on Midi Setup

riskun wrote:

I am a new user and installed Pianoteq using the MIDI output from a QRS optical strip on a nice Bluthner Grand. The latency is frankly annoying. The Piano is muted but not completely silent and the delay in my headphones is quite obvious.

I am using a quite new Dell laptop with an i7 chip @2.6 GHz. It uses an on the motherboard sound card. Realtek Audio. Shows ASIO in pianoteq.

I have read the forums and did all kinds of tweaks to the laptop setup to try and improve. I have two immediate issues.

1. When I change anything in Audio MIDI Setup, the setup screen freezes and I then have to use Task Manager to shut down Pianoteq.

2. In the actual settings I only have multiples of 88 as options, whereas the suggestion is to use buffer sizes that are multiples of 64.


Are you using Windows 10?
ASIO4All or something else?
Have you tried to run Pianoteq in a DAW? e.g. Reaper, that can sometimes help
How long would you guess the delay is between the pianoteq audio and the actual sound from the piano?

Reply by riskun

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Re: Pianoteq freezes on Midi Setup

Irmin wrote:
riskun wrote:

I am a new user and installed Pianoteq using the MIDI output from a QRS optical strip on a nice Bluthner Grand. The latency is frankly annoying. The Piano is muted but not completely silent and the delay in my headphones is quite obvious.

I am using a quite new Dell laptop with an i7 chip @2.6 GHz. It uses an on the motherboard sound card. Realtek Audio. Shows ASIO in pianoteq.

I have read the forums and did all kinds of tweaks to the laptop setup to try and improve. I have two immediate issues.

1. When I change anything in Audio MIDI Setup, the setup screen freezes and I then have to use Task Manager to shut down Pianoteq.

2. In the actual settings I only have multiples of 88 as options, whereas the suggestion is to use buffer sizes that are multiples of 64.


Are you using Windows 10?
ASIO4All or something else?
Have you tried to run Pianoteq in a DAW? e.g. Reaper, that can sometimes help
How long would you guess the delay is between the pianoteq audio and the actual sound from the piano?

- Using Windows 10
- ASIO driver for the on board soundcard. It just says ASIO in the Pianoteq. My drivers are updated via Dell.
- Not in a DAW. I could try it but have nor reason currently to do that. I simply wanted to use Pianoteq to enable roughly silent headphone playing.
- Look the delay is not crazy long. If the piano was literally silent, perhaps I would not notice, but honestly on a quick run it is annoying and changes the "feel" of playing.

Also happy to set up a dedicated solution such as the Rasberry Pi option mentioned in the forum. I just want to be a bit more confident it will get me somewhere I am comfortable with in the end.

Reply by Irmin

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Re: Pianoteq freezes on Midi Setup

riskun wrote:

- Look the delay is not crazy long. If the piano was literally silent, perhaps I would not notice, but honestly on a quick run it is annoying and changes the "feel" of playing.

.

I wonder if you will be able to sort this one out. Essentially its a race between the sound emanating from the piano string and the signal chain to the speakers. To get them to reach your ears at the same time will be a challenge. I don't know how the QRS strip works? Is it possible to get it to trigger slightly earlier. Maybe raise it up or something? Maybe a millisecond earlier on the optical strip solves your problem.

Alternatively another soundcard. 48khz with buffer set to 64. As long as your laptop can handle it.

I'm sure there are people on here with much better knowledge of these things

Reply by riskun

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Re: Pianoteq freezes on Midi Setup

Irmin wrote:
riskun wrote:

- Look the delay is not crazy long. If the piano was literally silent, perhaps I would not notice, but honestly on a quick run it is annoying and changes the "feel" of playing.

.

I wonder if you will be able to sort this one out. Essentially its a race between the sound emanating from the piano string and the signal chain to the speakers. To get them to reach your ears at the same time will be a challenge. I don't know how the QRS strip works? Is it possible to get it to trigger slightly earlier. Maybe raise it up or something? Maybe a millisecond earlier on the optical strip solves your problem.

Alternatively another soundcard. 48khz with buffer set to 64. As long as your laptop can handle it.

I'm sure there are people on here with much better knowledge of these things

Reply by riskun

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Re: Pianoteq freezes on Midi Setup

riskun wrote:
Irmin wrote:
riskun wrote:

- Look the delay is not crazy long. If the piano was literally silent, perhaps I would not notice, but honestly on a quick run it is annoying and changes the "feel" of playing.

.

I wonder if you will be able to sort this one out. Essentially its a race between the sound emanating from the piano string and the signal chain to the speakers. To get them to reach your ears at the same time will be a challenge. I don't know how the QRS strip works? Is it possible to get it to trigger slightly earlier. Maybe raise it up or something? Maybe a millisecond earlier on the optical strip solves your problem.

Alternatively another soundcard. 48khz with buffer set to 64. As long as your laptop can handle it.

I'm sure there are people on here with much better knowledge of these things


Actually your suggestion of modifying the detection point of the key on the QRS strip is a good one. There is a calibration procedure to use on the QRS strip that involves pressing each key to the "bottom" where it measures that keys "bottom". If you know grand pianos you will realize that there is a let off point near the bottom of the keystroke felt as a light resistance point where the hammer is released and then is thrown the rest of the way to the string. The key then can move down slightly - say 1mm below that. I am a technician actually and I have let off set quite close so that on a very light stroke the hammer will lightly sound even if let off is not pushed through. At first I calibrated with a key stroke all the way to the bottom. This was actually much worse, so I recalibrated so that the "bottom" was actually detected at the key resistance at the let off point. This gave a much better result. From your suggestion I could actually add a small temporary punching of say 1mm at the front of each key and then recalibrate again. This would then detect even earlier. Interesting thought. Thanks.

Reply by riskun

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Re: Pianoteq freezes on Midi Setup

Problem resolved!

It seems the advice to use ASIO in the setup is misguided, at east in my case.

I reset my soundcard to 16 bit 44100. I then selected Windows Audio in the Pianoteq audio devices screen. I then got a range of Audio Buffer sizes. 192 samples (4.4ms) works fine without any noise or overload.

Although I can still detect a very slight delay between the actual piano, it is now perfectly acceptable.

...and Pianoteq stopped freezing up on the MIDI Setup screens.

Reply by riskun

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Re: Pianoteq freezes on Midi Setup

I still want a dedicated solution instead of the laptop. Perhaps I'll just go for an easier to setup Intel NUC. I have built those in a fan less case and would be easier to setup than the Rasberry Pi.

Reply by Irmin

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Re: Pianoteq freezes on Midi Setup

riskun wrote:

I still want a dedicated solution instead of the laptop. Perhaps I'll just go for an easier to setup Intel NUC. I have built those in a fan less case and would be easier to setup than the Rasberry Pi.

Glad your problem is sorted. Have you considered a Mac Mini M1 (very tempted to get one) they run cool and quiet