Topic by aleluman

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  • aleluman
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Topic: Hammer noise and key bottoming

I've been reading some articles about piano sound and how a different stroke of the keys could theoretically alter (or not) the sound produced, assuming the same velocity. I'm not really convinced you can control the tone of an acoustic piano independently of the dynamics, but I've come across an interesting source claiming that the sound a key makes when bottoming is an integral part of piano tone: https://www.speech.kth.se/music/5_lectu...anist.html.

Does Pianoteq include this sound in its modelling? Its really hard to tell because (as far as I know) there is no mention of it anywhere on the interface and you can't really disable the hammer noise completely to properly differentiate it. Would be really interesting if you could customize this sound.

Also, it seems a bit weird to me how much the hammer noise affects the resonances of the strings. I generally like a bit more hammer noise than the default presets, but increasing it makes adjacent strings resonate a lot, specially in the high register that doesn't have dampers (and if you lower it, these notes sound extremely thin because there is barely any resonance). Would be awesome if in the future you could increase the hammer noise and the "hammer noise resonance" independently.

Reply by sigasa

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  • sigasa
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Re: Hammer noise and key bottoming

aleluman wrote:

I've been reading some articles about piano sound and how a different stroke of the keys could theoretically alter (or not) the sound produced, assuming the same velocity. I'm not really convinced you can control the tone of an acoustic piano independently of the dynamics, but I've come across an interesting source claiming that the sound a key makes when bottoming is an integral part of piano tone: https://www.speech.kth.se/music/5_lectu...anist.html.

Does Pianoteq include this sound in its modelling? Its really hard to tell because (as far as I know) there is no mention of it anywhere on the interface and you can't really disable the hammer noise completely to properly differentiate it. Would be really interesting if you could customize this sound.

Also, it seems a bit weird to me how much the hammer noise affects the resonances of the strings. I generally like a bit more hammer noise than the default presets, but increasing it makes adjacent strings resonate a lot, specially in the high register that doesn't have dampers (and if you lower it, these notes sound extremely thin because there is barely any resonance). Would be awesome if in the future you could increase the hammer noise and the "hammer noise resonance" independently.

https://kaduk.nl/#!/tproduct/135981434-1582980242666

Interesting that you posted this. Yesterday I was reading regarding the key bottoming noise and it's transmission to the soundboard in the info on Respons by Kaduk Pianos. You'll find it in the above link under percussive properties.

Thank you for posting,

Warmest regards,

Chris

Reply by Philippe Guillaume

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  • Philippe Guillaume
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Re: Hammer noise and key bottoming

aleluman wrote:

I've come across an interesting source claiming that the sound a key makes when bottoming is an integral part of piano tone: https://www.speech.kth.se/music/5_lectu...anist.html. Does Pianoteq include this sound in its modelling?

Yes.

aleluman wrote:

Would be awesome if in the future you could increase the hammer noise and the "hammer noise resonance" independently.

You can in a certain way: increase the hammer noise and reduce the sympathetic resonances simultanesously.

Philippe Guillaume's Website

Reply by Beto-Music

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Re: Hammer noise and key bottoming

Everything have an influence on something on a piano.  The main question is : How relevant it can be?

We can presume old piano builder once wondered if one day they could mangage to get rid of wood noise, key wood friction or even scapment's "click". But try to eliminate wood noise, on pianoteq, and the high register no longer sound as a piano.

I once wondered something crazy, about the hammer felt have a little different effect on strings, in very fast repetitions. More like the effect of a string be hit again fastly while still vibrating, a thing pianoteq emulates well, but like the felt have a different effect since the felt hit the string but the string also hit the hammer felt, speaking in a relative way. Or like if in very fast repetitions the hammer felt would behave like it was just a little bit harder.

Last edited by Beto-Music (09-01-2022 20:25)