Pianoteq a Game-Changer for New DP/Controler Consumer??

Hi and welcome to you Bob!

I'm a bit over a decade younger, also with guitar since my pup years Nice to meet you.

To me it seems you're on a good path. If budget is fine, the water is fine!

I'm so glad to hear the other forum people are favorable to Pianoteq BTW.

Some specifics from your questions (some good advice there BTW @miiindbullets!)..

Firstly, that list of 5 things resonates well.

The point 5.. you def. could install the demo on your lesser PC first to try that before registering it as one of your 3 allotted install slots - just to be safe. Main reason, while it will run, no doubt on pretty low spec machines, I feel it a charm on a high spec system because, you can turn up all settings pretty high! Things like NOT having to worry about overruns with too much polyphony. On an older machine I had it was an understandable balancing act to turn some things down, some up.. to get the best performance, like a big brake on CPU. The better of 2 systems is likely to be where you enjoy it most - but why not both?

Next I'd suggest, if you can play and test the controller in a store, compare with a few.. one person's perfect key action is another's big regret - I like mine but it may be not your choice. If you have some time with real pianos, you probably already know what you prefer.. but it still pays I think, to test for enough time to be sure you'll be happy with the action (don't allow the sales folks to breath down your neck to decide.. maybe begin by saying you'll be back a few times before choosing the winning deck.)

Probably similar to monitors or any speakers, always good to hear them if you can (or some studio kit is just trusted as a default thing any reasonable studio might have.. so.. go gett'r!). But.. if you're already into music production, you're likely way ahead than most in knowing what you want in that regard.

About MIDI 2.0 - yes, Pianoteq already handles extended MIDI files. I absolutely would, from experience, expect the Pianoteq team to be ready for anything, with a long-term good engineering principle underpinning their approaches to it.

Hope I haven't missed something as I post this, but keep asking Bob, the people here are fantastic in assisting with lots of ideas and solid advice.

Happy Pianoteq-ing!

Thanks @Qexi for the kind welcome to the forum. And a guitarist to boot, great. And I will take some time to chew on your cautions and advice. Great input, very instructive.

While I'm confident my desktop computer can easily handle whatever demands Pianoteq can dish out, your point about the lower tier laptop is well taken. For that, mine is a 64Bit Windows 11 machine with 8 gigs of RAM and clock at 2.6 Mhz, which I think will still give me some headroom with a Pianoteq installation.

On key action, I will be delaying any purchase until I can do just what you advise, i.e. do live trials in the store. I'll be traveling to Toronto in August, so I should be able to do some tryouts in that metropolis. I can say that I've briefly noodled on a Yamaha P125 and their DGX670, and I think I could appreciate some of GHA superiority right away over the spongey feel on my Arturia midi controller. As I understand it, the action of these DPs in the spectrum of its competitors is on the heavier side, and that it's a vintage technology, some even say "outdated"?  Obviously, though, longevity also points to successful staying power. I'm gathering from others that the PHA-4 of Roland is a little lighter.

Also good to hear you say that Pianoteq has MIDI 2.0 in its crosshairs. Curious, though, are you able to recall anything specific of the "extended MIDI files" you mention? Do any of these poke into MIDI 2.0.?  As I understand it, MIDI 2.0 can be utilized incrementally, in steps, or chunks, that it's not an all-or-nothing proposition. But your observation seems based on some optimism about Pianoteq's entry in MIDI 2.0. All is relative, however, and optimism could cover the gamut from 5 years out to 5 days, next week, most especially given that MIDI 1.0 has been the de facto tool for as long as you and I have been playing guitar!  hehe

It's important to me that you've concluded your message with an encouraging vote of confidence in the people participating in this forum. You couldn't have known it, but I put great stock in quality of online community forums. Like this one, they can
be resource gems. They've been a part of my life since the early 80s, remember the days of screeching modems and old BBS's? (Bulletin Board Services). As you know, too many forums are prone to descend into destructive discourse, along the lines of a  toxic cesspool of vitriol.

So, sincere thanks for giving time, thought, and energy in your response to my scenario. It's been instructive AND inspiring!

And a final special note to you which really only an experienced guitarist can appreciate about the A-to-Zs of  "action". I'd venture that when it comes to standards, pianists enjoy a much, no, a MUCH more stable reality for piano-centric keyboards. Compare it to our topsy turvy world of diverse standards in the guitar universe, be it in nut widths, saddles, scale lengths, fret board radii, string numbers, string compositions and string gauges, fret types, neck shapes, body shapes. Sheesh, it even extends to the care, feeding and shaping of fingernails for we classical players. Guitar action is nothing less than encyclopedic.  It spins heads! The sunny side of this dizzying diversity is that there's something to fit the special needs of anyone and everyone! But to a beginner guitarist, well, I have empathy for them.

Appreciate the follow-up here, @Qexi (sounds like the model # of German sports car! hehe). It's helping me gather more confidence about which fork in the road to take (DP or Controller). Of course, Yogi Berra would say, 'If you come to a fork in the road, take it."  And that's kinda where I've been at, split, divided, on a fence.

I'm looking forward to growing towards experiencing what you describe as that "at home" feel for a keyboard action. I hope it happens. I dunno, with all the mechanicals separating musician from actual sound production in a piano -hammers, keys, levers, pivots +x,y,z--it all seems quite detached and remote compared to the immediacy, the direct interaction of flesh and nail upon string as in classical guitar. But, I'm coming to learn and appreciate that "feel" on a piano, while perhaps more abstract, is just as interpenetrating and certainly demands or cultivates a sophisticated intimacy with action nuances. Guitars and pianos are merely different galaxies, but occupying the same musical universe.

It's funny, but deeply satisfying for me that even studying piano for the short time I have, it's helped to elevate my appreciation and love of the guitar. Familiarity with both is an enriching experience. Spiritual even. Both instruments share a very closely matched genetic musical code, even if they sing the songs of very different species.

So, where did I put that darn saxophone?!

I thoroughly enjoyed and learned cool stuff from this your most recent post. It exemplifies my hunch that over the river and across the meadow and down the lane of my naivete concerning piano action, there's a little cabin housing the secrets and nuances of piano action. Thanks for cracking open the door to let me peer inside!  Capturing some of this essence is suddenly something you've made me want to be more atuned to watch and feel for.

Redemption of a kind. After all, all these technological minutiae we fuss and fidget with DPs,  all this plastic and pivots and wires and LEDs should be swallowed, swallowed whole by what ought to be the ruling context of music as one of the fine arts.

And thus it feels restorative to look my own obsessive preoccupation with technicalities and to see it for how ridiculous it really in the larger scheme of things. It makes wonder if I might be cured, or if it's a tumor just to massive to remove.  hehe

Your eloquence in these matters is inspiring!

Thanks for weighing in with such a hearty endorsement!  Now, first off, the link you provided didn't work, just gave me the dreaded '404' page. 

But I deduced that you must be referring to one of Novation's LaunchKey controllers. Which model?  To make my list of possibles it would need to be the 88-key model.

What I find interesting and refreshing about your post here is that the Novation midi controllers don't have graded hammer action, but semi-weighted keys.  It's interesting because as I've discovered, the emphasis on graded hammer action varies in intensity and conviction depending on which forum, YouTuber, or other online venue one visits. Here for example, as piano-centre as it is, and should be, one finds a large segment of players loyal, committed, and rational in double-underlining the central importance of action in general, graded hammer action in particular. In other forums more into synths and midi music production the participation is more agnostic or even ambivalent about key action.

What you say is refreshing to the extent that I'd venture it represents a distinct minority in such a piano-centric majority. Not for a minute do I dare question the critical importance of graded hammer action if one is pursuing the classical repertoire or advanced playing in any genre. At the same time, there's a huge market slice of keyboard players amateur and pro alike, who practice, compose, perform on "synth-action" devices.

No expert in these matters, I'm not qualified to make any informed critical evaluation of either keyboard technology...But I can venture that like anything else, different musical visions and objectives will dictate the varietal sorts of designs and technologies to support those goals. Clearly, some musicians can't do without the expressive virtues and utility of graded hammer action; but equally clear, these characteristics are not a priority for others.

Me, I want to improve my piano technique, yes, but I have no pretentions about ever sitting down at an acoustic instrument, nor am I interested in pursuing the classical canon (I reserve my classical guitar for those of journey). And right now, I'm using an Arturia KeyLab 61 MkII midi-controller and I think I've picked up some level of late elementary/early intermediate piano music. The bummer has been running into piano studies, technical exercises that my range outside my 61 keys. I'm not about to make a desperate stab at my Octave +/- button! And as naive as I am, I have had a recent opportunity to try a Roland FP-30X and a Yamaha P125, and I get this intuitive, gut feeling of expressive potential which I just don't get from the midi controller. Granted I have not fiddled with velocity curves or whatever tweakables might be available to me. Maybe you've got an opinion on this you'd share?

Perhaps, you'll follow up your initial response with a little more detail on which device you're using from Novation. I'm quite persuaded by all these pianists, much more advanced than me, talking up the virtues of VSTs, especially Pianoteq.

Appreciate your input!

Thanks Nick for correcting what looks like a blunder of a wrong assumption on my part!  Hopefully, Jayter will come back and confirm your hunch.

Thanks for the tips!  Lachnit, that's a new one to me. Expensive.

I would like to see a sociologic research (based on family relations) about people with powerfull sound monitors to emulate grand piano sounds. It's just because I wonder how many people have peace to play & practice without be anoyed by people who may feel disturbed by the loud grand-like piano sounds.

   So, I have some questions to any of you who have invested in powerfull sound monitors and VST piano softwares:

-Do you live alone?

-Are you the only who play piano at your home?

-Do you have support or critics from family members?

-Did you used to have and play any real piano (even one in terrible shape) in home before move to digital piano?

-Do you feel free to play without concern about people around became a problem?

-Did you ever needed to move to headphones, after invested in good sound monitors, due problems with people around?

-If you have considerable limitations, like limited time/schedule or days you are alowed to play without concern, please number it.