Hello!
I was originally percussion player (before I went more to piano) and I studied mallet instruments in Conservatory. So I’d say I know percussion instruments quite well. I have two acoustic vibraphones at home. In my opinion PTQ marimba and vibes models are nice, those two have qualities that many sampled options have not. IMO what they are lacking is same which is still weakness of PTQ models in general. It does not have enough nuances in attack part of the sound. It makes sustain, resonances and more distant sound very well but it has difficult to catch sounds which you listen (or record) very closely to your instrument. Same goes with vibes and marimbas etc. For example PTQ marimba sound is something that you would listen to in a space, medium room or concert hall. It’s more audiences perspective to sound. But this sound it does quite well.
Percussion player has lot of options for choosing different mallets (some are more softe and other are harder, mallet head materials vary). With medium rattan mallets you may hear nice ”crispy” attack which comes from rubber head inside mallet or perhaps more ”woody clonk” with different mallets. This is something which player wants to hear and maybe record too. Audience won’t hear this similarly when they listen to same playing. If you listen to jazz vibes players (like Gary Burton for example) you’ll hear very clear vibes sound with special attacks. This goes with pianos as well. I’ve taken Chick Corea’s piano sound as an example for years to explain this problematics.
P.S. If you ask me the most unnatural sound of PTQ palette is Rhodes piano. I must say I don’t understand how this can be said to be close model of real one…
Last edited by Ecaroh (12-06-2022 15:53)
