Topic by RalphF23

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  • RalphF23
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Topic: PTQ 8 and harshness

In November 2021 I bought Pianoteq 7. Then I played around with velocity curves, layering two keyboards, amps etc. I found sounds that I really like.  On 2022-01-21 I upgraded to Pianoteq 8. I loved it for the first 20 minutes of play. And then I played two songs that venture above C5 (two octaves above middle C). I played the Entertainer by Scott Joplin on the New York Steinway D grand and Light my fire by the Doors on the Wurlitzer 200. In both cases, once I played notes above C 5, the sound got incredibly harsh.
Today I did some digging around the PTQ user forum and I found some possible solutions. Before I start fiddling around with this thing, what I’m hopeful that if anyone has any additional suggestions, believe me, I’m all ears. Thank you in advance for any help you can give!

Here’s what I found
--reduce hammer hardness
--reduce hammer noise
--play around with reverb
--play around with velocity curves

Reply by miiindbullets

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Re: PTQ 8 and harshness

Yeah, those are good things to look at. There are quite a few other knobs to play with, also.

Once you get a sound you like, you can try to EQ more harshness out. Sometimes it helps to boost a narrow range of frequencies all the way up, sweep it until you hear more of what's bothering your ears, and then you know what to cut.

On acoustic pianos, the first thing I would try is assigning a pedal function to Celeste and play around with both felt thickness and felt position. If you don't have spare expression pedals and/or a modwheel, etc. to control it, you can set the position/thickness values manually by right-clicking and typing in numbers. If you press it all the way down you get a felted sound, but just barely applying a little felt just sounds like a warmer/more intimate regular (non-felted) grand.

If you have Standard or Pro, play around with the microphones. Ribbon mics aren't as bright/harsh. If you have Pro, you can adjust things like hammer hardness on a per-key basis, too.

If it helps, here's a demo showing how I like to set up my pianos to get a wide range of sounds out of a single preset. You can watch how the pedals are moving and listen to how the sound changes with all the different combinations of positions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBgC1azWmSU

Last edited by miiindbullets (24-01-2023 05:41)
YouTube

miiindbullets's Website

Reply by dazric

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Re: PTQ 8 and harshness

Some other things you can try:
Cutoff (reduce slightly)
Q factor (increase slightly)
Duplex scale (reduce slightly)

Along with Hammer hardness and Hammer noise, I'm finding these tools useful for tweaking HB Steinway D Classical Recording, which I find rather too 'shiny' in its default state.

Reply by RalphF23

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Re: PTQ 8 and harshness

I want to thank Mind and Dazric for their advice.  The first chance I had to play around with this was today.  What helped me the most with PTQ 8 was adjusting hammer hardness. Piano .3, mezzo .9,  forte 9. What also worked was putting cutoff at .9, Q to 1.2, duplex .9

Last edited by RalphF23 (28-01-2023 21:53)

Reply by dazric

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Re: PTQ 8 and harshness

That's great! I'm pretty sure that Duplex is the main culprit for the anvil-like ringing that I hear in some of the Steinway D presets.