Challenges & Successes in the YC7~CFX Headphones puzzle 8.0.5

Challenges and Successes in the YC7~CFX for Headphone users puzzle (Pianoteq 8.0.5): a story, a tutorial, and a review.

Selected glossary at the bottom.

My Background Interest in Pianoteq and YC7:
I have been fascinated by the ability to manipulate physically modelled piano parameters since JeskolaBuzz. In college, lo those many years ago, I downloaded more piano samples, synths, and performances than I care to remember, wondering day after day about how I might eventually settle down and stop hunting for perfection.

As a university student, I had limited access to some beautiful new Yamaha concert grand pianos. Now, so many pianos and softsynths later, I again have access to beautiful pianos, digitally, thanks to some wonderful software and hardware. Finding myself here, I was not totally surprised to discover that the journey of finding the perfect sound does not abate, but continues indefinitely.

With Pianoteq 7 I bought the "Pro" version. Mostly I was interested in using (and perhaps cataloguing) the factory-configuration sounds. Like other casual piano players I have known, mostly I play for myself, and the piano sound should be as beautiful on its own as possible. Pianoteq 7 did not disappoint, delivering out-of-the-box for that purpose. What struck me as a great challenge, however, was learning to mix piano sounds (and others available on the FXP forum) with other instruments in creating home recordings. With Pianoteq Pro, the options appear to exist to manipulate the sound for quite a variety of circumstances, and I believe they do. I recently bought the upgrade to version 8, and the interface is much more beautiful. Everything else about it could be the same or different vs 7. In 7 I mostly just used the presets and was agog.

In learning a few things about recording and mixing over the years, I came across audiosciencereview.com. (For what it's worth, I have also learned from video tutorials, a textbook here or there, and from a few instructors). I read a bit about the importance of stereo (vs mono), added reverb, and other common manipulations for the subjective appreciation of audio. I also learned about potential downsides, namely masking beautiful subtlties in the sounds. Creating sounds, and representations of sounds, is a balancing act.

Deciding how to use a Limiter (toggle it in Pianoteq with the white "L" in the volume meter) is a classic example of this balancing act in audio production. To make a sound's loudness standardized, not too quiet and not too loud, say, for a popular internet video channel, or for television, engineers will often uses limiters and compressors. That said, by their nature, they limit the reproduction of the range of loudnesses (and timbres) that acoustic instruments produce. Pianoteq, by default, uses a limiter on audio output, and compression on many of its Mic. settings. I tried turning all that off for many preset customizations, and I often found a lovely expressiveness in additional bits unmasked. Aside from sounding less "produced," another downside to toggling the Limiter off is that the loudest louds now peak unless turning down the output Volume, which I will often do to between -2 and -6 db. My understanding is that greater "bit depth" makes this difference less of a problem for the risk of outputing less information to the headphones. Also, I can turn up the audio with a down stream physical knob I have. Most soundcard/OS/workstation arrangements should have at least have 1 other level of mixing that allows you to adjust volume outside of Pianoteq.

Another great and complex aspect of this balancing act, especially for Pianoteq is Equalizers. In Pianoteq, 1-to-3 3-point equalizer curves can be added to the "fx" chain listed under "EFFECTS," plus there is an independent window called "EQUALIZER," in which one can add a potentially very complex equalizer curve to the output "Main," as well as another to the resonence engine "Res EQ." Audiosciencereview.com's admin performed some frequency response tests on the model of headphones that I own, so I apply their recommended EQ to my audio output when using the headphones. In Pianoteq's case I apply it to the equalizer EQUALIZER / Main. EQUALIZER / Res EQ is different. Based on my trial and error, EQUALIZER / Res EQ can be used more effectively than other options to balance out the resonance/non-resonance mix. This is the only way I know in Pianoteq 8 to maintain brightness while avoiding the feedback-like effects that can occur in more resonance-forward configurations.

Challenges of YC5 with longer strings in Pianoteq 8:
The pianoteq Grand YC5 is said in some reviews to be modelled after a Yamaha of the same name, often used in rock performances. The YC5 factory presets share with many other Pianoteq 8 piano presets a lovely playability, but also an expansive sense of resonance, as well as the magical (and perhaps expected) sense of the mechanics and materials from key to hammer to string to soundboard to room. With a 2.0m default "String length," the YC5 is one of the shorter grands. Other pianos in the collection are either larger by design, like the Steinway D, or have a larger sibling, like the Steinway B. YC5, as good as it is, is not licensed by Yamaha, and therefore it's debatable whether it is precisely supposed to sound like it's namesake. It's obviously tempting to try to create a YC7 or CFX, but the deviation from a factory default piano size begs the question of whether it will sound right.

In the Comments of each factory installed preset listed in the Preset Management Window (Preset Manager, pencil and paper icon), you may find that each Pianoteq piano comes with at least 2 important presets for tweaking. The first I seek out is the line "A good starting point for preparing new presets." This is YC5 Basic in this case. For licensed models, the title of the preset tends to be just the make and model number. The second factory preset I look at is the "Player." This one's default microphone configuration is generally similar to the sound one might hear sitting at the piano. For either option, simply extending the "String length" to about 2.6 meters (~8.5 feet) introduces the increased presence of partials, among various anticipated and hoped-for results that together enlarge the sound perceived. Much longer and the partials and other anomalies get more bothersome. Back to 2.6 for now.

Playing freeform on the simply string-lengthened YC5, I believe I can hear the greater power involved in the larger strings, the more tension supported by the frame. I also noticed that (1) low notes now have a kind of buzzy grittiness even at mezzo levels, and (2) there is an occasional feedback-like tone when holding or sustaining related notes. At the Advanced Tuning window (click the "+" sign under "TUNING") clicking the String tension box (3rd from the left along the top) toggles on "Full rebuild." In this example (and quite a few others), the sound improves noticeably, but the two main problems remain. Manipulating the settings later reveals there is also a third problem: (3) some tones and overtones/partials may get de-emphasized and sound simplified or almost like hard plastic and rubber compared to the felt-metal-wood expectations. Game on!

The low register buzz is the first and most obvious problem, since Pianoteq 8 presets almost universally feature a full spectrum of resonating partials, and I was therefore, in part, ignoring that issue. I think hammer hardness could be responsible for a low buzz, as could some other resonance issues. I also thought about mic position, soundboard build, and other piano construction issues. (And, could any of these could also be causing the problem with the overtones? I wasn't sure what all the Pianoteq settings are for!) The Yamaha grand must have a bite in it's lower register forte, but this buzz bites at mp and medium loudness and sounds subjectively chaotic at forte and ff, all of which are potential problems for dynamic pieces. So, this is where I decided to start by stripping away distractions and adjusting a few settings, one at a time, doing A-B comparisons. My ears grew weary with the hours, I posted to FXP Corner an early try, took it down when I had another, then it again. Took a break, came back to it the next day. Disappointed with my results, I deleted what I had shared, posted, then, a few days later, embarrassed at my own disappointing efforts, deleted and posted again.

I did this for several weeks. Among the most rewarding things to try was the note by note hammer hardness. The most surprising thing was the Res EQ -- it caused real problems not using a separate EQ curve for it. Now I have several presets I would like to share. I'm not sure exactly how to share them/title them/set them up to have the most impact (see the poll associated with this post), but I have presets for YC7/CFX in the categories of Relatively Mellow, Medium, Medium Dynamic, and Bright. I also have some fun variants that I would subjectively categorize as mystery story, newspaper/successful lawyer story, and ghost story.

Please check out my presets in FXP Corner. I will post more there shortly. When working on these presets I tend to have the same set of goals: a clean sound when listening on headphones, representative of actual instrument in an actual room or studio.

Glossary and further discussion:

TUNING
Full rebuild: toggle this in the Advanced Tuning (+ symbol) window by clicking the String tension button in the top row. For tuning the strings with standard tension amounts without artifacts of tuning up and down despite the build.

Direct sound duration: relates to the delay before reflected sound, e.g. from a wall, mixes with the sound from the soundboard

VOICING
Hammer hardness: a 3-band adjustment system that affects brightness and softness

DESIGN
String length: in addition to the strings themselves, many other parts of the piano may also get bigger, though additional parts, e.g. to dampen certain frequencies or to standardize string tension may or may not be included. (Note by note to be explored!)

Sympathetic resonance: necessary to brightness, but may require Note Edit adjustment in order to scale back the re-inforcing partials of certain string combinations.

Duplex scale: resonance of the parts of the string that are dampened versus the parts that are not dampened (I think!) Sounds to me like an overtone produced based on the part of a string that is dampened and is not directly hit by the hammer. (Google results on this one are not amazing.)

EQUALIZER
Main: Where I place my headphone EQ curve. One of the last steps before audio leaves Pianoteq

Res EQ: Where a gentle-slope band pass maybe appropriate to de-emphasize certain anomalous resonance tones.

EFFECTS:
Reverb: select a preset and then adjust the room size. The Mix option seems to often be set to +8db, which I guess is about right to hear the reverb, not too much or too little.

OUTPUT
Microphones vs Binaural vs Stereophonic vs Monophonic

Two microphones vs Binaural microphone
Preset "Player" microphone configurations exist roughly on a spectrum with Binaural configurations. I think of the player microphone configurations as allowing the stereo field created for my headphones to include what I would hear when leaning to the left or right of the keyboard. Two microphone setups are not necessarily objectively better than binaural mics, but they do give different results, the two-mic variations including more options, such as for microphone compression, differential volume, position, et cetra, and therefore microphones give an arguably more manipulated sound, with the pros and cons as above.

Stereophonic: roughly a standard stereo mic and output setup for that Piano, position and other details not specified.

Monophonic: mixed to one channel, like a clock radio with a great dynamic range and frequency response, but only one speaker. Will usually be perceived as lower quality than stereophonic sound.