Controlling de-humanization? Hard to describe

In the Pro version, a lot of controls (like "Hammer Noise" slider) will open a pop-up with extra editing options, when right-clicked.

For example, right-clicking "Hammer Noise", you get a text entry box for precise data entry, a 'Reset' button (to return to unedited condition, as well as toggling back and forth to your last edited condition), there's also an 'Assign MIDI' menu for various control options, as well as a button to open "Note Edit" for deeper 'per note' editing (if one particular note bothers you when hearing it, by all means, turn that note's randomness down alone) - and lastly the control you might want most for this generally, 'Humanize'.

To quickly understand exactly what is being humanized, for each slider/control where 'humanize' is editable, imagine that slider will go left and right a bit (randomly a bit left, a bit right per note). It's 'that' component part which will modulate (not some hidden thing). So humanized 'Hammer noise' is just going to see some lower and higher slider amounts trigger (should add, the model being live may sound a little differently on each playthrough of MIDI, as indeed a hammer making a softer or harder hit can impact upon the other 40 controls.. kind of wonderful, and I tend to work with that, rather than try to iron it out... I have sine waves and synths for that.)..

There seems to be more than mere randomness though, in some controls.. I feel that sometimes the randomness has some nice quantization to it (like hammers don't just fly around sounding like they're suddenly way left, then suddenly way over on the right.. I feel I can catch a 'run' of sorts, where if the noise changes, it keeps to some extra physics based realism beyond mere rando junk - as well as how its changes effect the other controls. It's been brilliant from inception - and this continues to improve all the time.)

When you click that Humanize button, you see a 'prob density' graph with movable dots.. slide those lower dots left and right either closer to the top 'home dot', or create more randomized events by moving the lower dots further afield so much more chance of noticeable difference is infused.

The defaults typically have a setting of 1 for the top dot.. denotes the most stable tone/noise for the control. (each piano/preset will behave differently under the hood as all elements depend on each other in total).. and if you want a higher probability of 'the same' noise, narrow the lower dots closer to home.. that way, if you have some humanized hammer noise going left of the top dot (softer tone of hammer strike, as with real physics, the hammer can hit a string as it lowers, rather than when it's vibrating upwards to more quickly meet the felt etc. - various things like that are accounted for, per performance/playback). Creating less variance away on the right of the top dot, will mean fewer randomly 'more bright' tones in hammer strikes. Just like reality, this gives us the ability to imagine/edit very 'loose' versions of reality, where strings, hammers etc. are not so tightly regulated, or we can tighten things up as much as we wish.

For a long time, users have actually tended to request 'more loose' aspects to the well regulated pianos, and often, to make a nice default preset feel a little more like a much played piano at home, it's been a popular thing to move the "Condition" slider from maybe 4 to 16 - some like more, some don't like to do that at all.

Just, in terms of MIDI perfection, a real piano doesn't really do that kind of perfection.. so Pianoteq of course has to lean into reality, more than making a too-perfectly regulated piano.. there are many moving parts, and if they were all 'perfect' and aligned with no 'fuzz' (like in real life), it would all sound like a horrible sine wave through a tin tube. To me, an extra sense of realism only comes from the humanizing and in situ balancing of various elements - for example, if you edit one control it may be beneficial to edit something tangential to enhance the change, or subdue a newly arisen tone/noise elsewhere. That just takes time and a fascination - and you seem like you might like to kick along thinking about these things which is great to see.

Just want to add, with a real piano mostly the goal is some 'less MIDI perfect' boring sound.. but I mostly make modern music using synths etc.. so will add this - mainly because many readers are seeing 'piano' as only something they play in the room (not a bad thing, just different in scope to editing for creating some types of digital music).

If I want a completely perfectly repeating 'note' over and over, it's still conceivably close to nearly possible maybe, by removing a bunch of humanized elements (right-click the sliders until you get to know what each 'extra' control and humanizing amounts might give or take from your goal).

Interesting stuff, to think about - and I'm someone who loves combining Pianoteq with synths - but to me, it's actually the human and realism elements of Pianoteq which breath some extra nice 'life' into the otherwise sterile soundscapes.. but that's fine in my musical context - but certainly, if aiming for more MIDI perfect everything, I'd select "Flat" temperament (instead of Equal - this is a whole other topic but essentially, Flat is more per note MIDI tuning, with less 'real world piano regulation' to the tuning.. and when you alter Flat tuning notes they may not touch on other internally touching things, at least as much as Equal can - to me Flat can be more boring - but IDK, if using piano in MIDI in a certain way, it may help a little), as well as flattening out the humanizing stuff.

Good luck Martino! Interested to know how you get along - and more about your goals to be sure. Cheers.