Topic by RalphF23

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  • RalphF23
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  • Registered: 24-01-2023
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Topic: PTQ 8 v. PTQ 8 vst3

I upgraded to Pianoteq 8 in January 2023. A couple of days ago, I downloaded an update. When I play, I open up Mixcraft and then open up PTQ. Ever since January, I see two icons in the Mixcraft—one for Pianoteq 8 and one for Pianoteq 8 vst3. I usually use PTQ 8 but last night was the first time I thought to try the vst3. Before I started playing, I compared the two instruments. With both instruments, all the parameters were the same—EQ, velocity etc etc. When I went to the “about” panel, they both said the same… version 8.1.3, windows 10. Then I recorded myself playing Monk’s round midnight and then compared the two sounds

To my 62 year old ears, the vst3 sounded better. If anyone has any ideas as to how these two seemingly identical keyboards can sound different, believe me I’m all ears. I’m contemplating getting Reaper. Who knows… I might get sound number three

Reply by Pianistically

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  • Registered: 12-07-2023
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Re: PTQ 8 v. PTQ 8 vst3

RalphF23 wrote:

I upgraded to Pianoteq 8 in January 2023. A couple of days ago, I downloaded an update. When I play, I open up Mixcraft and then open up PTQ. Ever since January, I see two icons in the Mixcraft—one for Pianoteq 8 and one for Pianoteq 8 vst3. I usually use PTQ 8 but last night was the first time I thought to try the vst3. Before I started playing, I compared the two instruments. With both instruments, all the parameters were the same—EQ, velocity etc etc. When I went to the “about” panel, they both said the same… version 8.1.3, windows 10. Then I recorded myself playing Monk’s round midnight and then compared the two sounds

To my 62 year old ears, the vst3 sounded better. If anyone has any ideas as to how these two seemingly identical keyboards can sound different, believe me I’m all ears. I’m contemplating getting Reaper. Who knows… I might get sound number three

could be a driver issue on windows . On a Mac there is no difference which you expect as the sound rendering is performed by pianoteq engine and the DAW acting as a host is just passing the output to the audio card or audio interface .

Reply by brundlefly

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Re: PTQ 8 v. PTQ 8 vst3

RalphF23 wrote:

To my 62 year old ears, the vst3 sounded better. If anyone has any ideas as to how these two seemingly identical keyboards can sound different, believe me I’m all ears.

I would not expect that. VST3 shouldn't alter how any plugin does its DSP. Easy way to check would be to load the VST2 to one track and the VST3 to another, invert the phase on one, and check for nulling.

I just did a quick test and they nulled completely for the most part but would occasionally have an out-of-sync response to live MIDI input, allowing some sound to be heard as well as seen in the Master Bus meter; the loom-of-strings sound of the sustain pedal being depressed by itself seemed especially prone to this. This could also be due to the way the DAW (Cakewalk by Bandlab in my case) is handling MIDI echo to the two instances.

In A/B listening I hear no difference.

P.S. I re-tested with two instances of VST2 and they also null only intermittently. This is consistent with observations in a recent thread regarding differences between renders in different DAWs that it is very difficult to get even one instance of Pianoteq to render the same way twice. But these tend to be just sample-level timing differences, not timbral differences, and nothing you would be aware of in an A/B test.

Last edited by brundlefly (17-10-2023 02:56)