My pianos *DEBUNKED*

haha! oh geez ....... sofia got us, again?!!! I heard of lightning striking in the same spot.

Ok .... that's it! Not this time sofia!!! This is what happens. The paranoia sets in.

Pete14 I will further beat on them blood-sucking things y’all call hearts! 💔

If only someone had done that to Bach, to get the juices going in that organ of his, then maybe he would have skipped those fugues and written something nice instead, like reveries, fantasies, or ballads. 😆

QuasiUnaFantasia all those meaningless fugues

Blasphemy!!! @Pete14 , calling you for an immediate help, we need to perform very dangerous exorcism on Quasi!

CyberGene we need to perform very dangerous exorcism on Quasi!

No need to exorcise the Bach fugues; I relinquish them voluntarily. 😄

So there are 224 posts in this thread now. Could it be that some people in piano forums post too much and play too little?

Concerning the hoax, I never tried Pianoteq before, so it is probably not surprising that I did not recognize it. I still do not understand what "Sofia" was aiming for, what "she" tried to get out of this and why somebody would put so much work into a simple "prank".

[deleted] Could it be that some people in piano forums post too much and play too little?

Well, forums are for posting, not for playing, if we have to be precise 😀

Would any forums exist, if people did not post too much? 😄

We, musicians, are the obsessive type, so, taking that into consideration, NO, we don’t post ‘too much;’ if anything, we don’t post enough!

This here place can be therapeutic for minds that are always obsessing over something, “why are rats hated, yet squirrels loved, aren’t they both rodents?”

Yes, I spent a whole day pondering about rats vs, squirrels, and if I didn’t have this place to vent, laugh, cry, and, very rarely, learn something new, I’d be in a mental institution obsessing over nurses.

“Why are male-nurses picked on, whilst it is completely fine/accepted to be a woman mechanic?”

Before you go all PC on me, I ask, have you ever had a woman ‘repair’ your car? I rest my case!

Pete14 We, musicians, are the obsessive type, so, taking that into consideration, NO, we don’t post ‘too much;’ if anything, we don’t post enough!

Absolutely. We should be posting more for sure. But just don't do that at the other piano place OPP aka PW, or the mods there will get up to their interesting stuff - eg. 30 min in-between-post timeouts to limit our post count ... eg. average per day. And the existing mods there are dodgy actually. That's a genuine comment from me (as usual).

Hi everyone! I had been late to the party partly because I'm busy with some tough school assignment (one more left), but also I wanted to wait till things cooled down a bit before saying things.

When I first got interested in these pianos by Sofia, I began listening to the demos offered on the webpage. And the moment I heard Chopin's Etude Op. 10 No. 1, I was quick to notice the similarity of PianoTeq. In reading some of the thread, I conclude that what I initially guessed was correct. I wasn't surprised it wasn't sampled, and it sounded obviously electronic. So, I guess first impressions matter. I didn't download the libraries and didn't play them, because, again, when I first heard them and concluded it sounds just like PianoTeq (or, later it turned out that it was indeed emulations of the program), I didn't buy into it. 🙂

That's all the comments I have for now. Have a nice day!

David Lai I didn't download the libraries and didn't play them, because, again, when I first heard them and concluded it sounds just like PianoTeq (or, later it turned out that it was indeed emulations of the program), I didn't buy into it. 🙂

I believe you implicitly because your hearing is extraordinary.

God Bless,
David

Taushi I’m not entirely sure this wasn’t an attempt to get money by selling this as an amateur product. They had a donations page, where several people donated money. And while it wasn’t much, none of that money has been refunded yet based on the page. The person says people can request their money back, but that’s not true. Having used Buy Me A Coffee for projects, the receiver has to refund the money and it shows on the page. The fact that they kept all those donations and haven’t refunded people doesn’t bode well for what their intentions really were.

Funny how someone finds the time to write long posts but couldn’t be bothered answering Buy Me a Coffee client service emails.

I’d like to reassure Taushi that his donation (as well as all the others, totaling $55) has already been refunded.

His Christmas is saved.

Sofia_MZ

oh Sofia !

what I wouldn't do to defend yor virtue?

Let me take on this savages my dear!

Sofia_MZ Funny how someone finds the time to write long posts but couldn’t be bothered answering Buy Me a Coffee client service emails.

Welcome back. I personally enjoyed your prank (or whatever it was) and hope you'll stay here for doing other (perhaps more constructive 🤣) stuff, either on this pseudonymous or as another account.

Either or both in the software or hardware, or at the crossroad of both (firmware) there's a lot that people can do here. And by the way, thanks for pointing me to LinuxMusicians, I did not know that and I've enjoyed lurking a (very tiny) bit of it.

Sofia_MZ Funny how someone finds the time to write long posts but couldn’t be bothered answering Buy Me a Coffee client service emails.

I’d like to reassure Taushi that his donation (as well as all the others, totaling $55) has already been refunded.

His Christmas is saved.

Please do not behave as if it’s such a bother and as if you’re somehow being virtuous by returning the money you stole from people through misrepresentation and fraud. And please don’t behave as if you were even ever going to give people their money back if I hadn’t called you out on it, because it was ten (10) days ago that you said the donations “could be returned” but made no effort to do it.

You might have two or three people with obsessive vendettas against PianoWorld patting you on the back for this, and you may think that that somehow excuses what you did, but it doesn’t. Ultimately, the fact of the matter is you stole someone else’s intellectual property, plagiarized it as your own, misrepresented yourself as an identity you claim you “modeled” off some poor unknowing woman, and then crossed the line into financial fraud when you accepted monetary donations for that misrepresentation.

And trying to frame it as some great psychological experiment or some white-knight effort on behalf of poor unfortunate samplists doesn’t pass the smell test. You got more than enough compliments on these “instruments” in the first week that you could’ve wrapped it up there and said “Ha, ha, Pianoteq haters!” Instead, you continued for nearly two months, introduced “new pianos” with new tales, continued developing your backstory, and tried to cater to your base. And you would not have stopped if it hadn’t been pointed out. And it moved well beyond a harmless prank when you took money from people under that representation and even got into private conversations with some of these people as that false identity. I suspect your motivations were far more personal and self-centered than you want to reveal. But on the remote chance you did do all this because a few people on the internet don’t like the same software you like, you have a lot to work through. And that work starts by acknowledging that this was not a good thing.

And yes I did donate. As a full-time artist, I know how much it costs to be an independent artist and even to do art-related things. I have been very lucky to have people and organizations support my work through purchases, grants, philanthropy, and fellowships, and I always pay it forward when I can. Seeing what I perceived to be a passionate young person pursuing their own independent artistic endeavors AND doing something that helped other artists encouraged me to support. Your manipulation of that feeling in me and others does not make you clever: it makes you duplicitous. (And, by the way, I made my donations from a throwaway account with a throwaway email & name and a one-time use virtual card. I always do that whenever I’m donating or supporting via smaller charitable platforms which don’t offer the full security of a GoFundMe or a Kickstarter. So don’t expect much there).

And, the timeline doesn’t support your statements. I, and another member who also donated, reached out to Buy Me A Coffee on December 3rd. We both were told that BuyMeACoffee reached out to you on December 4th. I made my post here on December 7th, only after my name was mentioned by two members. For the record, I never intended to post here or say anything and only reached out to BuyMeACoffee to try to quietly move you to give back what you took from people so as to do what was right and to avoid potential further problems. BuyMeACoffee says the refund was sent through on this morning, December 9th, shortly before you made this post. So, again, please don’t behave as if you had some noble plan in mind all along. I don’t believe you ever had any intention of giving people their money back, and you only did it when we raised the alarm to BuyMeACoffee.

You didn’t save my Christmas by giving the money back; you can be sure that if I had it to give charitably, then it was of no major cost to my pocketbook. You gave it back BuyMeACoffee had been alerted.

I have no desire to pursue things further, or even beat you up about this. I would never have even posted here if my name wasn’t mentioned. We all make mistakes. I said what I said on the subject and I moved on. We all deserve another chance. Nobody should be locked into a mistake, or even be judged by it. But please, do not behave as if what you did was right or even what you claim it was. It is much better to just take stripes in silence, heal what’s broken, and do better in the future.

Taushi Ultimately, the fact of the matter is you stole someone else’s intellectual property, plagiarized it as your own, misrepresented yourself as an identity you claim you “modeled” off some poor unknowing woman, and then crossed the line into financial fraud when you accepted monetary donations for that misrepresentation.

Hear, hear!

There is no virtue in anything this person did. There is nothing to applaud he/she/it/them/they for. Call it for what it is, fraud and deceit. As a Christian I'm called to forgive those who sin against me (I don't actually feel I was personally sinned against in this hoax), but it doesn't mean I have to trust them afterwards. The person(s) posting under "Sofia" is not (at this time) a trustworthy person. They should fade back into internet oblivion or reintroduce their actual self with an attitude of contrition. Then maybe a community can accept their participation. Of course, this is just my opinion. Carry on.

God bless,
David

I’d just like to make some things very clear:

No, I don’t have a vendetta (big word) against PW, and very rarely do I even mention it, and if I do it’s mostly in jest; like the one time I challenged James to a face-to-face meeting, or else I’d infiltrate PW to kidnap him and bring him here by force to pay for his sins!

To believe the above, one would have to believe that PW is an actual, physical place whence James shows up to work everyday; hence, giving me the opportunity to snatch him when no one is looking!🤣

I’m not saying this spitefully, but perhaps PW should come to terms with what it is they actually do and/or represent; which, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t that important….

Get a grip, PW, you’re not holding the codes to our nuclear arsenal; so to think any single sly, joke, or even insult a vendetta, or that certain people that have been banned are out to get PW is ludicrous, at least as it concerns me, Pete14, the one person who mocked, teased, and annoyed PW whilst being a member.

Regarding Sofia, yes, I found the whole thing hilarious, so sue me, but keep in mind that we live in a free country and should be allowed our own opinions, and as it turns out, a few others found it funny, too, and for those who didn’t find it funny at all, fine, go ahead and sue Sofia, but don’t expect everyone to get behind you, “or else!” because that is the very definition of a dictatorship (big word).

Now, let’s get back to what we really do ‘round here and at PW: talk about pivots, samples, actions, etc…not quite rocket science, now is it?😁

If lucy's site were still up, then I'd buy lucy a coffee as well. Or softdrink etc. And this is after the bubble bursting.

That's because lucy got on the road to demonstrate my idea of generating samples from 'physical' models for using in sample playback pianos. And lucy did a pretty good job.

I think Taushi said it right. The whole affair was a fraud. And it ended with a false cover story and with no apology.

There are no bans on Piano Clack. But if there were I think we found a winner.

MacMacMac There are no bans on Piano Clack. But if there were I think we found a winner.

The spirit in which this forum was created, for the most part, precludes bans. However, that doesn't mean a user can't be banned. Banning is reserved for the most egregious of offenses. From the welcome page:

"However, insults, vulgar language and hate speech are not allowed."

If a user persists in those areas they'll get the proverbial boot.

God Bless,
David