My Concern with PianoTeq

David Lai · 2024-10-03T13:46:50+00:00

Hi friends, This thread is mainly for, well, you guessed it. Under inspiration of Pete14's message on a thread about a sampled Steinway D: "Okay, let’s forget about who’s the best for a minute (Pianoteq), and pay attention to the bigger picture…" In his mind, there's none other than PianoTeq that has all he wants in a piano. It's a pitty the demo of PianoTeq has some non-working keys, otherwise, I would now throw in an audio file of recordings from a real Steinway, compared to Modern D, then PianoTeq. But since I can't, I'll do the next best thing. I discovered this video not long ago, and I thought I'd post it here. It's someone demoing PianoTeq's acoustic pianos in various musical styles. Here are my thoughts after listening to the video: From version 6 (pirated version I happen to try) to now with version 8 (as presented in this video), how far have we come? It seems like we've progressed little, if not at all. The nasal mids are still there, the synthetic high register is still there, the strange tones when played loudly is still there. The synthetic quality of this synthesizer remains unchanged. And no matter what type or kind of piano it attempts at, it fails because it has its own sound signature pasted on all of these pianos. So they are not models of Steinways, they are PianoTeq versions of Steinways at best, and I'm being polite in still giving it a name and place. That's why PianoTeq never won me over in the first place, even with its playability and phrasing. Of course, it's small on resources, too, but the main thing that makes me want to continue using the piano VST is its sound, and that, PianoTeq loses bigtime. Now with the Modern D, I could phrase like when I'm on VSL, or (heck) PianoTeq, but it won't give me a harsh metallic synth sound. What I hear is a warm, true-to-life sound that is just like the Steinways I've played at school, and the Steinways I hear on recordings. Which is the best? Clearly, a 100% sampled Modern D! As for PianoTeq, if we look at it realisticly, from a sound and aesthetic perspective, it pales in comparison. Now, some people might say, what about resonances? Well, an actual acoustic piano has resonances that blooms over time, and as new notes add to the resonance, the gradual fluctuation of the volume of the resonances is something magical. For the first time, Modern D captures this kind of life-like (living) resonance experience. However, while PianoTeq is best when it stays in the background offering modeled resonances, its resonances can be best be described as a wall. It never interacts with the sounding note, and thus, is dead, not life-like (living). Double hit for PianoTeq. That's all I have to say about it, and I'm very serious about it. No joke! For proof, just listen to the kind of sound PianoTeq produces, as that video as an example. OK, let me take a break from this topic for a bit. You guys, have fun.

Pete14

QuasiUnaFantasia the real problem for Pianoteq is that Modartt are adamant in keeping the CPU requirements very low, and for this reason they have to avoid including a lot of high frequency material, and this entails distortion relative to the "correct" tone.

Okay, I’ll give an inch here….

In the past this seemed to play right into the hands of people still using their grandma’s computer, and not willing to upgrade to a Mac Pro, but today we have a totally new reality, and what would’ve cost thousands then, can now be had for hundreds (the M2 Mac Mini, for example), and now that the M4 Mac Mini is about to be released, the M2 will go down in price; never mind the M1 Mini; which is still a powerhouse despite.

QuasiUnaFantasia

Pete14 Maybe that will indeed prompt a change in Modartts' approach.

Pete14

QuasiUnaFantasia

Yes!

And further elaborating on your point, I remember Modartt at one point talking about the mammoth amount of calculations per seconds required to render a ‘realistic’ lower-end, and yes, I think an M2 Mac Mini would be able to handle this and then some……

Mindbullets

Pete14 That feature request has come up a few times for discussion on the Modartt forums. I've seen it most recently here: https://forum.modartt.com//viewtopic.php?id=11505&p=2

Maybe if enough people press it, it'll get some attention from Modartt? It'd be nice if they had a community wishlist where you could vote on feature requests and discuss them in a little more of an organized manner.

Maybe it's just not feasible without a total overhaul, too. Hard to say.

MacMacMac

Just don't.

David Lai

MacMacMac thanks. I was able to get a description of your images. I have to say, the navigation of such things are also quite good on Piano Clack

[deleted]

David Lai I am very confused. Has David Lai been hacked? This is very unexpected behavior. He acts like an AI bot troll. Is his account being controlled by other people?

pianow I am very confused by this pianow who seems to go from personal tragedy to bloody personal tragedy in a poor war ravaged country and then is suddenly a wealthy VST savant.

What is going on here? Is @Pete14 just pulling some puppet strings so that we can all have a great laugh? When is the big reveal?

pianow

[deleted] I am very confused by this pianow who seems to go from personal tragedy to bloody personal tragedy in a poor war ravaged country and then is suddenly a wealthy VST savant

first of all, yes you're quite confused buddy, second I'm not that wealthy but some 200 - 400$ vsts aren't something to talk about really (maybe you guys are still living with your parents so 200$ is difficult to stomach), and lastly... do you really think my country is a poor war ravaged one? haha maybe you should stop consuming what social media is feeding you with and read some books about how wealthy, prosperous and peaceful the asain countries are (or maybe visit for yourself) btw your clown friend started this in the first place, he had it coming.

David Lai

[deleted] what is this new account doing here? Frankly, I’m not hacked. I’m David. I’m very tired of Pete14’s strange opinions and disregard for reality. Are you an alternative account created by him? If so, how could you accuse me of being an AI?

[deleted]

pianow Iran and Israel are at war according to the news, no? You work almost 24 hours a day but you have time to immediately reply to anyone with your vast knowledge of VSTs.

David Lai So you pirated Pianoteq 6 according to your own words? And you're here sharing about that with your "bros"? "Heck"! No joke! Sorry David, something changed whether AI or not. We guys can tell.

David Lai

[deleted] So you pirated Pianoteq 6 according to your own words? And you're here sharing about that with your "bros"? "Heck"! No joke! Sorry David, something changed whether AI or not. We guys can tell.

No, I didn’t pirate that. Sorry for miss speaking. I downloaded a pirate version years ago. That was only for trial purposes, and I deleted it after a few days. It wasn’t a very good experience, I’m afraid.

OlivierW

I use only Pianoteq 8 (not pirated -i've full license) for Sampled library Sidechained and scripted in APPLE LOGIC 11 AU to produce Sympathetic Resonance (so sustain too that its just ALL Sympathetic Resonance off all keys, not a different fx), repedalling and damper fx for my N1X.

Example with new VI labs MODERN D + Pianoteq 8.3.1, together in LOGIC 11

modern-dpianoteq8-logic11-v104.zip

4MB

to the best of sampling and modeling. it's like an Ivory 3, but better 🙂 (with this incredible new VI labs Modern D)

Because sampled library have lot of problems to simulate SR resonance…. between pedal down and up transitions and repedalling.

Audio demo 🇪

mozart-modern-dpianoteqchromaverb-logic11.mp3

Regards,

Olivier F.

Pete14

[deleted]

😆

Pete14

[deleted] Iran and Israel are at war according to the news, no? You work almost 24 hours a day but you have time to immediately reply to anyone with your vast knowledge of VSTs.

This!

And yes, I agree with Mac, stop feeding this “Pianow” troll!

pianow

[deleted] Iran and Israel are at war according to the news, no?

no, if we were at war, i was in army right now like any other man in my country, but the actual thing is kind of a joke, Israel says that they wanna destroy our country because we're supporting Palestine (we don't let Israel terrorist to kill everyone they want so they hate us),
and we say : go f yourself

as i said don't let the social media bullshit you

next, I'm a chef, it's not like I'm working in a mine, so i can type a few replies at work and yeah my vst knowledge is quite a lot.

I kinda like I'm feeding the troll again, is that the case here?

pianow

David Lai what is this new account doing here? Frankly

guess😂 it's not obvious at all

CyberGene

Indeed, even according to our (Western) news, Israel and Iran are not at war yet. I hope that there won’t be further escalation and there will be peace.

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