Modern D vs Pianoteq vs The People

RIP · 2024-10-05T13:59:24+00:00

As a Sunday clacker (note1) here are my impressions: Modern D may be very good, perhaps even "the ultimate" VST, but it's not for me because it does not have a demo and because I'm fed up with both Mac and Windows computers and I would accept only a Linux version or a tablet (don't say they don't have enough storage or CPU, since some of them have more storage or CPU than my desktop). And by the way, I wonder how this compares with @dore_m Experience pianos rather than the others you mentioned. @David Lai you might tell them this feedback (Linux/Tablet and giving demo) if you care. WRT the demo, some people would say "you can't download 18GB for a demo", so let me pre-emtively respond: a) my download speed allows that pretty easily, and I'm on the cheaper/slower tier of my internet provider, and the vendor could put it on a peer-to-peer network if they can't afford the extra load on their servers b) I would be happy to entertain a demo with say only half the keys working for 9GB, even more "crippled" than the pianoteq demo. Some people love, some people hate Pianoteq. A few (or maybe a lot, but they "look like" they are a few simply because they are just not vocal?) like it for what it is or at least can live with it. I am in the latter category. I agree with what most (or are they just the most vocal?) people on this forum say, i.e. that the sound is unsatisfactory. But then everything else that I could try with a demo or soundcloud recordings (excluding Modern D which I did not have time to listen to) has an unsatisfactory sound too. Each one sound is unsatisfactory in a different way, so I picked the one that I could live with, and which I like for other characteristics (I like its user interface a lot, again, not perfect but much better than others that I tried, it runs on Linux, both Intel and ARM) and policies (I love that they have a demo, which I used to make my mind before deciding to buy it). If you can't live (and let live) with the previous bullet, I'm very sorry for you and I'm not going to engage in a live and let die thread Speaking of which, I'm really appalled to see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages on the Modern D and Pianoteq so devoid of useful content (heck, even devoid of useful opinions!). Well, I'm sure there is some useful content in there, but it's so buried in repeated and repeated and repeated attacks to each other's point of view that makes me really wonder if you guys have a life. I mean we somewhat drove off the site KFB and SP because they flooded the forum with lots of repetitive comments and then we do it ourselves? What a shame! I think this is just a self-feeding trolling, from which we have no way out until "the world will explode" as somewhat I said already so I won't repeat myself (note2) (note1): in Italian, a very common derogatory way of addressing people that do something at a very low level only when they have time, the dictionary says it's the same in English, but I've never heard it in 20 years - so note that I am purposefully insulting myself (note2): that conversation was about an off-topic politics discussion and this is on-topic, but I see the same attitude and it sadden me in the same way, and mutatis mutande I feel about these new threads exactly I expressed at the time, e.g. at the link below. https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/1021-thats-called-whoopin-your-ass/36

CyberGene

Pete14 Modern D is in essence a bunch of recordings of a piano (I don’t mean this disrespectfully)

And it shouldn’t mean disrespect. If you’re gonna record music that you publish on the Internet, which is what I personally do, you’d want the best sound engineers in the world to record a real piano with the best possible equipment. That’s what you get with sampled pianos and thats why they sound so good on these Internet recordings, they are mostly indistinguishable from professional recordings of real acoustic pianos. That’s why sampled pianos take pride in the fact they are sampled.

Pete14

CyberGene And it shouldn’t mean disrespect. If you’re gonna record music that you publish on the Internet, which is what I personally do, you’d want the best sound engineers in the world to record a real piano with the best possible equipment. That’s what you get with sampled pianos and thats why they sound so good on these Internet recordings, they are mostly indistinguishable from professional recordings of real acoustic pianos. That’s why sampled pianos take pride in the fact they are sampled.

This is a step in the right direction (to a truce), a clear, humble, and respectful presentation, but not one claiming magnificence, nor is it claiming sampling (and the Modern D) to be omnipotent, but rather it details why this approach of recording 88 notes thousands of times might have a useful effect after all.

It doesn’t mean I agree, but I do appreciate this kind of narrative, which, incidentally, is the only way to move forward, but resorting to insults and trying to drain-out differing voices by yelling at the top of thy lungs leads nowhere!

Pete14

BTW, has anyone played the “Peole”?

“Modern D vs. Pianoteq vs. The Peole.”

I’m not familiar with the Peole, but I wouldn’t mind giving it a spin if anyone can point me in the right direction…

Sweetwater says they don’t sell The Peole! 😊

David Lai

Pete14 This is a step in the right direction (to a truce), a clear, humble, and respectful presentation, but not one claiming magnificence, nor is it claiming sampling (and the Modern D) to be omnipotent, but rather it details why this approach of recording 88 notes thousands of times might have a useful effect after all.

I'm glad you are beginning to see the whole thing from my perspective a bit, Pete. Good for you! And thank you very much!

David Lai

Pete14 but rather it details why this approach of recording 88 notes thousands of times might have a useful effect after all.

Yes, it does have a useful effect, and I'm glad you are understanding it. Maybe in the future, you may be willing to accept sampling as well, instead of calling it old, dead, stuck in a moment in time, ETC? I'd be happy to let you hear the beauties of what a well-regulated, well-prepared acoustic can do.

CyberGene

To add to what I said, with the above in mind, I have no use-case for Pianoteq. It’s not good for recordings because it can’t produce lush piano sound quality.

And for practicing I prefer the onboard N1X sound because it is the most playable and honest sound. Yamaha made sure every single key is spot-on and responds as it should. The sound is not as beautiful as a huge sampled library but then those libraries are just too nice sounding and hide my errors, I can’t learn and improve effectively. And Pianoteq is too bad sounding and that distracts me too. Besides, Pianoteq is never playable for me out of the box and I have no time for per-note edits. Not even sure that would help.

To summarize: huge sampled libraries are unmatched for producing high quality audio recordings for my YouTube videos. The on-board CFX of my N1X is unmatched for learning and practicing (second only to a real acoustic piano). And Pianoteq is of no use to me.

Pete14

CyberGene The on-board CFX of my N1X is unmatched for learning and practicing…….

I’ll take this!

And dare I venture that it “can be better” than plenty a mid-level, badly prepped babies, and upward leaning acoustics?

Now, David Lai was enamored with the NU1XA, so I can only hope for the N1XA to take it up a few notches, and the fact that it is better suited for “practice” isn’t a bad thing at all, for guess what gets you to Carnegie Hall?……..

David Lai

Pete14 Now, David Lai was enamored with the NU1XA, so I can only hope for the N1XA to take it up a few notches, and the fact that it is better suited for “practice” isn’t a bad thing at all, for guess what gets you to Carnegie Hall?……..

Practice, of course!

And I'm also happy to report that I've tested the NU1XA with Modern D, and the response is zero latency, better than N1X. And for me, the Modern D is a rather unforgiving library. It all depends on how you play / phrase. So I now use that to practice.

I'm now preparing for a school concerto competition, and last week during studio class I got to play at the hall I'll be playing in next week. The transfer to the acoustic (which also happens to be a New York D) was smooth and seamless. So, all good on the sampling front.

pianow

RIP

brooo, most of our unusable opinions (as you said) are jokes, it's not like we're really trying to hate on something
i personally like some of the features in the pianoteq, like its resonators and its playability, the tiny footorint and the ability to tweak and tweak and tweak...
yea there are a lot of useful stuff about it
but when there's a troll around who wants to say it's the world number one without even explaining it, and also gets angry with others people who say what's best in their opinion (it's not ptq most of the time)

the troll starts to make a cycle of trolls, that's why people think clowns are scary because they really are

my honest impression of the pianoteq isn't even negative, it's just not my favourite, and not because i hate modart or anything, i don't think the modeling technology is quite there yet, and when it is, I'd appreciate it with open arms and will use it of course.

a useful opinion:
there's no "THE" number 1
it's just mine and yours

and mine is the one that gives me the confidence of using a premium concert grand without the least amount of sacrifices.

RIP "I am right and you are wrong"

as i said the clown started this, saying my favourite is the future and yours a thing of the past would trigger anyone (even if they're using a ww2 car which I don't know the name of😄)
especially when that thing of the past is working beautifully and the future needs a lot of work (not saying anything against it)

anyway i apologise about those jokes, i never meant to upset anyone, instead i was trying to hit back the troll
i know how it feels when someone is attacking what you love and use, so I'm sorry about it🤍

dore_m

Just a side clarification. My new for sale libraries (sfz versions) were expanded to include volume controls for multiple mics and release samples. It was made to work only with Sforzando, but apparently the controls also work in SFizz. The libraries are untested with other players and most sfz players don't have GUI controls.

amc252

dore_m The cool thing about SFZ is that one can do all sort of neat tricks simply by editing the opcodes in the text file, such as blending different mic perspectives together, finely tuning the samples one by one, optimizing the velocity curve, the volume, the response, and adding filters.

dore_m

@amc252 yes, but it's not ridiculously intuitive to the masses. We crazy diy era will learn, but most won't. I also wanted to give more options to users without requiring the initial investment of buying kontakt.

RIP

Pete14 BTW, has anyone played the “Peole”?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/peole

David B

I don't get it. What's peole supposed to mean? It is supposed to be people, right?.

RIP

David B I don't get it. What s peole supposed to mean? It is supposed to be people, right?.

That is correct. I tried to make a (poor) joke out of a mis-spell.

David B

RIP Do you want me to correct the title?

RIP

David B Do you want me to correct the title?

Sure, please do.

MacMacMac

Hey, what about all us peoles!?

David Lai

David B Thank you, now my phone and laptop's text-to-speech voices are happy! 🙂 Thanks.

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