Modern D vs Pianoteq vs The People

amc252 last year I also successfully used sforzando in Linux via wine. Not with Dore's libraries. But I would be surprised if it doesn't work.

@RIP A few months ago, I've tried a VSL demo with wine. Surprisingly iLock was working fine, registered demo license successfully. Synchron Pianos even made some sound after the initial install but then it stopped generating any sound on subsequent runs. To be honest, even if it worked I probably wouldn't pay for it because every update would be a dice roll.

Recently I got a used surfacebook to run Mobilesheets and Pianoteq. Screen is OK for reading sheet music. But Windows is almost unbearable. It required lots of fiddling for audio (asio, midi tools etc.), even more than Linux. I am fine with that. But now it is a constant struggle. It keeps turning on antivirus, disturbing the audio. There is another source introducing latency even with low cpu use. I suspect some poorly implemented device driver. The hunt for it continues. Until I give up and slap a Linux on it. But touchscreen/stylus in Linux is also not great 🙁

RIP

In Dutch, we have that same "Sunday …" context 🙂.

I can relate to a lot you say here, I detest the attacks and such nonsense, I do not enjoy having to scroll past all of that to pick out the bits of actually good bits of news, experiences and tips. Likewise the already-always Pianoteq (versus X and/or in itself) conversations that lead nowhere. I simply put the recent Pianoteq thread on ignore. All of this is just more Windows vs. Apple vs. Linux; Ford vs. Chevvy; Opel vs. Volkswagen; Yamaha vs. Kawai uselessness.

About Modern D, you mention not having listened to it yet for lack of time. Should you find time and some gusto, I suggest you do before somewhat dismissing it as "cannot be good either".

I didn't buy Modern D because I don't need it, I currently need my budget for other inspiring activities in my life, and last but not least I'm not much of a Steinway fan. I think technically and sound wise it is extremely good, but it just has no priority for me. If they had done a Bösendorfer 225 in exactly this way and in exactly this quality, I immediately would have gone checking if my PayPal account is still alive.

If @VILabs would have made the step to provide demo licenses, I would surely have cheered them for that and probably would have made some time to try it out.

For now, my tried, trusted and loved Modern U is still quite enough for me. Plays great, sounds great, slim, flexible and resource friendly, I'm in a happy place with it.

Cheers and happy shared sentiments,

HZ

David Lai For me, as a professional musician, what I heard really can speak a lot into whether or not I might like it, so a demo isn't needed for me.

That is quite a gift/skill. Your sensory acuity is, out of obvious necessity, shifted to other senses than sight, significantly broadening and deepening your hearing spectrum compared to us mere mortals in this area. Or so I assume.

In my experience (and my brother's), demos of virtual instruments can be really succulent and attractive, but as soon as such instruments are under my/our own fingers, they may fall flat on their face or even be downright horrible. I won't mention names here but unfortunately have a few such purchases to my name -- thankfully not as many as some other enthusiasts who literally lost thousands of dollars/euros/other currency on misleading and polished-up marketing materials and accompanying demo sound/video material.

I've been lucky to trust @David B with regard to Modern U, for without it I would have abandoned digital piano years ago. But I also told myself not to purchase any more virtual stuff without proper test opportunities under my own fingers and on my own gear.

Although I couldn't "live with" either Pianoteq or VSL pianos, I do salute those companies for demo- and/or money back options.

So indeed, come on @VILabs , show your greatness in this aspect as well.

Cheers,

HZ

HZPiano That is quite a gift/skill. Your sensory acuity is, out of obvious necessity, shifted to other senses than sight, significantly broadening and deepening your hearing spectrum compared to us mere mortals in this area

bro's a real life matt mordak🔥

HZPiano If @VILabs would have made the step to provide demo licenses, I would surely have cheered them for that and probably would have made some time to try it out

yea, do it do it @VILabs

CyberGene And people like to be argumentative on forums.

That is fine and I enjoy it too. What I find absurd is the very clear (to me) attitude by some people in some contexts to post a content that sounds like "the other person is an idiot and here's why" over and over again. Admittedly the same people in other contexts behave "normally" and that is why I have not quit this forum as I have quit other ones (and as I'm glad I never joined Facebook or Twitter in the first place).

Johnstaf The difference here is that it's like arguing about about pianos with your friends in the pub

Maybe I'm overreacting, perhaps because my limited time makes me participate only during weekends and so I just scratch the surface and don't get the real attitude but only the apparent one. What appeared to me was that people were insulting each other, with the excuse of the piano, instead of providing useful information such as "I like this because…."

In fact I thank people participating in this thread for providing a lot of information and nudging in a clear and effective way, about things that I did know and a couple that I did not even know they existed. Now I can't wait to try them all (including Modern D, especially if they make a demo available), and I'm restraining myself from doing so (for now! just for now!) because I need to complete my controller first, otherwise I can't test them properly and I can't use them much (okay, I could on the Korg Minikey, but that's a bit restrictive….)

HZPiano Should you find time and some gusto, I suggest you do before somewhat dismissing it as "cannot be good either".

Will definitely do, and to be super clear, I wasn't dismissing it like that, but more on the "I can't stand the OS where it runs" (c'mon at least on iPad pro? that has plenty of fast storage and a beast of CPU!). I was dismissing other virtual instruments in that way, because I tried them or listened to their demos and found them better than pianoteq in some (sound) aspects and worse than pianoteq in some other (sound) aspects, without a clear winner.

HZPiano But I also told myself not to purchase any more virtual stuff without proper test opportunities under my own fingers and on my own gear.

+1

RIP (okay, I could on the Korg Minikey, but that's a bit restrictive….)

Oh come on!

You could do an excellent bit of "Twinkle, Twinkle…" on the Minikey. That would provide a total, utter and properly exhaustive test of any virtual instrument.

😁

HZ

[deleted] Wine (sometimes in combination with yabridge) can work with Windows VSTs just fine.
I have recently ran Spitfire LABS Autograph Grand and the free Numa Player. However, neither impressed me compared to my current setup. Kontakt player also words on wine. I have never tried Sforzando since Linux native SFZ players are quite satisfactory for my needs.

In the spirit of Olivier, who once said, “I don’t understand the Pianoteq vs. Sampling war.”

I propose a truce, so long as we accept that the Modern D isn’t “magnificent,” but rather good-enough, gets-the-job-done, and/or another tool in the arsenal; however, if my humble proposal is meant with more attacks, I shall have no other option but to retaliate!

God is magnificent (and perhaps even Jesus), so please don’t hold your “tools” to the same standard, because guess what? Jesus walked over water, and God, well, we all know what he did, and your Modern D is in essence a bunch of recordings of a piano (I don’t mean this disrespectfully), but can it turn water into wine?

But I digress, and my initial offer still stands…..

IMHO!

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.

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!

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! 😊

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!

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.

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.

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?……..

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.

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🤍

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.

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.