Modern D vs Pianoteq vs The People

BTW, beta testing for PT is volunteering. They found me on PW I guess (I was hating PT as always) and contacted me. We are not paid (I think I got free license for the version at the time) and we are not told how it works, nor any internal knowledge 🙂 I think Philippe once replied to me that my interpretation of their patent is not completely right (but he didn’t say it was completely wrong either) and he also said the patent is old and they have added many new things. He never explained any details though. He’s a very nice and knowledgeable guy as can be expected. What I am afraid though is, as the sole mastermind behind all of it, it’s only him who can make things better, yet he doesn’t have the ear of a recording engineer (hope he’s not insulted by my opinion) and is probably why he can’t approach the piano sound the way some of us expect it and there’s no one else who can do something. I hope I’m wrong 🙂

CyberGene What I am afraid though is, as the sole mastermind behind all of it, it’s only him who can make things better, yet he has no the ear of a recording engineer (hope he’s not insulted by my opinion) and is probably why he can’t approach the piano sound the way some of us expect it and there’s no one else who can do something. I hope I’m wrong 🙂

But I’m assuming he has a “team” giving him constant feedback and helping in the process; it can’t just be Philippe all on his own, even though he most certainly has the last word….

pipAT AI could train a piano library…

Are you saying there’s hope? 🤔

Pete14 there’s certainly a team but I think Philippe is the one behind the math, the rest is rather software engineers, etc. I guess it’s obvious but we weren’t employees or something like that 😃 We didn’t have a contract. We were just piano enthusiasts on the Internet who were being sent multiple alpha/beta pre-releases and were expected to provide feedback through email and in an internal forum. Nothing else.

CyberGene I guess it’s obvious but we weren’t employees or something like that 😃 We didn’t have a contract..

Dare I be the devil’s advocate here?

Perhaps you weren’t under a contract, but there was a quid pro quo of sorts, so, is it fair to say that you were at least a “consultant” for Pianoteq?

I believe there are still rooms for improvements for PTQ. Otherwise, well known piano manufacturers won't easily give their certifications to PTQ to ruin their brands and fames for a piece of "toy-like" synth.

Pete14 is it fair to say that you were at least a “consultant” for Pianoteq?

I’d love to think that way. But it’s also possible that my feedback wasn’t useful to them and they didn’t take it in mind 😃 But I’ve had replies from Philippe on some of my feedback regarding very concrete remarks about the sound of particular notes. Now, what I’m gonna say is surely arrogant but sometimes the next alpha had great two or three notes fixed following my feedback, but on the next alpha it got screwed up and I wondered if any of my other “colleagues” could be the one to blame 😃 At the time I got frustrated with the constant setback after a slight progress and (arrogantly) thought that if it was only me giving feedback, or if I had access to the internal workings of PT, the result would’ve been much better 😄 IMHO!

pipAT Otherwise, well known piano manufacturers won't easily give their certification to PTQ to ruin the

there are plenty of vi manufacturers that claim brand names for their products
like native instruments stradivari violin
it says it's a Stradivarius violin but nobody gives a F because there's no f+king way this vst is even comparable to a good violinist with a real stradivari
it's just a name, a marketing bullshit if you ask me
nobody would think with buying that vst they'd have a Stradivarius violin and an outstanding player (for that you need to deal with a real player, a real stradivari and expressive studie time)

and that's also true with the ptq, it says steinway but only stupid people who can't tell the difference between pianos and guitars would accept that (and those people aren't the market place for acoustic piano companies such as steinway and sons)

Pete14 And, since we’re being honest, I’ll admit it, I was one of those who thought it a “physical model” until you came along and ruined that for us.

I certainly believe that Pianoteq is a physical model. "Physical model" simply means that the model is based on an understanding of how the underlying system works. Since Pianoteq includes sliders for piano length, hammer hardness, and soundboard impedance, it seems overwhelmingly plausible that it is a physical model. It does not need to be based on finite elements in order to be a "physical model".

I thought e-instruments borrowed these historical instruments from a museum. These are masterpiece of historical makers, not belong to still running business companies. Yes, there are cases of famous companies playing this kind of game. Approved by one or two maybe not so hard, there are 7. I wish Garritan could get another authorized certification from Steinway.

pipAT
yea they're a piece of history but a lot of people still have them
and you won't believe this, a single stradivari violin costs 17 - 25 million dollars💀

pipAT I thought e-instruments borrowed these historical instruments from a museum.

i wish they've done a better job with them, the playability of this series is very bad, the legato sounds are super hard edged and annoying and there's a certain digital quality to all of them that disgusts me

i find the emotional violin to be a lot better but still it's not as playable as something like audio modeling swam violin

QuasiUnaFantasia

Thank you! That’ll help me sleep better tonight, and what the heck, I’ll go back to calling it “physical modeling” even if it’s not “physical” per se! 😁

Let’s get physical, physical…..I wanna get physical, physical…..(remember that song? Oh, they don’t make ‘em like they used to)……

pianow Maybe they were afraid to break these dearly instruments and the museum wouldn't allow players do aggressive movements. The tone is quite nasal.

Pete14 Let’s get physical, physical…..I wanna get physical, physical…..(remember that song?

Best thing since Xanadu. 🙂

Pete14 Physical modelling didn't surprised me. They called PTQ 4th generation of piano. It's great in some ways. I didn't buy that honestly, even though I like it.

pianow Another thing I remember about Garritan Authorized Steinway is Steinway was very picky about what Garritan was doing when they were collaborating on this project. Some claims the authorization had a limited time, so this vi is no longer available. How long PTQ will hold these brands?

pipAT
good point but i personally don't think that's the main problem
i feel like they have sampled and scripted those instruments as if they were pianos
long sustains without any kind of emotion, with a deeply flawed synthetic vibrato engine, and the worst part is the playability and how it handles legatos, it's just a nightmare, i deleted them from my collection long ago, the 4 of them were 100GB, 100GB!!! for something that is unusable
i'm from iran and that eastern violin flirty (it's like the player is playing with the pitch all the time) is very important to me which i can't replicate with the cremona quartet series, to be honest, no virtual violin can do that unless it's something specific for that genre, but CQ series is just bad
i love emotional violin a lot better but when it comes to that middle east flavor the only thing that i can rely on is audio modeling swam strings (even though they sound like garbage and i always have to drown them into reverberations so i can somehow hide their synthetic qualities.

pipAT
it's unbelievable how much they cared for that sampled piano but they just don't give a fawk about how pianoteq sounds, maybe they think it's a new technology and we should be gentler with it
idk

Hello everybody,

I haven't checked the forum in a long time but I just found this thread.

There are a few things I'd like to clarify.

I'm not a Pianoteq advocate (or detractor), do not work nor have any connection with Modartt., and have no interest whatsoever in the sterile argument modeling versus sampling.

I wasn't trying to prove any point or change anyone's mind since that'd be a fool's errand.

I sampled Pianoteq and created my libraries for personal use in my piano practice. I was just curious how well they rated compared to commercial VSTs.

Publishing them on the Internet had two simple purposes: 1) Have the largest possible number of people trying my libraries and provide unbiased opinions. 2) Elicit critical feedback so that I could improve them.

Period.

Within its scope, my experiment was a glowing success. Lots of people downloaded my pianos and provided overwhelmingly positive responses across several forums.

Matter of fact, I still receive a dozen emails every week from people wishing to try my pianos.

Thanks to the users' comments and suggestions, I was able to expand and improve the libraries in ways I hadn't anticipated.

That's the long and the short of it.

Whatever constructions, illations, justifications, or theories people came up with in hindsight are their own, and shed more light on them or their agenda than mine.

Also, it has been insinuated that 'Sofia' received emails of a sexual or untoward nature. Nothing would be farther from the truth. All the people who contacted 'her' were helpful and respectful.

I'm not an immature person, and would merely find it improper to divulge the name of any individual who reached out to 'Sofia' in good faith or the content of their communications.

Whether the legend behind the pianos played a part in the people's response is anyone's guess. And the girl in the pictures is not AI-generated LOL.

Now, back to piano practice.

Cheers.