Pianoteq - Hands On: NY Steinway D

So a bunch of friendly folks commented on my performance. These are all friendly and supportive folks over at PW, so I'll leave performance comments aside and focus on what can be purely attributed to Pianoteq.

The interesting thing is that people don't have to go out of their way to compliment something that's either not good or not notable. For example, I tried to record the best video I could, but no one comments on it because in the end it is not particularly good or noteworthy.

So what do people have to say, good or bad, about Pianoteq?

A very nice singing tone.

Beautiful piano sound.

Sounds good with your high tech manipulations.

Your piano sings.

What a delightful sound you get out of your piano.

Great piano sound.

Not a bad reflection on Pianoteq for folks who have no skin in the game. That's a fair number of comments on just the piano sound alone... it's almost like Pianoteq is too good for its own sake. 😆

Source: http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3194308/recital-65-general-discussion-room.html

I have yet to comment in PW on your contribution (it will happen though), but there I am unlikely to comment on the piano sound in itself. However, listening to it now (very well played, by the way) I agree completely with the "singing tone" comments. In my view the stand-out feature of this sound is a long sustain which does not drop off in volume rapidly, unlike so many sampled piano's out there.

But, my personal experience with Pianoteq is that I get "ear fatigue" after a while, and I'm speculating that the reason for this is exactly that long sustain at high volume. This idea just came to me now, so it has not had time to be fully examined yet.

QuasiUnaFantasia I get "ear fatigue"

This is the first ive read of ear fatigue associated (and therefore possibly attributed to) with any make or model of VST played through a given DP/controller/computer/sound system.

Realizing there is often a fuzzy relationship between correlation & causation …. kinda like proof & pudding, between here & there ( mostly there) ive seen people often report & associate ear fatigue with quality of headphones strapped on to one’s head. While ive experienced this very thing - usually with my econo wired JBL phones monitoring utube vids but has also happened with my vintage Hi-Fi system plus or minus the more substantial & expensive Beyer phones monitoring CDs and or mp3s on my old PC …. and Walkman - i suspect the particular design/quality of phones/speakers/drivers plays a part but there are other variables that may/can/do play a part in the fuzzy formula ….. like the production/quality of content being played through some sort of amp & speakers small or big.

Having said alla that, the only skin i have in the VST game is virtual - all of you, my virtual friends who do or have tried various VSTs for better or worse - and includes @navindra at one extreme, so to speak, as well as @MacMacMac at another …… i’m sooooo confused 😱

Maybe I should clarify a bit; I see now that what I wrote could be understood differently from my intended meaning. To me, "ear fatigue" is not a bodily feeling of fatigue, it's a psycho-acoustical effect, so not my ears feel fatigued, but instead my mind. 🙂

QuasiUnaFantasia I have the same kind of ear fatigue effect while using Pianoteq, so you are not alone (I even described it with same words some time ago)

+1 regarding the mind fatigue. I always start testing a new release with the feeling of "that's not bad" only to end-up really fatigued. I don't know what it is but I guess the brain just can't be fooled well enough. I can only compare this to some 3D movies I've watched. They've been shot with regular cinema cameras and lenses (only using stereoscopic lenses). As a result there's some narrow depth of field and even when they try to shoot with as wide DoF as possible, there's still blurred focus outside of the main objects. And since the brain and eyes recieve 3D information, your eyes try to focus on the blurred portions since the brain gets fooled by the incoming depth information but is unable to focus because the blur is not caused by your eyes but is embedded within the image. I personally experience a headache 15 minutes after I start watching these 3D movies. Same thing with Pianoteq, there's something in the sound that attempts to fool the brain by giving it partially truthful "depth" while missing the rest of the information that "depth" backs up.

CyberGene Interesting theory, but I am not quite ready to buy it yet, because the inability of eyes to focus will lead to a lot of adjustments, which require muscular work. Fatigue seems a logical consequence. But the ears have no such muscular involvement (to the best of my knowledge, which admittedly is not much). On the other hand, sound does impact the inner ear in a mechanical way, so maybe there is something there anyway. Maybe the ear has some "protective measure", which gets activated a lot by Pianoteq.

Then again, why do some people happily play Pianoteq for hours feeling no discomfort at all?

QuasiUnaFantasia Then again, why do some people happily play Pianoteq for hours feeling no discomfort at all?

That’s the great mystery.

QuasiUnaFantasia because the inability of eyes to focus will lead to a lot of adjustments, which require muscular work. Fatigue seems a logical consequence.

In fact, there is some neuroscientists that hold the theory that pain (fatigue) does not come from stress (as in "muscular work") but is a warning signal about sensorial incongruences. Phantom limb pain is one example: stump nerves say "you have a leg" while the eyes say "no, you don't..." Pain does not solve the incongruence, but focus our attention to its importance. The same could be said of uncommon sensorial experiences.

It seems as if casual listeners of the end recording do not generally perceive this fatigue effect.

It's also worth calling out this final rendering is with an audience perspective but the actual performance was recorded with a player perspective with less mics and no reverb.

Is it fair to say an acoustic grand piano can be fatiguing as well? I personally believe so. I visited a piano shop a few days ago for less than hour. By the time I was done, I was pretty fatigued.

The amount of reverberation and resonance that comes at you from an acoustic is tremendous. Not surprising that it might be fatiguing.

navindra Is it fair to say an acoustic grand piano can be fatiguing as well? I personally believe so. I visited a piano shop a few days ago for less than hour. By the time I was done, I was pretty fatigued.

As a person who owned two grand pianos and one upright (for only short overlapping periods), I experienced that and I carefully studied what and why it happened and it was two reasons:

1. sheer volume: the acoustic pianos can be pretty loud, however the player may think he/she is playing softly -- and there is no issue -- besides feeling fatigued later
2. voicing: most Yamaha pianos, and several of other brands (especially when old) are too bright. Some pianists like that (also because it's an intentional voicing to ease the piano "go over" and be heard well when played with a classical orchestra or a modern band), but I don't. So I asked my tuner to "voice" my pianos "dark", and that had the side effect to reduce dramatically the fatigue.

YMMV

RIP Great analysis. If we were to keep things simple, the same learnings could be applied to Pianoteq .

1) Adjust the volume settings (including anything that would impact the perception of volume).
2) Touch up the hammers.

Anecdotally, I've found both to be incredibly effective. The ability to touch up the hammers is an especially impressive feature.

YMMV also applies here.

navindra the fatigue with acoustic pianos is physical, it comes from a sound that overwhelms in sheer volume and you can’t turn it down. The Pianoteq fatigue is mental and is not related to any physical discomfort. I’d describe it best as boredom and sameness for the mind. When I’m fatigued by a real piano I need to rest. When I’m fatigued by Pianoteq I need to switch to a sampled piano and it’s a relief. Those are two very different types of fatigue.

CyberGene navindra the fatigue with acoustic pianos is physical, it comes from a sound that overwhelms in sheer volume and you can’t turn it down. The Pianoteq fatigue is mental and is not related to any physical discomfort. I’d describe it best as boredom and sameness for the mind. When I’m fatigued by a real piano I need to rest. When I’m fatigued by Pianoteq I need to switch to a sampled piano and it’s a relief. Those are two very different types of fatigue.

That is very interesting. I've not used either sampled or modeled instruments for long enough period of times (since I've always played them only as "back up" for the acoustic being used by another family member, or by need to use low volumes not to disturb another family member). So I cannot give you my "authoritative" experience, but in my small thing, I've experienced the "sameness" with anything: from the internal sound of digital pianos (worse offender especially the old ones), to all the virtual instruments I tried, without exception so far. In my case, the "fatigue" results in any digital piano sound feeling "unacceptably bad", not being able to distinguish one piano sound from another and having to stop practicing (but could keep playing "for fun" if I am in the mood). When I could switch to the acoustic right at this point, I always surprised to learn that it sounded "perfect" (even when it was the old, too-bright upright). I'm looking forward to having Mybrid completed and try more to see what happens with more regular sessions!

It's also interesting to note that some players, have the same complain you have with PTQ (sounding boredom with sameness of sound) for the sampled instruments, and they find relief in PTQ which they claim sound "different" even when played "almost but not exactly" the same. Most vocal with this claim is obviously Phil Best.

To me the difference between people are most probably psychoacoustic. And I dare to say IMO in some (small?) number of people it's a self-suggestion based on expectations rather than actual feelings.

I’m sure that after driving a Ferrari for a few hours a sense of “sameness” will set in at some point, so why do we think it different for anything else, including VSTs?

A Ferrari is supposedly a mark of uniqueness and never-ending fun, yet just like a lame Toyota, eventually, that sameness will creep in. It might take a little longer for the Ferrari, but sooner or later you’ll be like, “so, what else do you have?”

Sameness is built into the fabric of everything, the only variant is that it manifests sooner with some things (Toyota) and later with others (Ferrari).

Now, this forum is so alive & vibrant that I’ve yet to notice that ‘sameness’ creep in. Let us keep up the fun; however, when that inevitable sameness starts to creep in, don’t be sad; au contraire, let it be, that sameness, and sooner than you’d think, Yamaha announces the N2X, and we’re back in business.

CyberGene Interestingly, to me, this should be an easier thing to address, with the condition slider and enabling all the humanization options.

I often encounter repeated passages in sheet music and also feel like it is boring to repeat something exactly the same as before, and agree it is mentally fatiguing. A better musician than me finds ways to make the repeated phrases different.

CyberGene QuasiUnaFantasia Then again, why do some people happily play Pianoteq for hours feeling no discomfort at all?

That’s the great mystery.

For my ears, it is not a mystery. If I turn off Pianoteq internal reverb, I can play happily for hours and hours.

Osho

oshogg Interesting! I had not given the reverb much thought with respect to the fatigue. Note to self: must try this!

oshogg If I turn off Pianoteq internal reverb, I can play happily for hours and hours.

Interesting. Just to make sure I understand, you mean the reverb from the effect menu, correct?