Yet another Pianoteq critique

It’s really hard to describe what exactly is wrong with the sound of Pianoteq. It’s always hard to talk about sound. But something that can point in the direction of what’s wrong is to use exaggeration: there has always been something that sounds like a Yamaha CP80. It’s very subtle, but if you somehow understand what exactly makes a Yamaha CP80 different than an acoustic piano sound, then that would be the trait/characteristic that’s making Pianoteq so ugly for me I can’t bear it.

Like this one:

RIP CyberGene I think I’d prefer an old Clavinova rather than Pianoteq but don’t hate me for that

Why hate? I actually asked for your opinion on that. I find it hard to believe, since the sound of those was so bad to my ears, but hey, everybody has their taste!

I might be wrong. I haven’t played an old Clavinova recently. I remember my Yamaha P90 was a piano I really loved. Not sure which Clavinova it corresponds to but I have very fond memories of it.

CyberGene there has always been something that sounds like a Yamaha CP80

I guess you mean the tone and not the unrealistic soft attack and slow release. If so, I think I understand.

CyberGene Not sure which Clavinova it corresponds to but I have very fond memories of it.

I guess that's a moot point anyway.

Thanks for providing these two answers.

I am really interested in the third too, about that blues demo, if you get a chance!

Thanks

RIP I don’t understand what blues demo you refer to? Do you mean I have to listen to an audio demo or play a patch that’s called this way? BTW in this very moment I’m listening to the Chopin’s Fantasy demo which is the first Steinway D demo on the Pianoteq website and it has that CP80 “rubbery” and nasal feel. Bass notes are hollow, quick lines are twangy. It’s just so bad 😢

As to the Clavinova argument. Well, OK, maybe you are right that I may prefer Pianoteq to P90 although I highly doubt that but maybe it’s just nostalgia. But it still doesn’t prove anything for Pianoteq to beat a 16 year old romper with a 16MB ROM 😀 Because I’d choose my N1X’s internal sound over Pianoteq any day or night. Let alone Garritan CFX.

CyberGene I don’t understand what blues demo you refer to?

The ones which plays once you open the PTQ interface and press the "play" button (the triangle) at the very top. If the volume is too low, do not increase it with PTQ slider, but use your computer volume control or the external amplifier once, since the volume from PTQ itself has some side effects: leave everything as default.

CyberGene the Chopin’s Fantasy demo which is the first Steinway D demo on the Pianoteq website and it has that CP80 “rubbery” and nasal feel

I don't like that one much either. The Bach's Prelude and Fugue in Ab minor from the same page is much better, IMHO, but still not as good as the blues demo mentioned above (which you can play with various "brands")

Thanks -- and happy new year!

Regarding Pete's comment that "samples don’t fit our new reality" ...

RIP I think literally everybody even @MacMacMac and @CyberGene agrees with you on this.

Not so. I know of only one modeled piano (PT), but I know and have many samplers. Some of the latter stink, but many are quite good. I see no reason to say that samplers don't fit our reality. For me they're the only good-sounding VSTs.

CyberGene I think I’d prefer an old Clavinova rather than Pianoteq but don’t hate me for that 🙂 I will nevertheless hate both the Clavinova and PT. It’s just that I have some “genetic” incompatibility with modeled pianos. I’m not sure what it is…

Me too. I just can't mentally 'relate' to the sounds because there's a synthetic nature to them - it's very difficult to define exactly what's wrong but it astounds me that some people simply don't hear it at all.

Occasionally I can hear PT, including on PT's website, and I can think it's okay. But when I'm the one playing I just cannot connect at all. What also amazes me is that whilst there are a few differences between the PT models (just listen to Pete Best on YouTube rave about the similarities to the pianos being modelled), to my ears they all share so much sonic DNA that they're basically all the same. And it amazes me again that others really seem to think there are meaningful differences. It's just a whole load of wrongness!

I also find it amazing when people can't hear the uniqueness in Pianoteq's sound (but as I've mentioned before, there is the Laurel/Yanni conundrum, so the issue is a well-known one). However, even though many of the Pianoteq "instruments" sound quite alike, there are also differences. If you play the 1922 Erard out of the box, it does emphatically NOT sound like all the regular "instruments". Seek the difference, and ye shall find it.

But there is another issue which is impossible to ignore: the number of parameters available to influence the sound is very large, which means that Pianoteq sounds exist in a high-dimensional space. It is very … nay VERY difficult to search through that space to find the "best" place, and thereby the best preset. It's the proverbial needle in a haystack.

EssBrace That sameness across the various PT pianos (starting back in v4 or v5 I think) came as a surprise. I could not (and still cannot) fathom why they go to the trouble of producing a batch of "different" pianos that are all so much alike. There are some who have written that these subtle differences are created by simply tweaking the many adjustments ... the same adjustments that are available to the user. I do not know whether or not that is true. But I'm not a fan of any those tweaked versions.

EssBrace I just can't mentally 'relate' to the sounds because there's a synthetic nature to them - it's very difficult to define exactly what's wrong but it astounds me that some people simply don't hear it at all.

That's the most perplexing part. I can easily see/feel/hear that PT is very responsive. Top notch in that respect. But the synthetic nature of the middle four octaves is unbearable. And the feeling that I'm hearing a piano being played in another room rather than in front of me is startling. Those two aspects of the sound render it unusable.

MacMacMac And the feeling that I'm hearing a piano being played in another room rather than in front of me is startling

That part is really strange (at least to me): Pianoteq can be played without reverb, and with practically no latency (and very loud).

If it doesn’t fit, you must a-quit!

I’m sorry, Mac, that’s just the way it works. I don’t make up the rules; I simply enforce them!

So I say, a-quit now, and stop trying to fit an elephant into a tutu!

Clarification: the elephant in the proverbial room represents ‘samples’, and we, the new ‘reality’, embody the tutu. You don’t want to tear the tutu into pieces, now do you?

QuasiUnaFantasia That part is really strange (at least to me): Pianoteq can be played without reverb, and with practically no latency (and very loud).

I wasn't clear about that ...
It's not a lack of loudness. It's a sense that the piano is elsewhere.
Note: I use headphones. Would the impression be different if listening through speakers?

QuasiUnaFantasia I also find it amazing when people can't hear the uniqueness in Pianoteq's sound

I can. And as I said I don't like it. However, with recordings or demo I tried, I can hear the uniqueness of sampled pianos too (e.g. Garritan, VSL) and NONE sound anywhere close to the recording of the acoustic the claim to represent. So I similarly find amazing when people rave about these other products :-)

QuasiUnaFantasia but as I've mentioned before, there is the Laurel/Yanni conundrum, so the issue is a well-known one

That's the first time I hear about that. This auditory "illusion" is compared to the Necker cube or the Face/Vase illusion. For me the other two are totally different: I can see either the vase or the faces (and with effort even both at the same time!!) or either position of the cube at will if I concentrate modestly on what I want. No matter how strongly I tried, for the normal clip I can only hear Laurel and never Yanny. Only doing frequency shift with VLC (Tools->Effects->Audio->Advanced) I could hear Yanny (which was a "burped" Yanny) if I adjusted 12 semitones lower! If I increased that frequency shift slowly, by never more than 1 semitone at the time, I could hear Yanny as high as 2-3 semitones down from normal, but it was very unstable and easily became Laurel). If I did the other way around, i.e. slowly going down in pitch from normal, I could hear Laurel down to 8 or 9 semitone below normal!! At normal speed I only and exclusively and strongly hear Laurel and it's beyond me how anybody could ever even slightly hear Yanny!!!!! Yet, at low pitch shifts I could hear both, but as I said not at will only if "coming" from the appropriate direction. And the extremely funny (almost discomforting) thing is that the clip sounds really different when I hear Laurel vs when I hear Yanny. I mean, with the vase/face, I realize it's the same picture and it's me watching it differently. With this, if it weren't my computer with my software, I would suspect that a virus is changing the behavior and playing different audio files!!!

Thanks for posting!

RIP No matter how strongly I tried, for the normal clip I can only hear Laurel and never Yanny.

Let's see if there is any correlation between what we hear in this test and how we like PTQ. Vote here: https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/277-pianoteq-laurel-and-yanny-what-do-you-hear-and-like

MacMacMac And the feeling that I'm hearing a piano being played in another room rather than in front of me is startling.

MacMacMac It's not a lack of loudness. It's a sense that the piano is elsewhere.

This is a good description. When approaching a distant piano (or perhaps, one being played in a far room of the house, around a corner or two), the most apparent deficiency would be the absence of volume. However, a secondary deficiency is that through the effects of intervening walls, hallway turns and corners, and other factors, there is also a difference in the sound quality apart from volume. If one could amplify this sound it would just become a louder distant sound. It seems as if there is some element in a real piano tone that Pianoteq misses.

I've been tinkering with Pianoteq recently. I've been greatly elevating the velocities of my VPC1 keys using the VPC1 Editor while simultaneously diminishing the volume level via the Ptq Note Editor, and vice versa. I think I'm starting to notice that the distant characteristic is part of the note fundamental sound, not the harmonics, attack, or resonances. When sounding Ptq notes with hammer hardness reduced and hammer noise reduced and with velocities set low to remove the brightness, the Ptq note should sound like a plucked or strummed piano string. But, it does not. The stripped down Ptq notes just sound like an on-tone sound from some distance away.

Ralphiano MacMacMac It's not a lack of loudness. It's a sense that the piano is elsewhere.

This is a good description.

Frankly I never have this impression. And I am constantly exposed to "a piano played elsewhere", for example right now my daughter is playing our acoustic M&H several rooms down the house. The sound does not have any of the "bad" qualities of PTQ, even with closed door. I experimented a bit with it, and the most I could make was to add some "nasalness" by listening to it with the closed door, one ear attached to the door and the other closed with my finger. Yet, I think the "bad" part of PTQ sound is elsewhere, but I still can't point it out.

Ralphiano I've been tinkering with Pianoteq recently.

Looking forward to hearing more about that.

RIP Do you guys think PTQ is even worse than a Clavinova's from the '90s? Sure we are not in the 90s anymore, but still those instruments were sold as the "perfect technology" back then….

Actual 90s Clavinovas still sell used for good money and the 90s Clavinova technology is still alive and sold new in sub $1000 products. They are what most people using digital pianos ever hear.

For me PC software is stuck right in the 1980s, up there with FM synthesis and early attempts on brute-force sampling.

Deleted For me PC software is stuck right in the 1980s, up there with FM synthesis and early attempts on brute-force sampling.

You forget to mention that in the 1980s, there was not streaming and the memory size was up to 1MB. Now, sample streaming can make available multiple GB of samples. Many virtual pianos also add sympathetic resonance or other piano details we haven’t in the 1980s.

It is like saying Formula 1 are stucked with the four stroke engine of the late 19th century.

I don’t see it that way…….

Yes, we have more space to store massive sampled pianos, and yes, we can add ‘sympathetic resonances’, etc; but in the end, this is all pre-recorded in very much the same way it was done back in the 80s; only, now they’re using slightly better microphones; still, it will always be a recorded event that was and is inherently limited.

There’s only so many ‘resonances’ that can be captured/sampled and then reproduced by the player; unlike the real thing, where resonances seem infinite, and modelling gets much closer to this.

Sampling has reached its limit (as a technology); whereas, modelling is just taking off. I don’t understand why more people can’t see this, and instead obsess over subjective perspectives as to what a real piano should sound like.

I’m sure that Beethoven’s piano sounded very ‘real’ to him, but by today’s standards I’m not sure that many would like that ‘tiny sound’ with ‘short decay’.

Regarding samples ...

Pete14 it will always be a recorded event that was and is inherently limited.

You forgot one thing: At least it will sound like a piano!