Virtual piano comparison

I don’t think many other people will be interested in the comparison, so I will reveal the results in a spoiler frame 😉

Piano 1 is Pianoteq Steinway D Classical Recording
Piano 2 is Garritan CFX Full

I liked that PT preset since it has more reverb and approaches the natural reverb in the Garritan CFX. Surprisingly the bass notes are OK in PT which is usually something that is quite lacking but they are still hollower than Garritan. Highs are also kind of OK and better than usual. But it’s the mids that are very clanky and disappointing and just made it meh for me. The quick passages in the middle on PT become very congested and muddy. Garritan is soooo smooth and beautiful!

CyberGene I don’t think many other people will be interested in the comparison, so I will reveal the results in a spoiler frame

Cool, very interesting results. Thanks for posting it! I'm make a comment in a spoiler frame too

Interesting that PTQ fooled a couple of people and almost so a few others, and even you don't dislike it so much anymore. Perhaps this video by the usual Phil Best explains a bit about it and maybe in a few updates it be very close (if not quite usable) for everybody.

Tomorrow (always good to have it settle for a day) I will make a few more listening more critically looking for the typical things that I like and don't about each one of these two instruments/settings 😃

Hello,

Fun! 'Spoiler frame' is a new distinction for me.

From my vote for piano #2, and now knowing what it is, I am somewhat surprised for I never fully liked undisclosed but from your two snippets, @CyberGene, #2 it is not bad at all.

Cheers and happy voting,

HZ

RIP They sound almost like the same instrument to me! The 2 is slightly more bright, hence for the same reasons mentioned in the S. vs B. thread I prefer the #1

As MacMacMac is fond of saying, all the Pianoteq instruments tend to sound the same since they tend to share the same core characteristics. 😉

David B Piano 1 seems to have a brighter sound with more metallic twang in the overtones. Piano 2 seems to be a bit warmer and more mellow.

I would agree with this characterization. I felt the second piano was a bit too dull in the sense that the sound felt a bit "truncated" in the higher frequencies if that makes sense. I feel the same way with the SK-EX engine. Could just be my ears.

I would also say the first piano is more alive... the second one sounds too dull in the midrange and higher to me (the bass seemed fine).

The initial bass section for the first piano felt a bit too harsh to me (second piano felt better) but after that the first piano started to sing to me. I preferred the initial bass section of the second piano but afterwards the other characteristics and lifelessness bothered me more.

Seems like people who usually like Pianoteq liked Pianoteq again 😀 What a surprise!

I’d say the difference is small and they sound almost similar, yet at the same time it’s too big of a difference for me. I can hear little details in Garritan that are ever so tiny but make it alive whereas in Pianoteq there’s a certain sameness to the sound and that’s a paradox for me because it’s the samples that are expected to be static.

CyberGene I can hear little details in Garritan that are ever so tiny but make it alive whereas in Pianoteq there’s a certain sameness to the sound and that’s a paradox for me because it’s the samples that are expected to be static.

In recent versions, Pianoteq introduced humanization options, so quite a few parameters can be configured to vary slightly during a performance. There's also the condition slider which makes the piano not so perfect. I don't think this is enabled by default in any of the presets.

I also can't really tell if humanization makes a difference or not. I enabled all the settings on my recent recording. 😆

Pianoteq Steinway after all... What a trickster, CG... Curiously, I desliked more the bass notes than the middle octaves. I was betting that piano 1 was ModernU with the bass ramped up. But Pianoteq was also a possibility because the bass sounded like pianoteq: deep and thunderous but lacking higher frequency harmonics. Piano 2 I guessed correctly.
If you want to know how that sounds in VSL Steinway, I can render the midi file.

Btw, i was again without access to PC for several hours... Strange...

vagfilm It seems every time we have these blind tests, someone finds they like Pianoteq when they previously thought that they didn't!

If I recall correctly, that was also a turning point for me. Someone had posted some blind tests on PianoWorld and I found myself liking the Pianoteq renderings quite a bit.

I never said Pianoteq was awfully bad. I said many times that the dynamic range of pianoteq is better than many built-in sound engines of digital pianos, and that is a plus... I would probably gladly change an internal sound for the Petrof Mistral. But there a number of sampled VSTs that sounds far more realistic than pianoteq (while there are way more sampled VSTs that I like less than pianoteq).
I like recordings with less ambient sound, and that is why I preferred piano #1, despite its flaws. But if both #1 and #2 had the same level of reverb, I am sure that I would have preferred #2. BTW, I have Garritan CFX and it is not my current favourite VST.
I am an enthusiast of pianoteq, and will buy it one day... At this moment, my ears get tired after 10-15 minutes.

vagfilm I am an enthusiast of pianoteq, and will buy it one day... At this moment, my ears get tired after 10-15 minutes.

Yeah, Piano 1 is a little too twangy for me. I can see how ear fatigue would set in more quickly using it. That's why I preferred Piano 2.

God Bless,
David

Here are the MIDI files:

Feel free to re-render them with other virtual pianos. @vagfilm, it would be interesting to hear them with VSL.

It takes forever to upload with my slow internet (1 megabit per second).

Here are Gene's midi files rendered with my VSL Bösendorfer Imperial Grand. I have the VSL velocity curve setup for my N1X (I use the N1X default touch sensitivity and I think Gene does also) so it should sound the same if played on both instruments.

God Bless,
David

Here are the two compositions rendered using one of my favourite (home made) presets for Ivory II Bösendorfer 225:

Both files rendered in Reaper using VSL D274 (custom preset of ~ 60% close condenser mic and 40% mid decca mic). Your max midi value is around 100 (and usually it wavers between 30 and 60) so this is a well tamed D274.

This is direct from reaper. Forgot to normalize on audacity.

A couple of things jump out at me as I read through this thread. I mentioned in another thread about the preferences of European pianos for Europeans, and American pianos for Americans (a theory) - now I am wondering if, when you improvise, that you tend to play in a particular piano range. I prefer the tenor (fat American sound), so I play alot of stuff like Linus and Lucy (peanuts) and don't improvise too far above middle C. And I wonder if this affects the type of piano you prefer.

The other thing is that this crowd sourcing of piano sounds can really help me with my next library. I may create another thread about this, but I would post a MIDI file to be rendered - single notes at different piano ranges with different velocities, and then have 'clackers render them and post which controller they use along with the piano library they're using. I could then compare the output sound and get a rough idea of the velocity scaling. Not exactly the velocity curve, but at least the dynamic range of each keyboard section (ie, C1-C2, C5-C6)

BTW, does anyone have a Fazioli sample library they can use to render Cybergene's midi file?

Both of the VSL samples are far nicer, in my opinion, than either PTQ or Garritan. Cleaner, less overtones (muddiness?). Your improvised playing is quite good, Gene.

Here are renderings from my free Fazioli F308 library. I thought about also including renderings from other free libraries to make the F308 library sound really good…. ha ha.

Anyway, if anyone else has a commercial Fazioli library, I'd love to compare.

Wow... Your Fazioli library sounds really impressive. The loud middle section (around 1:00) is as clear as in the VSLs and, in my opinion, better than Garritan. It is very bright and for that reason it is not to my personal taste, but I am in the minority and I think the library captures well the shimmering character of that piano. Congrats...