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pianoteq sympathetic resonances

David B

I tried Pianoteq again last night as I was installing apps on my new Mac mini. Same results. Play it for a few minutes, close it out, probably won't open it again until I buy a new computer.

I'm not bashing Pianoteq. It just doesn't inspire me to play it. I wish it did because it's so economical in terms of its footprint and resource use.

God Bless,
David


kawafanboi

David B

how's the m1 cpu utilization on pianoteq, what's the max thread supported, can it saturate all cores? 😃


RIP

Khuja Wangtishvili Has something changed since the release of the version 8 few month ago?

They have released a few updates but I haven't paid attention

kawafanboi del vento, how does it work in pianoteq, does the 1 note, affect all the other notes or do they play the 1 note with effects, and then another layer of sympathetic on top of that like a separate track ?

They claim that each note affects each other note in a combinatorial explosion of possibilities and that is one of the reason the people who like that virtual instrument are so excited about it, since it is basically never the same.

But that's all I know I am no expert in that by any stretch of the imagination


kawafanboi

RIP

hrrrm. we should ask pianoteq to explain this more clearly.

the way i'd imagine 1 note affecting every other note, wouldn't that mean, it should be running 256 or max polyphony 100% of the time, yet, clearly it does not do that. 🙃


dore_m

I'm pretty sure it's modeled as I described. Pedal down uses a resonance engine that takes input frequencies and simulates body resonance and pedal up uses midi keys to determine which frequencies to excite. It's clear to me because

  1. The pedal up SR reacts to which keys are pressed. The result are specific SR frequencies excited that are related to the specific open strings that are given to the engine via midi note number.
  2. You can side chain their plugin to access the body resonance engine. The input is audio, not midi. The result is a general sonic aura I call body resonance.

You can experiment with the demo as I did to see this. I draw these conclusions because I can't think of another way that they could conceive of doing this.


kawafanboi

dore_m

if i'm reading you correctly, you mean that each note is its own 88 key polyphony ? and pianoteq counts that as 1 polyphony ?


dore_m

kawafanboi Can you clarify what you mean? I'm not sure how you're getting to that conclusion.


kawafanboi

dore_m Can you clarify what you mean? I'm not sure how you're getting to that conclusion.

my confusion is on how it's counted.

if we accept the way it's framed that pianoteq can excite all the notes on pedal down, that means it's at least 88 all the time even if a single key is pressed.

since that's not what shows up on the counter in the software, i'm trying to understand how the polyphony in pianoteq is defined.


dore_m

kawafanboi since that's not what shows up on the counter in the software, i'm trying to understand how the polyphony in pianoteq is defined.

Oh, I see. I'm not a PTQ expert - just a technical observer. I bet that PTQ counts polyphony as the number of keys that can be depressed at the same time, or the MIDI note numbers that can be active. Thus, PTQ and sampled instruments possibly count polyphony differently (IMO). PTQ has obviously created a sophisticated sine wave convolution engine, and every key that you press triggers a large convolution of sine waves yet probably counts as 1 note of polyphony. When multi notes are played, the engine probably doesn't count the SR as more polyphony.

Whereas my sampled SR counts each sine wave as an added note. This is why I had to up the polyphony in Kontakt to 1000.



dore_m

OlivierW Which part am I wrong about? Is it that you can side chain MIDI notes so that PTQ can do SR on only open strings?


OlivierW

dore_m

Yes, we can side chain midi notes so that PTQ do only SR.

In logic 10, in other daw i don't know 🙂


dore_m

Do you know what side chaining is?


OlivierW

Its works , and it's magical. VSL Audio is routed in SSR PTQ engine, thanks to SIDE CHAIN AUDIO, and midi in Pianoteq at velocity 0 trigger SSR rules between keys, without play PTQ internal Piano preset.

it's work…

Have a nice day 🙂

Regards,

Olivier


Joannchr

dore_m

OlivierW IMHO it works ok but given the final audio = original audio from sampled piano + resonance from PTQ instrument excited by the audio of the Sampled VST , it only gives a pseudo realistic final sound when the 2 pianos are similar so for a Steinway D the result is fine . If you use Garritan CFX , it starts to be already unrealistic as you mixing the audio of a 9” piano with a 6” one ( YC5) so the final sound doesn’t really exist in reality . Having said that being unrealistic is not necessarily a negative as the resulting sound could be quite nice . I have done some testing on my own with Garritan CFX Grand and even though the sound was pleasant, I ended up preferring both the sound of Garritan on its own or PTQ YC5 on its own as well , I was not fully convinced by the mix as it sounded too much like an FX plugin to me as opposed to a native sound either sampled or modelled . But very interesting in cases technically.


OlivierW

Joannchr Yes, but much better than VSL, that have a bug/fake Sympayhetic resonance, and just sustain samples without repedalling. With Pianoteq 8 i have the real behaviour of Resonances like my real Grand Piano (i've a Grand Piano). With VSL Synchron player : fake sustain behaviour and no Sympathetic resonance, and Releases unreal.

It sound very nice….. with Pianoteq 8 🙂

Garitan CFX : the overtones (between keys) / SSR engines doesn't use samples, it's a modeling Aria algo like Pianoteq.

I don't have the idea to use this soluce with Garritan CFX (because it has already an optional modeled overtones engine in Aria player). Only for my magical VSL Synchron D-274

So…


dore_m

I think I understand how it works and I'm sure it's fine for many people. I just don't think I was wrong about how side chaining can only trigger body resonance/undamped pedal down SR and not particular string resonance without midi data. There are SRs in ptq that are triggered by midi, which cannot be triggered by side chain, and is done by direct midi input. You can not trigger an SR combination of keys without midi data and side chaining doesn't involve midi at all.

That's why I broke it down into two categories of SR. Audio triggered (side chained) and midi triggered (key combo). Ptq does both yes, but side chaining cannot trigger both types.


dore_m

Ok, I'm going to eat my words. I did try it and it works - I swear I did this months ago and it didn't work, but I guess I'm mistaken. My test showed that the side channel (which still does not contain midi) does indeed induce key combination SR. I did the silent key trick, and I got the correct harmonics and there was no MIDI data going to PTQ at all.

It must mean that PTQ is finding the fundamental key frequencies (FFT), comparing them, and then issuing sine wave convolution. A trick that is beyond my pay grade.


kawafanboi

dore_m Do you know what side chaining is?

exactly the same as having a side-girl,

dore_m does your VSL know you're having an affair with pianoteq on the side ? 🤓


vagfilm

dore_m I did the silent key trick, and I got the correct harmonics and there was no MIDI data going to PTQ at all.

How can ptq detect fundamental harmonics of a silent note? There is no such thing as "silent frequencies"... Some midi information is shared for sure.


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