VI Labs: Modern U Review

HZPiano Wow, I didn't know VSL doesn't do resonance samples. Does that apply to all their pianos?

There is some kind of sympathetic resonance but it is more geared towards how resonance affect the overall sound, not for example producing harmonics from silent keypress. You can have some of that effect if you crank up the symphatetc resonance to maximum level, but it produces a very unnatural effect and is totally useless at that level. The sympathetic resonance in Modern U is very good and it's fascinating that it is 100% sample based.

HZPiano I'm currently toying with NI Noire, which has modeled resonances, and that just isn't it. Same with the Pianoteq demo I tried recently.

On this I have to disagree, I think string resonance is one of Pianoteqs strongest points.

I really think the Grandeur and Maverick are very good instruments though and it never felt like there is really something missing for me with them

Gamma1734 I really think the Grandeur and Maverick are very good instruments though

Me too. I've set aside Vintage D (which was my standard for years) and I'm now using Grandeur exclusively.

Gamma1734 I really think the Grandeur and Maverick are very good instruments though and it never felt like there is really something missing for me with them

I've never tried them but thanks for the tip! I'm quite new to the sample based VI:s so I have a lot to discover 😃 .

Can someone please help me. I read a lot of good things said about this virtual instrument but Im really struggling to make this sound half decent. In fact I find myslef going back to the wonderful ptq Upright U4 all the time. It just sounds very muffled and muddy, particularly in the bass. Just sounds awful. I have RME Babyface and Nord Stage EX. It kinda feels like something is wrong. It cant be this bad. Anyone have any ideas.

MalcolmH Can someone please help me. I read a lot of good things said about this virtual instrument but Im really struggling to make this sound half decent. In fact I find myslef going back to the wonderful ptq Upright U4 all the time. It just sounds very muffled and muddy, particularly in the bass. Just sounds awful. I have RME Babyface and Nord Stage EX. It kinda feels like something is wrong. It cant be this bad. Anyone have any ideas.

The velocity curve and gain curve are essential (for me) in getting a better tone out of the library. My velocity curve is custom and my gain curve is a preset. Unfortunately, I can't show screenshots of my settings because my library is on my external SSD that I left at work. I've tweaked my mic settings recently after getting an idea from someone here on the forum and I feel it's the best sound I've gotten out of the Modern U to date. I'll post screenshots in a few days when I'm back in the office.

God Bless,
David

David B 

Thank you David, much appreciated. I dont think The Nord is doing me any favours. I struggle to get a MIDI value of 110!, same using ptq. But I can get ptq to sound very good in the bass end. I struggle around C5 and above, to loud and strident but like Mac3 I suffer form tinnitus and I think that has a bearing, my hearing is very sensitive. But anyway, Im just very surprised that i find my experience the opposite of most others. Ive dug this out a few times over the past few months and play fro an hour with curves and so on but eventually give up.

The bass of the ModernU is a bit muffled and vaguely wobbly, but that is a character of the sampled upright. The soundboard and room mics help a bit the overall sound. The best part of ModernU is how real it sounds in the top 5 octaves.

vagfilm

Thanks, thats kind of reassuring. The sound of my old Beckstein upright is much much brighter and clearer than the  Modern U. the ptq Upright does a much better job here. Just confused why my experience differs so much. Ah well. Yes Id agree (ish) and say the top 4 octaves are ok. But weirdly I quite enjoy the recordings Ive listened to here. Im not getting that sound at all in the bass. Its c^%p. Im mainly using default, have played around with the other mikes but give up after an hour or so.

Hello,

MalcolmH, Sorry to read you're struggling with Modern U. As vagfilm said, it is a sampled upright piano which of course differs considerably from the more usual Grand libraries. A big fat Grand has bass!! which an upright piano just has not. It just physically can't. And the dynamics are altogether different as well.

I play Modern U daily and when I come across real life tall uprights (if they are good ones) I feel right at home, that's how realistic it is.

Quite early in this thread I wrote several posts outlining how I set things up, maybe some help can be found there:

HZPiano Modern U fan here as well

Cheers and good luck,

HZ

HZPiano

Thanks HZ, All I can say is that my old Bechstein is so much better than whats coming from this Modern U simulation. No comparison. And its why Im so confused because on the PTQ thread there are people saying that the they find the PTQ upright muddy and and muffled in the bass compared to the ModernU and Im finding the opposite is true. Dont understand. Perhaps my download is faulty.

Maybe this is due to terminology subjectiveness 😀
In my view, ModernU can be called "muffled" because it does not have the thunderous and long-lasting bass notes of grand pianos. Using the same engine and sampling team, compare the basses of VSL Bosendorfer Imperial vs the bass from VSL Bosendorfer Upright, or the bass of ModernU to the bass of Ravenscroft274. To many people (me, included) that have no experience with uprights (or grands for that matter) and that relate to piano only from listening to audio recordings, ModernU (or VSL Bos Upright) possesses a tone that does not sound familiar, and that feeling is particularly uncanny in the bass notes.
On the other hand, the Pianoteq "muffleness" is something that affects all pianoteq models and in all regions (particularly in the middle octaves). In all pianoteq models, the bass is overwhelming, the middle muffled/nasal, and the upper octaves are piercing and shrill. Within the pianoteq models, I find the U4 less resonant in the upper octaves with a simpler harmonic content compared to other pianoteq grand models (Petrof Mistral, for example), but the bass notes are very grand like (almost unrealistic when compared with the sampled uprights that I know).
Of course, this is all subjective... If anyone could pinpoint what exactly could be done better in pianoteq, it would have been done by now and the sampled pianos would be history...

vagfilm In all pianoteq models, the bass is overwhelming

Really? If anything, I find it underwhelming…. 🤯

After adjusting the volume in both, so they sound at the same loudness, compare the first 30 seconds of

with the first 30 seconds of the same piece in https://www.modartt.com/modeld

In the bass, for me, PTQ is more "round" with less harmonic content, whereas the acoustic piano has a more lively sound, with higher harmonic content (and perhaps even some pleasant inharmonicity) which I am unable to match by making PTQ virtual piano shorter (for more inharmonicity) and/or increasing the higher harmonics in the voicing panel. Hence, I'd call that underwhelming. Are you just using a different word for the same experience or do you experience the reverse, or something completely different?

Of course one could argue that in this recording the velocity curve is too light (or the player adjusted live for a brighter instrument) so obviously the PTQ sound is duller, etc etc. However I experience this problem, in different degrees, most of the times with PTQ -- big exception: the blues demo.

MalcolmH Can someone please help me. I read a lot of good things said about this virtual instrument but Im really struggling to make this sound half decent. In fact I find myslef going back to the wonderful ptq Upright U4 all the time. It just sounds very muffled and muddy, particularly in the bass. Just sounds awful. I have RME Babyface and Nord Stage EX. It kinda feels like something is wrong. It cant be this bad. Anyone have any ideas.

Hi. I kind of agree with you on the Modern U and I also find myself among the minority that isn't that fond of it. To me ir seems like it suffers from two major problems.

1. The way they have mapped the velocity response makes it much harder to reach the higher velocity layers in the bass than in the higher registers. This means that if you adjust the velocity curve to be able to reach sufficient power in the bass (compared tho other uprights), the treble gets too bright and strident. I found this balance to be much better in for example VSL Bösendorfer upright and in Pianoteq U4. This problem is accentuated by my midi controller on which one has to work a little harder to reach a certain velocity value in the bass compared to the treble.
2. There is IMO some artifacts in the sound in the C5-C6 range with some unpleasant harmonics in the attack which accentuates the unbalance between the treble and the bass.

I have a program called VelPro where you can customize the velocity response for different regions on the controller and it have made it better but not good (yet) for me, but I don't really like t have to fiddle with another app just to get the velocity response right.

With that said, I think the sound quality of the Modern U to be really good and maybe it's characteristics reflects the acoustic original, but I find it a bit odd and don't recognize it from the Yamaha uprights I have played.

johanibraaten Hi. I kind of agree with you on the Modern U and I also find myself among the minority that isn't that fond of it. To me ir seems like it suffers from two major problems.

Thankyou for that John, was maybe thinking I should make an appointment with ENT!!

I agree with all youve said in your first point, Im finding exactly the same. My keyboard is a Nord Stage EX. It struggles to generate anything above Midi 105 as a max key velocity, this may be a problem, not sure. Can I ask what keyboard your using and whats the max midi velocity you comfortably achieve without bashing the piano.

I did watch a video by Simon Amburgey. He is getting some very nice sounds from the Modern U (and also David B) , Id love to get that, I did notice on his video that there is one moment where he switches to the Midi Out page, the one with the velocity and gain curves. The Midi Out/In readings are the opposite to what Im getting. Th eMidi In i salways much larger than the Midi Out, as I say opposite to my readings. Does this have some bearing, perhaps someone can comment.

Thanks for suggestion of VelPro, I'll look it up.

Ha, if id bought an acoustic that sounds like what Im getting from this software it would be straight back to the shop. My 100 year old Beckstein is doing better!

I may look at the VSL bosy when the next sale come around.

Thanks again

Hello,

MalcolmH , It is encouraging that you like Modern U in the videos you mention, because that is what I get from it every day.

My keyboard is a Roland FP-10 that nicely and consistently gives the complete velocity range 1 -- 127. I have it on its default (linear) setting.

If your Nord tops out around 105, then that is at least one problematic factor. You already mentioned the MIDI adjustments page with the two curves. The left one (velocity) has two little arrows in the top right corner. Drag the one on the top (X-axis) towards the left, steepening the curve until a MIDI input of 105 from your Nord is translated to a resulting MIDI velocity of 127 that will be played by Modern U. The top right arrow for the Y-axis should remain all the way up. Should the Nord also not give you the lowest velocities when pressing keys really gently, then the X-axis arrow in the bottom left corner can be dragged to the right.

After that, the left "Bend" knob (used subtly!) can then give you a somewhat lighter (convex curve) or somewhat heavier touch (concave curve). I suggest starting out with the linear curve (Bend = 0.0) and by first dragging the arrows as described above.

Cheers and happy improvements,

HZ

HZPiano Thanks HZ, I'll certainly try the steps that youve outlined. I probably have during the hours of tweaking that Ive done. You may land into the problem that Johan pointed out that he outlines in para 1 above.

The decent sounding videos indicate a possible problem in my setup. Im due a new keyboard anyway. I dont need all the functionality that the Stage EX gives. Simon Amburgey does amazing things with his SL88 grand. I may well look at that. Its seems good value for money. Or maybe the VPC1.

Thanks for the advice.

Hello,

johanibraaten , MalcolmH , I'll probably also have a look at VelPro (since Johan mentioned it) if and when I find some time for that.

That is mainly because of the total lack of a decent curve editor in NI Noire (it just has a handful of presets, none of which seem right to me). So I'll probably download the VelPro demo to see if that brings any relief.

And while at it, I may also see what it could bring to Modern U. Thus far, I never felt a need for that, though.

Cheers and happy fine-tuning,

HZ

PS Funnily enough, almost this same hour someone on PW writes that he found a velocity curve editor rather hidden in the Kontakt player. I'll try to find it and (maybe) that is my Noire handled and in that case I won't need VelPro at all.

http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3182334/re-noir-by-native-instruments-a-small-review.html#Post3182334

Simply adjusting the overall velocity curve does not solve the problem, if different curves at bass, mid and treble octaves are indeed needed as @johanibraaten and @MalcolmH mention; therefore, the need for VelPro.
I have a tool that I programmed that can do velocity curve mapping per key, but it is not user friendly at this moment because it is simply for my own use: you need to create on excel a matrix of 88 velocity curves. It is not difficult but gets quite tedious. I want to make a simple interpolation tool that automatically creates those gradients, but time is in short supply. The good news is that it is free and it seemingly does not add latency (this needs third party checking), but it is Windows only. You only need a virtual port to output the midi out-value to the VST.
Let me know if this is of interest...

MalcolmH Can I ask what keyboard your using and whats the max midi velocity you comfortably achieve without bashing the piano

Hi. Sorry but I've missed your question, I've been off the forum for a while. My controller is a Yamaha N1 and the highest velocity I feel comfortable to achieve without abusing the instrument is around 110 in the bass and 115-120 in the treble. That is with the arm falling freely from about 20cm above the keyed and striking a single note.