David B it’s a very familiar experience indeed. My upright is a rather short one and doesn’t sound as rich and “in tune”. If a real U3 sounds as good as the Modern U, I’d love to have one.
That being said it’s an upright sound and I prefer Garritan CFX for those commercial-grade polished grand piano recordings 😉
CyberGene That being said it’s an upright sound and I prefer Garritan CFX for those commercial-grade polished grand piano recordings 😉
Yeah, I prefer the full bass response of VSL's Bösenderfer Imperial over the diminished bass of the Modern U upright sound, but in terms of realism, I give the Modern U the advantage because it doesn't have to reproduce the massive power of a concert grand (which is hard/impossible) to do with speakers. However, reproducing the realism of an upright can be more convincing with good speakers.
God Bless,
David
To all of you out there, better pianists than me (easy feat, so nothing to brag about😊): are there technical characteristics (pedaling, staccato, light notes, ???) that are better captured in the Modern U compared to garritan cfx or synchron engine?
My turn to share experience.
Use case: play in the headphones, as similar as it gets to the actual upright I'm sitting in front of (Petrof P118).
Mission almost accomplished. It's of course a totally different instrument, but sounds like an upright. In my memory, U3 was like a whole lot bigger and much more powerful, but probably it's not fair to compare an instrument to its recording played over the headphones.
Here my settings, should anyone be interested:
Velocity curve is the default one, just the bend on the gain response is set to 0.1
Cheers
Mike
I also own the Garritan CFX, but it's a huge grand, not really comparable to Modern U.
Sitting in front of an upright, a captured upright feels more real in all regards😀
Garritan CFX sounds too funny, to play scales and the whole theoretical stuff on, couldn't stop laughing, so switched to Modern U.
MHirsch My turn to share experience.
That's a very nice mic combination. The mono mic along with the -1 timbre shift really tones down the brightness and shimmer in the upper range, which I've always felt was a little too much.
I've never experimented the the mono mic and I'm really liking your settings. Thank you for sharing.
God Bless,
David
David B That's a very nice mic combination. The mono mic along with the -1 timbre shift really tones down the brightness and shimmer in the upper range, which I've always felt was a little too much.
Ohh, that’s also my main gripe which I tried to fix with the EQ. I didn’t even try the timbre shift because I intuitively thought it would be something weird. I’ll definitely try it. What does it do exactly? Is there a user manual, I couldn’t find one.
CyberGene intuitively thought it would be something weird
Hello,
Same here, but now I might give that shift another chance too.
If I am not mistaken, such a shift setting on many piano VSTis means picking the next-higher or next-lower (or a distance of more keys depending on the +/- number set) key's samples and then re-pitching those to the actually played key's pitch. Which I see as more artificiality introduced and therefore I initially steered clear of it. But who knows, maybe it works differently in Modern U (and/or the underlying method of the UVI Workstation).
I believe there is no user manual. There is a very elaborate description on the Modern U product page, I reckon (VI Labs thinks) that doubles as a manual.
Cheers and happy playing,
HZ
Maybe this helps a bit with settings
https://www.vilabsaudio.com/download/True%20Keys%20Manual%20V1.pdf
CyberGene Scriabin
Hello,
Just listened to your recording. As a "self-taught pianist" you should pat yourself on the back a little more! 👏
And, doesn't it sound lovely and realistic? Wonderful. I'd like to see a screenshot of the settings you used there. Your recording also shows (near the end) that the bass/tenor regions have more difficulty resolving the chords in such a way that the individual notes in the chords keep standing their own ground. This is something I also ran into playing Modern U. But -- I should add -- on real-world uprights that usually is just like that, so I don't mean to point out a fault here.
Cheers and have a good weekend,
HZ
HZPiano
Thanks for the nice words!
The final few chords I played with the sordino samples assigned to the soft pedal which is why it’s not very distinct but in all fairness Scriabin just put a lot of notes in a low register which is a tricky situation for any piano.
I’ll share my multi and also screenshots.
CyberGene The final few chords I played with the sordino samples assigned to the soft pedal which is why it’s not very distinct but in all fairness Scriabin just put a lot of notes in a low register which is a tricky situation for any piano.
Ah, I see!
Cheers,
HZ
Well, I can explain my choice 😀
Main mic is the player one, kinda makes sense if you sit in front of a piano:
"This is the most natural mic setup in the library and really does emulate the experience of sitting at this piano, with just the right balance of direct and room detail along with a natural stereo image. This is the go-to classical mic."
Then you definitely want to hear the soundboard:
"A unique perspective away from the hammers capturing only the piano's soundboard up close with a wide image, the tone is warm and immersive, a bit 'woody' with a broader hammer attack."
The mono one sounds very important:
"Positioned just above the action front and center, this mic captures everything, the warmth and detail all with a modern edge."
As for timbre, I've seen a description of what it does somewhere, so turned it a bit down.
And eliminated the pedal noise, that's really disturbing, the piano has to be in a very bad shape to make noises like that…
The interesting thing about timbre shift with VSL is that you lose notes on the piano depending on which direction you shift in. For example, -1 will drop the highest C, -2 will drop the highest C and B, etc. That's why I never use it with VSL products. However, zero notes are dropped with the way VILabs has implemented it.
I really don't understand what's happening with timbre shift. It obviously changes the tone color, but other than that, I can't say what's going on. It's definitely better implemented with VILab's software.
God bless,
David
Weird. I hoped the terminology would be the same…
Another timbre related blog.
Yes, I listened to it more carefully and it's wonderful. I understand one does never like his or her own voice, but it's not sloppy at all!
David B In my limited experience, it seems to me that there wouldn't be much difference playing the Modern U compared to an actual Yamaha U3.
I never played a real modern Yamaha U-something. The sound of this U is very different from any other upright that I've owned or played. Well, I guess because most of them were not modern 🤣
My take on the instrument is that it's nice to have a variation, but it's not something that I'd long to have (or buy) per se. Simply my opinion, obviously!
Hello,
So, triggered by everyone's Modern U posts of this Saturday, I just spent one or two hours tweaking my settings -- which I hadn't done for a long time now. What I found today is:
Cheers and happy tuning-to-taste,
HZ
Hi,
I also haven't found a manual for the Modern U.
But the Help in the interface is pretty good.
First click the "i" icon. Then with that window open, click the text of the item of interest.
Jane: let me be the first to welcome you to the Clacking community... Here the discussions go a bit deeper than in PianoWorld, and your expertise is a wonderful addition. There are a bunch of us around (me included) that bought the Modern U in the last couple of days.
