User forum FXP corner Velocity curves. You can use any MIDI keyboard such as a digital piano or a synthesizer. To be able to play with detailed expression you need a keyboard with a good velocity sensitivity.
Most stage keyboards and digital pianos have that, more or less. There is everything from light stage pianos with optional stand to heavy grand models with real grand piano action built in. Useful advice on what keyboard to use can be found in the Pianoteq user forum and in the Piano World digital piano forum.
Recent keyboards can also be connected to the USB port. You can find more information here: hookup diagrams. Do you recommend any specific pedal set for use with the keyboard? Digital pianos usually have a sufficient pedal set built in. What kind of computer do I need to install Pianoteq on? The upper end was bright and airy, and the pedal resonance and undamped strings effects created a wonderful ambience that I very much enjoyed.
Because I reviewed Pianoteq Pro, I had access to all editing parameters, such as microphone placement. Well, I quickly encountered a problem that made me appreciate the wide latitude modeling gives the user in adjusting the parameters of the source instrument. While exploring the dynamic range of the Steinway D, I came across a low note in MIDI terms, B0 whose attack sound, when the note was played softly, was noticeably different from the attacks of the adjacent notes.
In a sampled piano I would have just blamed this on the source instrument and moved on. But in Pianoteq Pro I can edit each note separately. Trying that, I found that softening the hardness of the virtual hammer for my softer and mezzo-forte keystrokes helped balance out the sound and reduced the hammer noise a bit. While still not perfect, it was a revelation to be able to do such microsurgery. I also appreciated how much adjustments of microphone selection and placement could affect the sound.
Up to five virtual microphones, out of ten models represented, can be placed in any location and pattern. Calling up that screen see Fig. The K2 piano had a more brash, bright, strident sound, but it was still thick and notes sustained well.
That said, a quick dive into the editing parameters to soften the hammers for my keystrokes at louder volumes did a lot to take that edge off, though to me it still sounds more like a great keyboard piano patch than the real thing. It sounded a bit thinner and brighter than the D, at least as presented by the presets. I should note that because the presets vary so much in their miking techniques, it was hard to make direct comparisons of the models themselves. I went back to the Freeze Filter and kept the mic placement the same so that I could try to ascertain the nature of each model.
The Grotrian Concert Royal sounded a bit mellower and less complex than the Steinway. Happily, the presets were voiced to give it a warmer sound than most sampled Yamahas, which tend to emphasize only the bright, recorded Yamaha sound commonly used in pop and commercial music.
Both of these and, especially, even earlier pianos offered by Pianoteq, might be of interest to classical pianists wishing to reproduce works on the appropriate period instrument, or to pop and alternative musicians looking for a more unusual sound than that of a spinet or upright piano. Speaking of uprights, Pianoteq offers a model of a Yamaha U4 that sounds very authentic to an instrument with a smaller soundboard and an action mechanism positioned closer to the player, both typical of upright pianos.
New to the Pianoteq collection are two acclaimed pianos, the Steingraeber E and the Ant. Steingraeber has introduced a unique pedal control, the Mozart Rail, that reduces the key depth and the hammer-to-string distance, to enable even softer playing and quicker repetitions. This very subtle effect was clearly present in the Pianoteq version. See also the Piano Buyer review of this instrument and this innovation. The Ant. Petrof was also excellent, with a brighter low end than the Steingraeber.
I found the upper range a bit too bright and thin in the presets, but I adjusted that by editing the hammer hardness and the overtone spectrum across a range of notes. These two newest modeled pianos sounded the most realistic of all the pianos in the Pianoteq collection, further blurring the boundary between reality and simulation. Pianoteq supports fully variable sustain pedals, so half-pedaling is available if your pedal hardware also supports it.
Proper sostenuto performance can be achieved, as well as a setting they call Super Sostenuto, which lets you restrike the currently sustaining note staccato while it continues to ring out as a sustained note, an effect impossible to produce on an acoustic piano.
Una Corda is supported; it makes a nice balanced transition to the smaller sound, and is editable. If you have them, four pedals can be configured, or you can assign one of those functions to another MIDI control source, such as a switch. I found this control to be very effective, but it may require readjusting the velocity curve, as it also affects how the sound responds to your touch. A general suggestion: Compress the dynamic range slightly when playing in a group or tracking for a group recording, to help keep your softer notes from being lost in the mix.
Expand it for more exposed and solo playing. Pianoteq allows for three layers of effects, along with a dedicated reverb section. Other than equalization EQ , the available effects are ones not usually associated with acoustic pianos: tremolo, fuzz, chorus, flanger, phaser, delay, wah, etc. Modartt used their Pianoteq technology to create adapted models of old instruments found in museums, and these can now be played by the museums' visitors from a digital keyboard, giving the public the chance to hear these musical rarities without putting strain on their elderly mechanisms.
Other pianoforte add-ons are planned, and the project may be extended to include non-stringed instruments. When improvising on the piano, one relies instinctively on the sustain pedal for note layering and reverberant washes.
As I mentioned earlier, no sampled piano can truly emulate this complex, ever-changing effect. Some companies have tried, by supplying a set of alternative 'pedal down' samples which kick in when the pedal is pressed, a laudable attempt which nevertheless doesn't quite do the trick.
Pianoteq 's efforts in this department are an improvement. The difference between a pedalled and non-pedalled note is clearly discernible, the former bringing in a layer of sympathetic overtones which form a subtle 'bloom' around the note.
This effect can be exaggerated by turning up the Global Resonance control, which governs the amount of resonance of the undamped strings, soundboard and cabinet. Set to maximum, it produces a beautiful floaty reverb which goes well beyond realism but is inspirational to play with. Another highly realistic touch is that when pressing the sustain pedal, you can hear the characteristic soft 'womph' of the dampers lifting off the strings.
That sound can get rather obtrusive, so I was glad to see that there's an option to turn it off altogether. Other pedal options include a soft 'una corda' pedal with variable softness, a 'staccato-sustain' pedal which adds undamped string resonance to staccato notes without causing the played notes to ring indefinitely, and a 'selective sustain' pedal.
Sometimes found on posh grands, this last acts as a latching sustain pedal on any notes currently held down when it's depressed, allowing you to let say a chord go on ringing while leaving both hands free to play subsequent notes undamped.
Each of the four pedals has its own designated MIDI control. If you want to take Pianoteq in a more synthetic direction, try experimenting with the mysteriously named Impedance parameter, which controls sustain length; the maximum setting creates unnaturally elongated, reverberant-sounding sustains, while short settings produce a more staccato effect. At its most extreme, the latter sounds like the dead thunks and clonks of John Cage's prepared piano.
The Cutoff and Q Factor settings don't perform their normal synth filter functions; instead both affect the decay rate of high frequencies, and at high settings can impart a plucked-string sound to the attack, or even transform the piano sound into an attractive, synth-like, muted Clavinet timbre. Spectrum Profile looks like a graphic equaliser but actually functions more like a set of Hammond organ drawbars, with each of the eight controls representing an individual harmonic within the overall sound.
By removing some harmonics and exaggerating others, I found it possible to produce a wide range of interesting timbres, and in combination with the Cutoff and Q Factor controls I was able to warp Pianoteq 's sound into an array of virtual plucked instruments resembling a harp, virginal, nylon guitar and lute.
Not a bad set of impressions for a digital piano! On the technical front, Modartt claim that Pianoteq offers voice polyphony which is more voices than most rock musicians ever need. To test their claim, I considered hiring 25 other keyboard players and a octave MIDI keyboard — if each volunteer played 10 notes it would be theoretically possible to generate a combined voice chord, but it would be hard to tell if all the notes were sounding over all the laughter.
Instead, I set Pianoteq 's polyphony to 64, pressed the sustain pedal down and arpeggiated away to my heart's content: I heard no glitches, no note robbing and best of all, I was able to set my soundcard's latency to its lowest setting 64 samples, equating to one millisecond at The only two technical criticisms I can muster are as follows: the instrument's MIDI receive channels are displayed as rather than , a pretty insignificant mini-blooper which one hopes will be corrected in an upgrade.
Less easy to ignore is the fact that having apparently successfully activated the instrument on-line by typing its serial number, I found that Pianoteq then refused to open unless my computer was connected to the Internet. It turned out that the on-line activation procedure requires drivers for a network interface to be installed, a requirement which my machine appeared to fail. Most of us would prefer to avoid such thoroughly non-musical issues, so to avoid giving some users an unnecessary headache, I'd advise Modartt to reconsider their activation procedure.
Piano tuners occasionally employ 'stretch tuning'. The idea behind this is to make the piano sound a little sweeter and, some say, more apparently in tune by incrementally sharpening the upper octaves and flattening the lower ones by a small degree, resulting in a 'stretched' range from the bottom note to the top.
The effect is most pronounced at the top end. Pianoteq 's 'octave stretching' control allows you to set the amount of stretch: a zero setting produces equal temperament, while the maximum setting makes the top notes sound noticeably sharp.
A medium setting imparts some apparent 'brightness' of intonation to the high end without making it sound badly out of tune, but if you layer a stretch-tuned Pianoteq with other instruments, you're likely to notice a nasty tuning discrepancy in the top two octaves. A second tuning control governs the degree of unison tuning of the piano's virtual strings. Most piano notes have three strings which are hit simultaneously by one hammer, and when the three are out of tune they produce the characteristic 'honky tonk' pub piano sound.
Pianoteq offers a 'unison width' setting which ranges from zero to 20, with an extremely lifelike honky tonk effect kicking in at around six. Interestingly, most of the main presets use a setting of just over one, and reducing that figure to zero makes the individual notes sound somewhat less lively.
This seems to indicate that when it comes to piano tuning, a percent perfect unison between the three strings may not necessarily be desirable.
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