Pianoteq - Looks Like new Modelled Piano

[ianweb123]

Do you suppose that when the original King Kong film came out in the 20s the audience thought " well King Kong was good but I reckon it will be a lot better when its all done using CGI".

Do you think in the 20's they already had another method of creating amazingly real special effects that had been in use for many years? I think not.

Well apart from the fact that they could have used footage of a real gorilla, hey hang on, thats just like sampling.. using recordings of the real thing..

so yes I had already considered that reply

yes, and im sure that crossed their minds, but they wouldnt beable to get a real gorilla to fight a T-rex, or climb a building holding a woman, fend off planes etc. BUT with samples, I can make them play a wonderfully realistic piano tune better then all the alternatives.

Or better still just play back a recording of somebody elses performance.. My point is to celebrate that somebody has taken the trouble to try to create an instrument that can 'climb buildings' rather than point out that its not totally like the real thing..

[eduardo_b]

Similar conversation at the PianoWorld:
http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultim ... 240/2.html

It has some comparion MP3 files using the same MIDI files.... (art vista, sampletek, pianoteq, giga pianoII, and a real piano)

I looked over the messages there and noted an underlying feeling that as unique and interesting as this plug is, its qualities are still that of a digital piano. This makes me wonder if this isn't really just an expensive softsynth electric piano.

When I feel the price of a synth (and that is what this is, not a software piano in my sense of the word) is simply unreasonably high, I'm basically done with it. A group buy that at minimum halves the price might make me more interested because I'd feel the value for money is more balanced.

[aMUSEd]

I am not trying to persuade you otherwise, and I see you have your reasons, even if I dont understand them fully, but the entire ground for me is that it doesnt sound like a piano, so I have no reason to see it as a ground breaking technology to emulate one.

Let me help you nderstand. I like to play piano and other keyboards - I don't do much sequencing - I mainly record what I play realtime so the feel of an instrument is important to me. For years now we've had stuff that SOUNDS something like a Piano - at least getting closer and closer, through using recordings of a real Piano chopped up and mapped to keys (and various other tricks like using Impluse responses and FX, and more recently scripts that improve realism). But this comes at a cost in terms of system resources - especially memory (RAM and HD space) and CPU, and what you have as a player is something that may sound closer and closer but still doesn't feel as playable and as responsive as the real thing. On the other hand what we have with physically modelled instruments is an instrument that responds in realtime to subtleties in playing, to the artistry of a real performance, the human touch. This is much harder to recreate but with this VSTi, for the first time someone has come up with something that PLAYS more like the real thing. So we have trade offs - do we want something that SOUNDS like the real thing but doesn't play as well, or something that PLAYS more like the real thing but (at the moment at least) doesn't quite sound as good? That, I would say, is a lot to do with how you want to use it as a VSTi - if you prefer to sequence stuff than maybe responsiveness to human touch is less an issue and dead samples are better. If you like to play stuff in realtime though maybe you'd prefer to have something that is more responsive and playable as a musical instrument. IDEALLY we all want both, but the reality is technology is never going to get us completely there - even the best SOUND and best PLAYABILITY still loses one thing, the FEEL of playing a Piano is something that no computer could emulate entirely because it's a physical thing, it has a presence that you feel with your whole body. But to me this is a step in the right direction and to me playbility is the way forward now - soundalikes are fine but ultimately that approach on it's own is a dead end. This may not sound as good as sampled instruments but it's a better start than we've had in a long while and at version 1 can only get better if given our support.

[Cyrosis]

Do you suppose that when the original King Kong film came out in the 20s the audience thought " well King Kong was good but I reckon it will be a lot better when its all done using CGI".

Do you think in the 20's they already had another method of creating amazingly real special effects that had been in use for many years? I think not.

Well apart from the fact that they could have used footage of a real gorilla, hey hang on, thats just like sampling.. using recordings of the real thing..

so yes I had already considered that reply

yes, and im sure that crossed their minds, but they wouldnt beable to get a real gorilla to fight a T-rex, or climb a building holding a woman, fend off planes etc. BUT with samples, I can make them play a wonderfully realistic piano tune better then all the alternatives.

Or better still just play back a recording of somebody elses performance.. My point is to celebrate that somebody has taken the trouble to try to create an instrument that can 'climb buildings' rather than point out that its not totally like the real thing..

your pun made me smile Theres plenty of counter points to this, but personally, I dont care, the 2 sides are clear enough, and I dont mind that we dont agree

[ianweb123]

..and I dont mind that we dont agree

Agreed

[bluedad]

Just the CPU optimisations alone are really impressive - Thinking about it, to model a piano properly you would need to model each string with mathematical precision and it's responses to being struck by a weighted hammer at different speeds and amounts, then model the complex and non linear interactions between the strings (all 88 or so of them), as well as the interactions with the piano body (including materials, size, amount of space, whether closed or open), and all sorts of other things too (different types of pedal etc) and all this in realtime with no glitching even when played very dynamically as the Piano is a very expressive instrument. And that they have done this and I can get over 200 sustained notes of polyphony even when playing very fast (as I like to) and still only use less than 50% of my P4 3.6 is nothing short of astonishing.

And with normal playing it barely registers.

I guess there is more than one string per key on a piano ...

....master bluedad, how much ?

on average, around 220

[Cyrosis]

I am not trying to persuade you otherwise, and I see you have your reasons, even if I dont understand them fully, but the entire ground for me is that it doesnt sound like a piano, so I have no reason to see it as a ground breaking technology to emulate one.

Let me help you nderstand. I like to play piano and other keyboards - I don't do much sequencing - I mainly record what I play realtime so the feel of an instrument is important to me. For years now we've had stuff that SOUNDS something like a Piano - at least getting closer and closer, through using recordings of a real Piano chopped up and mapped to keys (and various other tricks like using Impluse responses and FX, and more recently scripts that improve realism). But this comes at a cost in terms of system resources - especially memory (RAM and HD space) and CPU, and what you have as a player is something that may sound closer and closer but still doesn't feel as playable and as responsive as the real thing. On the other hand what we have with physically modelled instruments is an instrument that responds in realtime to subtleties in playing, to the artistry of a real performance, the human touch. This is much harder to recreate but with this VSTi, for the first time someone has come up with something that PLAYS more like the real thing. So we have trade offs - do we want something that SOUNDS like the real thing but doesn't play as well, or something that PLAYS more like the real thing but (at the moment at least) doesn't quite sound as good? That, I would say, is a lot to do with how you want to use it as a VSTi - if you prefer to sequence stuff than maybe responsiveness to human touch is less an issue and dead samples are better. If you like to play stuff in realtime though maybe you'd prefer to have something that is more responsive and playable as a musical instrument. IDEALLY we all want both, but the reality is technology is never going to get us completely there - even the best SOUND and best PLAYABILITY still loses one thing, the FEEL of playing a Piano is something that no computer could emulate entirely because it's a physical thing, it has a presence that you feel with your whole body. But to me this is a step in the right direction and to me playbility is the way forward now - soundalikes are fine but ultimately that approach on it's own is a dead end. This may not sound as good as sampled instruments but it's a better start than we've had in a long while and at version 1 can only get better if given our support.

Well, as far as resources are concerned, I dont really follow you, I just tested both pianos on a 176poly pattern, the sampled piano cpu usage peaked at about 32% and never crackled at 1ms, the pianoteq peaked at about 48% and needed 3ms to play without popping. Given, the sampled piano needed 215mb of ram, but I picked it up for 120$ (with the sample player included) leaving me 200$+ to buy more ram or HDD space if you were really that desperate.

:edit: playability, to each his own, I sequence my samples, so if you like what pianotq gives ya when you play it, thats fine of course.

[Cellomangler]

I haven't got Pianoteq to work on my web computer -maybe the sound card isn't supported, so I'll try it on my laptop. But.. those of you who have tried it, how is the latency/response in general as compared to sampled pianos you might own ?
And how about the release note emulation and pedal down (resonance) ? Is the resonance more organic than sample sets ? I'm looking for my first soft piano (got a Kurzweil PC2 Rack) and so far I like the Big Fish Dark Grand and the M-Audio ProSessions (really -they are so different). But I'm considering this modeled puppy because of its size and maybe -for its responsiveness ?

[VicDiesel]

I haven't got Pianoteq to work on my web computer

Make sure you have the latest version. They fixed some bugs within a day of it going live.

Victor.

[Yossarian]

When I feel the price of a synth (and that is what this is, not a software piano in my sense of the word) is simply unreasonably high, I'm basically done with it. A group buy that at minimum halves the price might make me more interested because I'd feel the value for money is more balanced.

The perceived value is of course an individual and very subjective thing. To me, Pianoteq is more valuable than a sampled piano for many reasons. In part, it has to do with recognition of the technical achievement (which I think is remarkable). Also, I already own several sampled pianos and I feel that buying another one wouldn't bring anything substantially new to the table whereas Pianoteq definitely would.

I think Pianoteq is a more playable and responsive instrument than any sampled piano I own (and I have some very good ones from SampleTekk and Vintaudio). The technical feature demos at the Pianoteq webside clearly show that this PM piano already surpasses sampled instruments in many respects (resonance, repetitions, pedalling etc.). Last but not least, Pianoteq has a vastly greater potential for sound shaping than any sampled piano.

IMO, the price is reasonable - I can't afford it atm but will probably buy it later on.

/Yoss

[shanecgriffo]

+1

[Cellomangler]

Now nobody start throwing things, but....
I wish, particularly at that price, that Pianoteq would utilize a dongle-based protection scheme -that doesn't require online registration. Reason being, it is so convenient to be able to use multiple computers, to show up at a session and use their computer, to do teaching utilizing someone else's computer and all you have to do is install an 8Meg program and stick a dongle in the port. Just don't lose it. I like to have the option, at least. OK.. now I'm ducking...

[eduardo_b]

IMO, the price is reasonable - I can't afford it atm but will probably buy it later on.
/Yoss

I can easily afford it but balk at the price even though I might have use for it (not as a replacement for samples, mind you). The idea that it overcomes issues with sample-driven plugs makes no sense to me. Given all the television and film soundtracks, advertising music content and other applications, all done with romplers, I find this assertion rather overstated.

I think your point that you can't currently afford it, which is apparently also true for many others, illustrates what I consider to be a shortcoming of the price. The developers would be far better off in the long run amortizing their development costs over more units at a lower price -- a much greater installed base. Of course, they may be trying to avoid having too many customers to provide support to by making the plug simply unaffordable to the larger potential market.

[Cellomangler]

I can easily afford it but balk at the price even though I might have use for it (not as a replacement for samples, mind you). The idea that it overcomes issues with sample-driven plugs makes no sense to me. Given all the television and film soundtracks, advertising music content and other applications, all done with romplers, I find this assertion rather overstated.

I think your point that you can't currently afford it, which is apparently also true for many others, illustrates what I consider to be a shortcoming of the price. The developers would be far better off in the long run amortizing their development costs over more units at a lower price -- a much greater installed base. Of course, they may be trying to avoid having too many customers to provide support to by making the plug simply unaffordable to the larger potential market.

So..can you easily afford two and give one to me ?!?
I basically would have to agree. And with the sampler issues. Still am impressed. Still want a copy. I'd pay $150 for it right now and at that price, I think Pianoteq would sell 3 to 4 times the number of licenses. Do the math..
Hmmmmmmm.

[Yossarian]

The idea that it overcomes issues with sample-driven plugs makes no sense to me. Given all the television and film soundtracks, advertising music content and other applications, all done with romplers, I find this assertion rather overstated.

Not sure I follow your line of reasoning. Because people are using romplers for soundtracks and advertising, this PM piano can't have features unavailable in a sampled instrument? For one thing, Pianoteq hasn't been available until now - how do you know a soundtrack composer wouldn't have preferred this piano to a sampled one, given the choice?

There are so many other applications for an instrument like this that are just as valid as soundtracks and advertising - and even soundtrack and advertising composers may very well see the advantages of a piano with this level of tweakability. As an example, I saw Eric Persing of Spectrasonics expressing his delight at the sound design possibilities of this piano in the Northernsounds forum.

It all comes back to personal preferences - ours are obviously different.

/Yoss