PianoTeq3.5.1 vs TruePianos 1.5.0. Latest versions showdown!

[opus_diaboli]

Yes, PT is very tweak-able, but when I want to play piano I want to play piano. When I want to turn lots of knobs and sliders, I load Oatmeal.

ever heard of presets?

Only fools use presets. No, just kidding. My posting above is a reply to johnrule. Anyway, I don't like the sound of PT at all. It's to artificial in my opinion. And the presets don't convince me. They all sound muddy.

[electro]

What I mean it once you get a Piano sound you like out of it just save the preset, then whenever you load it you have your ideal piano sound.

From what I gather reading, the only weak point Pianoteq at version 3.5.1 still has is the attack.

[Jake Jackson]

I should probably clarify: I'm not saying that you can get the exact sound of the TP piano in PT. They are derived from different pianos and start from different perspectives on the desired sound.

And even if they had used the same piano, the individual imprint of the designers is both unavoidable and desirable. Consider the Truan Steinway B for East-West and the Hans Adams Art Vista Steinway. Entirely different takes on the same make of piano. Neither can be made to sound exactly like the other, and both are great.

(Both can be made to sound bad, too, with bad velocity settings and bad parameter settings...)

[olepro]

38

Lucky you... i'm 45

[NothanUmber]

From my perspective for playing an instrument the responsiveness is most important if you play longer than just 5 minutes to check out the "sound". So I started using Pianoteq 2 as main piano sound source even if the single notes didn't sound totally convincing at that time to me. Now with Pianoteq 3 I have a hard time nailing down "synthetic" characteristics in most passages. (Having played real upright and grand pianos for more than 20 years (as an amateur) and having a rack full of piano recordings). Perhaps that's related to the many hours I played with it, so this sound is what I expect - like two pianos sound different, this is "just another piano" for me now. Certainly it's also very important to play it with a good and "matching" keyboard. E.g. I'm not so used to control the dynamics on a non weighted keyboard, so when playing Pianoteq with the xboard synth keyboard (which I like for synths) it sounds at least as awful as any other piano sound source I tried on it. (Some sample pianos sound less bad though, probably because they use a more compressed dynamic range so they don't react so unforgiving to "wrong" dynamics)

On the other hand I think it's hard to rate something as realistic if you know it's not, presumably you could talk many people into judging a clean studio recording of an excellent concert grand as synthetic and unrealistic if you tell them stories about sophisticated modelling, that is just not "quite there". Would be an interesting experiment, although I'm quite convinced that I wouldn't be surprised about the outcome

Greetings,
NothanUmber

[opus_diaboli]

My favoured VSTi piano is Galaxy II when I need a full, real and sophisticated piano sound (check the demo songs on their website). When playability is more important I use TP, but Pianoteq is as good as TP in that matter. Still, it sounds more artificial and I'm not the only one who clearly hear that. To be honestly I can't believe that there're people who're not able to hear that kind of unnatural timbre. It's not the whole body of sound that seems to be unnatural but the the upper harmonics sound strange. This effect disappears a bit when I use my monitors, but with headphones it's unmistakable.

[NothanUmber]

I'm not the only one who clearly hear that.

Yes, soon having nearly 7 billion human beings, the probability of having a unique opinion on any specific subject matter is depressingly low, nowadays

Having the (somewhat stripped down) download edition of Galaxy II Bosendorfer, I have to say it sounds nice and reacts reasonably well for a sample lib (beside the Garritan Steinway and the Virtual Grand Piano, the Galaxy II Bosendorfer is one of the three sample pianos I still have installed, because of their very distinct character). "Shaping" the music as imagined is more difficult for me with those sample libs though, you have to paint with a bigger "brush", many subtle things are not possible at all - at least for me.
For some reason I did not use TruePianos too often in the last time. (Imo TruePianos is also quite good. I actually bought it before Pianoteq, after playing with the PT2 demo for some weeks I felt more "at home" with the latter one though - it's default preset has a more (not-completely-unlike) Steinway kind of sound which I actually liked (even more it's much improved C3 version in PT3) and I have the feeling that I have more control while playing - in terms of control I'd rate TruePianos slightly below the Galaxy II Bosendorfer which is the best sample based solution I tried in that regard).
Probably it's just that I got a little tired of "experimentation" with piano sounds, if I have time to play then I just want to concentrate on that without having to optimize and choose each time. And as Pianoteq works for me as an allround solution, I simply use that most of the time without much ado.

[johnrule]

When I want to turn lots of knobs and sliders, I load Oatmeal.

I load Reaktor or Moog Modular...

My point is that you can make it sound exactly the way you want; I was not able to customize True Pianos in the same manner. I wanted to mention this in order to contribute to the topic rather than just post a comment that is not very insightful or helpful.

JR

[djones]

How come there aren't any other 'serious' contenders for the best piano emulation besides Truepianos and Pianoteq right now?
Or are there indeed some contenders on the horizon of which we don't know about?

[benjamind]

Go to www.mokafix.com and go to the workshop page, and listen to the piano low note and piano high note clips.

If that doesn't sound like a piano string, I don't know what does.

Unfortunately, a virtual piano built with this technology would totally destroy just about any CPU, even today's CPUs would be crushed by a virtual paino built from this extremely (and I mean extremely) sophisticated string modelling.

Okay for guitars and basses, because they only have 4,5,6, maybe 7 strings. But for a piano, that's well over 200 strings (piano notes have more than 1 string each).

Maybe in a few year's time when computers are up to the task, we'll see these highly sophisticated models being used in very large numbers for say, piano, harp, etc.

[Selfik]

Go to www.mokafix.com and go to the workshop page, and listen to the piano low note and piano high note clips.

If that doesn't sound like a piano string, I don't know what does.

Now this is the real thing
Don't worry about cpu just release it!!!

[premiumcrap]

i still can not believe, that TRUEPIANOS has such a horrible
monocompatibility.
i would like to use it ! just for playing live. for recordings i would
mix it together with some good sample-libraries, i own.

cause the basic sound of TP is far more "real" then pianoteq.

but the best would be a cooperation between TP and PT!
(this was my "WISHMACHINE"....the basic sound of TP combined with the
sympatethic reso-part of PT)

let's work together!!!

www.myspace.com/tombalcony

[benjamind]

Now this is the real thing
Don't worry about cpu just release it!!!

This is what happens when people implement physical modelling properly, with close attention to detail. Most physical models are not realistic because they are not done properly or with enough attention to detail. It's as simple as that. Mokafix Audio really does physical modeling as it should be done...the hard way and the proper way....which is very rare these days.

Mokafix Audio is literally state of the art for physical modelling. He is bound to really shake things up in the hopefully not too distant future. Once the guitar and bass come out, nobody would bother with sample-based VIs for guitar/bass because they will no longer be necessary Besides, samples suck for expressive instruments like these, it's a well known agreement among musicians that, apart from nonpitched percussion and some high-end piano/tuned percussion VIs (even they have their downfalls), samples generally suck the proverbial appendage. It's really simple.

Ben

[koolkeys]

Without getting too much into the rest of the conversation(I have lots to say, but not enough time!), I have to disagree about the Mokafix examples.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have worked with Mokafix on multiple levels and I'm a fan of his work, including some of the unreleased stuff. I think he has accomplished a lot. But I don't know how anyone can say that the low note in his page is more realistic than something from PT or TP. It falls apart after a few seconds.

Is it bad? No. Convincing? Perhaps to those not listening for it. Realistic? I don't think so. And to imply that it is the result of physical modeling done PROPERLY sounds like you are saying that Pianoteq isn't done properly. And that definitely isn't the case. Not saying that you ARE saying that, but that's what I'm getting from it.

I mean no offense to Mokafix, as I consider him a great developer and even somewhat of a friend. Just giving my two cents about the example shown.

Brent

[Krakatau]

Without getting too much into the rest of the conversation(I have lots to say, but not enough time!), I have to disagree about the Mokafix examples.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have worked with Mokafix on multiple levels and I'm a fan of his work, including some of the unreleased stuff. I think he has accomplished a lot. But I don't know how anyone can say that the low note in his page is more realistic than something from PT or TP. It falls apart after a few seconds.

Is it bad? No. Convincing? Perhaps to those not listening for it. Realistic? I don't think so. And to imply that it is the result of physical modeling done PROPERLY sounds like you are saying that Pianoteq isn't done properly. And that definitely isn't the case. Not saying that you ARE saying that, but that's what I'm getting from it.

I mean no offense to Mokafix, as I consider him a great developer and even somewhat of a friend. Just giving my two cents about the example shown.

Brent

i agree to the fact that the examples of piano notes doesn't sound IMO more realistic than the ones created by the pianotech model

Though i've found the all the guitars emulation, especially the slide guitar really stunning, i'm curious to know what kind of MIDI implementations are planned to control this model with a keyboard ( in both real-time and in step-by-step edition)