Hello Perry,
Welcome to the forum. Acknowledging a similar circumstance as you, a few years ago, I felt the sounds of the Pianoteq Version 2 demo version were interesting, but could not compete with my sample libraries.
Beginning last September, after having acquired Pianoteq Version 3 and its subsequent upgrades, I have uninstalled and physically removed all of the sampled piano libraries (EWQL Pianos - 260GB, Ivory - >40GB, the Bluethner Digital Model One and additional lesser others) from my hard drives.
Not intending to write unkind words about competitive vendors of sampled piano software, I kept finding myself having to alter my own playing style to accommodate their libraries. Most notably, sampled libraries contain "breaks" in the recorded sound as one progresses from the highest velocity of one set of samples of a given note ... to the lowest velocity of the next louder set of samples of the same note.
My live performances with sampled libraries often had notes that "stuck out" in various unintended places. For example, if a note sounded fine between velocities 88 and 94, if I happened to play with 95 velocity, the note stuck out like a sore thumb. As a countermeasure, I kept finding myself having to record my live performance into midi, using midi as a pseudo tape recorder -- zero quantization and zero click tracks, and then subsequently edit individual velocities to correct for note velocities that fired the wrong velocity-based sample set for a given note.
The above trouble occurred when I made a live recording of "Rhapsody in Blue" using the Boesendorfer piano in the demo recording that appears in EWQL Pianos' website. I had to go back and edit, by hand, numerous velocities that had "tripped" the next highest velocity layer ... in a piano library that sported 18 separate velocity levels. This is not to badmouth EWQL, because they do have a very fine library. It's just that sampled libraries often require that a live performance get note velocities edited here and there, in order to produce a polished-sounding performance.
An alternate countermeasure to recording into midi was to be overly cautious about playing certain musical sections without tripping the next loudest piano sample. To me, this became disasterous, because I was not able to concentrate on making music -- I was worried that certain phrases were going to "stick out" with the wrong piano timbre. The resulting performances sounded "too careful" or "too mechanical", as compared to playing without worry of setting off the wrong piano samples.
In positive contrast,
I find that Pianoteq integrates well with my own playing style. Specifically, because the notes are calculated in real time, there are no abrupt changes in samples resulting from small changes in velocity increments. In addition, Pianoteq is able to be modified in ways that were never conceivable with comparatively static piano libraries.
Anyway, welcome to the forum, and have fun using your new Pianoteq software. Stay in touch on this forum, as there are many knowledgeable people who will welcome all of your inquiries, and will answer them in thoughtful and considerate ways to help you.
Cheers,
Joe
Last edited by jcfelice88keys (12-05-2010 19:41)