Topic: Mixing Pianoteq with Ivory

Hallo,  i´m a new Member - Greetings to all other members here!  Coming from Germany, so my English is not very perfect -but i hope, all can understand...)

I´m  43 years old,  started to play Piano since 4 years....and it is very hard to learn, but i like it.   Everytime - also als child - i loved the sound of a real Piano,  but we doesn´t have one , and i not started to learn to play, also not at school.

With the envelopment of Keyboards,  Soundfonts  and  PC-Technic  i startet to play Keyboard  with connectet PC ,  from the Internet i searching  Soundfiles. 

From Trachtman and Bovbjergs Soundfonts  (who is knowing this older soundfonts? )  which sounding not bad, and for the time they also very big (4-5 years ago was a soundfont with  20-40Megabyte big...)   i come to the Hamburg STeinway  form the Company MilanDigitalAudio with 6 GB.    THIS was my first Soundfont, i loved....and with this sound  i started with new Motivation to learn and play the Piano, because it sounds so much better as all the "KeyboardSounds" before......  For me this Soundfont was much more better than the steinberg.

One of my  last Soundfonts was the  Virtual Grand from ArtVista - sounding great - but hard to  play for a beginner, especially the lower notes are tooo powlerless - but the Rest of this Sound is very very good , so good,  that also a Beginner like me, gets fun and Inspiration by playing.

With less inspiration and "sole" - but nevertheless much more better is my last soundfont : Ivory from  Synthogy.

And after this???    i heard only  one time on a Demo-website the new Pianotech.....
Only 2 weeks later i buy it.   Famous the idea,  famous the technical solution...)  and  my most expensive 8Megabyte i buyed before..)))


Now i love both....the strenght´s and Presence of the Ivory,  and the fine sound of the 
Pianoteq,  the soundboard and swinging Resonances  of playing the pianoteq, all the favourite Items of it......but it sounds sometimes   - for me! - a little bit  artificially and a little bit  too soft.  It not has the PUNCH  of a real piano in the  normal loudness (sorry for this description..i hope you understand..)) .  Clear - in more louder parts it has  the punch - but playing a little bit softer,  it looses to fast the punch.....

In Future  i thing this will become better - it is the start of a new Generation - thats true......and i like and love the first two  versions - i certainly will support  Pianoteq in  the future  .

For me - i try something new - i tried to load in my Vst-host both:   The Ivory Steinway, Loudness to  9,5  -  Tuning to "Stretch",  440Hz , Finetuning -1cts --------------and the Pianoteq Version2.0,  (also the first Version 1.5 is good in this combination), 440HZ -  Temperament "Equal" - "Unison Width"  to  0,5 -  "Loudness" to  -1,0.


I´m falling from my  seat...)   as i heard this combination........For me  very very well,  all the features  of the Pianoteq ,  and the Pianoteq fills now the  "holes" from the Velocity Layers of the Ivory, especially in the softly played parts of music there is now much more "Feeling" and  Inspiration, on the same time much more PUNCH by the Ivory in the louder parts -  for me it sound much more like a real Piano  then before,  better than the Ivory solo,  and better than the Pianoteq solo.

Who tried this also??   What do you think about this idea??

The Problems:   The major problem i have is the harmony in the lower notes, because both Pianos seems to have different  swinging-waves.  And in the higher notes , you can here  Disharmonics.   The stretching of the octaves from the lower to the highest note is difficult,  to bring both pianos  together without Disharmonics.   
I change the Finepitch from the IVORY  to  440HZ -1cts - this helps.
Also the Pianotech is not so loud as the Ivory, Ivory 9.5,  Pianotech Loudness -1,0, this reduced also the Effect of hearing 2 pianos.
And the  Unison Width  have to be down - more than 0,5 the Disharmonic in the higher parts  becomes more and more like a Honkeytonk....

Ok - i hope,  i started a  interesting new Posting  and a interesting Discussion.
Perhaps other Fans of Computer-supportet Pianosound have new or better solutions for this idea to combine both worlds.

I know - the basical idea of mixing two pianos  is with a technical View  Nonsense....but,  try first, if you have both - Ivory  AND Pianoteq  - you will be suprised  about  the win  of  Richment of this sound.   It worth the effort,  to try to find a solution,  to reduce or eliminate the  Disharmonics,  and find a solution of the problem,  that  different waves,  length of waves of different Pianos normally can not be mixed together, without loosing  Quality and Cleanlyness of the single Piano.....but - try it, and hearing first the  result  of such a Trial....than i think, you can better understand , why i´m thinking about this.

At least - Thank you very much  to  Pianoteq!!!

Re: Mixing Pianoteq with Ivory

Hi there,

I think you would be very interested in our forthcoming update, version 2.1, as it offers a new preset (Grand C2 concert) that gives you the punch that you mention... We hope you will like it. It will be available very soon.

Re: Mixing Pianoteq with Ivory

Hi robmuc
You are not the only one to try this.
Go to here. http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/sho...hp?t=53692

Re: Mixing Pianoteq with Ivory

Hallo Droah,
yes - the marriage of the White Grand with PianoTeq  sounds also very good.  The Result  in this  mp3 i heard me remembers on Vangelis))   Its a "impressive" and more "dreamy" sound - but a real Piano not has so extreme symphatetic resonance.

But - nevertheless - a mix of both worlds gives very good results.  For my Mixed-Piano i choose the "Session D10 Level"  from the Ivory with 440 HZ  -1ct .   The Pianoteq have to be not as loud as the Steinway from the Ivory to avoid the Dissonances between the both Pianos.

The idea of high or max Symphatetic Resonance and a long reverb with the Pianoteq with a significant lowered Volume works....yes.

The idea of the people,  to give a Knob to Pianoteq for playing only the harmonics and resonances is in my opinion not so good......

I afraid, its easier for the traditionell Wave-and Sample-Pianos producers to study and steal some ideas and technics from Pianoteq (to add, include  a software, mathematic solution to there Sample-based Pianos) ,  than for Pianoteq to develop faster the software of Pianoteq.  The idea of Pianoteq seems to be  to avoid real samples??    But how much time is necessary for a perfect  mathematical Modell of a real Piano,  a Steinway, Bösendorfer  and so on?? On the other hand - only a free mathematical model gives absolut freedom (....sorry for my english..))  )  - no fixation by samples and fixed waves.

To have more time i would not add such a knob....)))

The meticolous work  , the "love" to a real Piano and the real Pianosound seems to be the motivation of the Team of Pianoteq- and the courage to start this projekt i honor - go not lost in the crowd Pianoteq! )

Re: Mixing Pianoteq with Ivory

OH - now you can here my Combination  of the Pianoteq with the Ivory.  The Pianoteq Settings are like i have written in my first message,  that means  NOT a very long reverb, or an higher Sympathetic Resonance.  Only not as loud as the Ivory,  and i tried with the "Unison Width"  to avoid Dissonances between the two Pianos. In the high Octaves i could not avoid this completly.

Now some Words to my  "musical Performance" ))

I´M A BEGINNER !!!!

For sure my playing is not good - and every Musican  or Music-Teacher flings up one´s Hands ))

But you can here the sound of my Piano - played with a very cheap Keyboard (Casio Privia) which is connected to my PC. 

The mp3 i have recorded with the free  No23Recorder, simultaneous by playing.

This 3 programs:  Ivory Steinway Session10,  Pianoteq 2.0  and No23Recorder running very well on my pc without "klicks" in my Sound  simultaneous.  The PC has 2GB RAM, a  dual-core2 6300 CPU, and a Soundblaster-Live.

The file i have stored at   http://home.arcor.de/rob.muc   (NO www!, don´t forget the Point in rob.muc)

It´s  not a homepage,  i´m only stored the file on my webspace,  so klick only on  the file "Playing_of_a_Beginner1-1.mp3"

Ok  -  what do you think about??

I was also interested on selfmade Midi-files of YOUR playings, especially improvisations,  or also "fantasies".  Often very nice music comes into beeing.

Commercial or classical perfect/good playing i´m not so interessted on....such files i can find 1000´s  in the internet. Midi-files not very big -and i can play with my Piano...so you can send to my E-mail adress:   rob.muc@arcor.de
But please!!!! Only small midi-files!!  Thank you ))


OK - let´s have fun with playing Software-Piano´s.  For THIS what is possible now very cheap, we would pay 20 years ago 10000´s of Euro.

Greetings to all
robert

Re: Mixing Pianoteq with Ivory

robmuc wrote:

but a real Piano not has so extreme symphatetic resonance.

Are you sure? I depends mainly on the way it was harmonized.
Listen to a short extract of one the latest piece from Serge FORTE, my piano teacher, recorded on a Fazioli.

Link to see his latest full cd (also downloadable) and his myspace

About the difference between "pedal up" and "pedal down" sound : yes there is such a difference. Maybe it becomes almost inaudible when far recorded, but when i play on a piano or i'm near, the overall piano resonance is very noticable. and there is such a difference.

Here is the result of Pianoteq with TBO without any added reverb.

I don't own Ivory but i already tried it on a shop. On the mp3 you rendered, we can quite easily notice that two sounds are playing, especially at medium velocities, as if it was a little old or out of tune. The "dry" sound of the pianoteq is a bit too loud.

Xav.

Re: Mixing Pianoteq with Ivory

Hallo JazzPhoton,

the TBO - is new on SampleTekk? How big is it ??
From SampleTekk i love only the BlackGrand - in my Opinion it sounds better than the TBO - but i know only the Demos - don´t have one of them.

The new Beta from Pianoteq 2.1 is out:))   - yes, it sounds again better than the Version 2.01.

Clearly - i tryed to marry this new version again with my Ivory.

On http://home.arcor.de/rob.muc/
   i have stored 3 new Files. 
The same midi-file , played by me  ( i´m not a professional Player, more a beginner)

1. only with the Pianoteq 2.1
2. only with the Ivory SteinwaySession10
3. Pianoteq2.1  together with Ivory

I reduced again the loudness of the pianoteq,  and increases a little bit the symphatetic resonance - similiary to the Idea of the Link  Droah me has sent in this thread - but not so extremly, like the guy on northernsounds_com.

Perhaps  i could reduce again the effect of hearing  2 pianos. But i´m not sure....

The ivory has nice harmonics - but in the beginning of the Midi-file you can hear, that  the Ivory has some "holes" and jumps by the velocity-layers.  Here the Pianoteq fills very nice the missing steps . 

The new Version of Pianoteq really has more "punch"  - good)  . With the basic-values the Grand C2  is still a little bit powerless  - but by changing the velocity-curve it gets realy power.   Who could try  to make a  fxp for a emulation of the extreme dynamic TBO:))  ???

Ok - Greetings to all!!

Last edited by robmuc (26-09-2009 14:41)