A comparison between Pianoteq 4 and Galaxy Vintage D

Not sure if this is right... The pianoteq mp3 was too short...

About the trebble, for a second I imagine you named the files wrong, cause the pianoteq file have the trebble tone a little bit more natural sounding than the file named Galaxy-D.

What's the point of trying to find weaker points, instead of judge as a whole ?
Pianoteq playability it's the best. The best harmonic than any other digital piano.

And about the sound tone, you have to admit that Pianoteq is really getting very close. If you don't like very small imperfections of modelled technology, you need to forget all modelled, including V-piano and physis piano too.
You said you had short time to play arround sliders, but I supose you could change hammer hardness, hammer noise, impedance and spectrum profile, for the bass range, and get a sound closer to what you want.
Pianoteq Pro allow adjust parameter alog keyboard range, like sellect a adjust for each key. No other software on Earth allow that.

I suppose your download failed. Or maybe a web server problem...

I am not sure that I specifically looked to imply I was trying to find only the weak points in Pianoteq. What I said is that it was fairly common perception among users that Pianoteq sounded metallic, that's why I checked whether this has changed. Pianoteq is indeed quite playable piano. However I feel equally comfortable playing both Pianoteq and Vintage D, that's why I also compare the sound. Both playability and sound are subjective and a matter of taste. However, the playability can be experienced only when one plays the instrument himself whereas the sound can be checked by downloading audio files. That's what I did here.

That's a little bit over the edge. The fact that a modeled piano is a closer approximation to a real piano in terms of physical phenomena recreation, doesn't necessarily mean that we have to love it without any objections. I am personally a big believer in the modeled piano technology and I have been following the progress of Pianoteq since the very beginning. I've tried numerous fxp-s with the Pianoteq 3 trial, however none of them could get close in sound quality to my current reference points: Ivory Steinway and Vintage D. It's something inherent in the low-level sound synthesis that I don't like. No high-level manipulations to the sound, such as hammer hardness, string length, etc. would change that. I am afraid that I can hear the same shortcomings in Pianoteq 4 as well, however I must admit there's a definite improvement. To me personally Pianoteq gets closer to sampled libraries than ever.

CyberGene, sorry, my comment was much based in the short (few seconds) of mp3 audio of pianoteq my PC got, that now you explained that was probably a problem of my download.

I did'nt knew that both mp3 recordings had the complete performance.  That's  why I said it's wasn't right such comparisom, cause I  had suposed the short time for pianoteq was intentional.

May I ask you to put the FXP you used ?

Hi Cybergene,

First of all thanks for your interesting post. I downloaded both your mp3s and also the midi file and made some comparisions.

I acctually ended up testing your midi file with my own settings that Im currently working on for the Pianotec D4.

I uploaded the results here:

http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads.p...ce_k1d.mp3

I guess it all about personal flavour and taste, but this Is how I usually want to hear music from the romantic era: less bright and with more warmth and darkness.

I have two basic presets for the D4 that Im working on now, one is for playing baroque music, and the other one (heard in the example posted) is intended for romantic and modern classical music.

I like the sound.   Can I assume it will be in the FXP corner when you have it developed to where you want it ?

Thank you CyberGene for your lovely performance. This Chopin prelude 4 is very interesting because it is both difficult to play and to have it sound correctly from a recording point of view. Those repeated chords must not get boring, they are there to support the melody which is so extremely simplified that the whole piece stands in a very fragile equilibrium.

I have uploaded in the fxp corner an fxp especially dedicated to this prelude, treating the recording point of view. The audio file was rendered using the excellent MIDI file provided by CyberGene. The starting point was D4 Classical BA. I didn’t do big changes, only small ones with the intention to give more live to the melody. Of course all this is a matter of taste, and this choice only reflects my own taste. Here are the changes (most edits are note per note):
- reduced the hammer hardness at piano level (global edit), benefits mostly to the chords, making them a bit softer
- increased the volume and the unison width in the C4 range (where the melody sits)
- increased the impedance by 10% in the C4 range to make the notes just a bit longer
- reduced the direct sound duration by about 25% in the same range (25% is maybe a bit too much), with the same purpose: augmenting the singing quality around C4.
Besides, to gain a bit intimacy, I have added some delay effect and augmented the stereo width. I hope you enjoy!

Very good stuff here! So cool that Philippe is right here with us as it makes it all that more fun and interesting.
Thank you.

If Philippe add more adjustment slider, maybe needling for the virtual hammers, it's probably he will resurrect the piano tuner profession, in a new field, digital piano tuner.

With more parameters on interface the piano models can became complex enough to require a personal piano adjuster.  Someone skilled to turn the piano sound the closest possible to the client's taste.

Seriously...  imagine if was possible to needle pianoteq key by key.
It could also be used to train real piano technicians.