Topic: The thread on Northern Sounds

On the Northern Sounds site, there's a thread about PianoTeq that I hope people here will glance at, if not contribute to:

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/sho...hp?t=59009

There were a few attacks along the lines of "too synthy" by people who heard some mp3's not created here or who downloaded the demo and played, from what I gather, for a few seconds. Looks as though the old samples versus modelling debate continues, but the argument seems to be more about the sound, without much attention to how it's created. This is good, yes? But the posts on Northern Sounds, it seems, are still in the context of this ongoing debate and the release, over the past few years and weeks, of several 30-60 gig sample libraries that, for all I know, are wonderful.

In any case, I posted links to an mp3 I posted in the Files area here and to VinegarVic's Blues Piano.mp3.

(Hm...VinegarVic, would you mind if I....? Seriously, I'll pull it if you want. I just thought the sound was a good demo of what could be done. I'll delete the link if you want.)

Re: The thread on Northern Sounds

No problem at all for posting my Blues Piano mp3 on Northern Sounds.
You're doing some great work in recommending Pianoteq and it can only benefit us all if more people buy Pianoteq.

Re: The thread on Northern Sounds

It's strange. Some people seem absolutely unwilling to learn the interface, but say the sound is synthy. I posted the exposed mp3 of the simple uprightish sound and still got that reaction, though I can't imagine anything sounding less synth-like. (The reaction may have been partly to the brief bell-like tone and a slightly long decay in a very few notes in the Blues piano mp3. I'm not criticizing the mp3 or preset. Just passing on what was said.) But no one who critiqued the mp3's, from what I can tell, bothered to try to edit the sound in the PT demo to get a different sound, even though I posted a link to the fxp, and the PT demo can be downloaded.

Are people so accustomed to ADSR amp & filter envelopes, along with velocity-stacked samples,  that anything new pushes them away? I know that there's a general principle in learning a new skill or new language: each small barrier, each unfamiliar element, greatly increases the likelihood that the student will give up. Thus few people who speak a European language learn Farsi or an Arabic language, since the alphabet is different and reading and writing are done from right to left. So, similarly, the absence of familiar controls and the presence of new parameters, each affecting the other, makes some people turn away, even though there are clearly ways to edit the sounds?

Another problem may be with what may be a mindset I've encountered before: a set of assumptions about "novelties." I worked in an office long ago that sometimes required quickly adding up figures. I had a solar calculator that other people often borrowed. Most thought of it as a toy that somehow, through some kind of trick, was able to do things that a "real" calculator was able to do. (Finally, these days, people are taking solar power seriously, but the basic technology for low-level, inexpensive, led lighting has been in place for decades now. But I'm about to go off on another subject entirely...)

I'm not sure that there's a solution. I patiently explained that a background in sampling could lead to mistakes, and that Cantabile offered interesting possibilities.

Oh, well. Maybe as more modelled instruments are introduced, things will change?

Re: The thread on Northern Sounds

Well Jake, I guess it really is a question of the proper 'mindset'...
years ago synthesizers were being looked down at where now it's common ground.
Piano-samples were also 'not done' - now a lot of guys over at Northern Sound think the samples are absolutely great - they tend to forget that playability is not nearly a real piano..... but they seem to cope with that.... at some time there might be a next switch to virtual pianos where noone will bother with samples anymore...
It's sort of evolution really.. that and maybe 'pioneering'...

Most synth that come on the market come with a basic set of sounds... most people don't ever use more than that set of basic sounds or maybe buy some extra presets.
I think one needs some extra 'edit-gen' to be willing to dive into the extra capablities of synth or any music-program for that matter, to try and explore new musical horizons.

The same goes for Pianoteq - the basic sounds are ok, but not brilliant... a couple of us, users, are now running our search to gt the best possible sound from PT that we can get at this point....
As with the development of samplers, coming updates will probably improve the sound and editing options even further and hopefully make the output even more realistic.

It would be nice to have some musicfiles performed by well-known samplers and PT and other programs next to each other in some objective poll and see if people can pick the right ones if asked to determine PT for instance......

You will always find people just wanting to 'tread' on the 'new kids on the block', while the pioneers amongst us go long ways into exploring the new product and serve as 'ambassadors' for it....

Hans

Re: The thread on Northern Sounds

keep in mind that the ptq plugins aren't available to the demo version.  Your edited bechstein fxp can't be used with the demo version, it won't sound right.  I don't really like the builtin presets... they sound....   *cough* .... synthy to me. 

The erard plugin has more complex timbre compared to the buitin presets that makes it less synthy (yes, to me erard still sounds a tad synthy, it needs more timbre variations per key).  Too bad though that the hammer noise for about 3 octaves below C#5 doesn't sound right to me.  It'll be cool if I can swap them with hammer noise from C2 presets. 

At the end, I prefer to play pianoteq than my sampled library (and I have lots of sampled pianos).  Digital piano has compromises, and pianoteq has more pros than the cons for my use (live gig and late night practice).  Other people's preference might differ depending on their use.

These kind of threads remind me of the PC vs Mac / Canon vs Nikon arguments