Topic: Mendelssohn Lieder ohne Worte

https://youtu.be/hihcHlGplj0

Bluthner addon

Roland FP50

Re: Mendelssohn Lieder ohne Worte

Beautiful performance and sound! Subscribed to your YouTube channel. Thank you.

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Linux, Pianoteq Pro, Organteq

Re: Mendelssohn Lieder ohne Worte

Yes, very nice, but ... the sound is unfortunately quite severely overdriven at higher levels.
Here, I've isolated two of the worst moments. Neither of you hear that?

But yes, without that distortion, this performance makes for very enjoyable listening as well as a great demonstration of the appeal of the Bluthner.

_

Re: Mendelssohn Lieder ohne Worte

Thanks for the nice comments!

Piet is right about the "overdriven sound" at higher levels.

Its not a Pianoteq problem.
When making the youtube video I added some decibels to the whole performance using the video-editor, because i found that the volume of the sound in the whole piece was too low.
I didnt mind too much that few peaks were too high now; thought it made it more look like a real live thing

But ofc i would welcome suggestions how too get the volume right directly in pianoteq!

Last edited by mypianosoftwarechannel (11-06-2016 13:35)

Re: Mendelssohn Lieder ohne Worte

Well, Pianoteq provides a limiter (hard compressor) that can be turned on and off, at the right of the volume meter directly above the volume slider. The volume can be increased and the limiter will still monitor and reduce the volume of the transient high-volume peaks as necessary to prevent clipping (to prevent reaching the maximum digital level or number) and thereby prevent distortion as much as possible, but although the average volume will be increased, some of the dynamic range will be lost (even the softer parts will be louder).

One of the problems with trying to have a maximum sound level, is that when other programs such as YouTube or SoundCloud transcode the audio (or audio/video) to other formats or resolutions, those programs will often create distortion if there is no "headroom" in the audio file (or audio portion of the video file). Headroom involves having the volume peaks lower than the maximum possible, such as -2 to -4 dBFS (2-4 decibels quieter than full-scale maximum decibels possible in the digital (numerical) format, which varies according to the bitrate of the audio encoding, such as 16-bit, 24-bit or more). Lowering the volume at least a little allows the programs that change the format of the audio to perform their algorithm, which can add or subtract from the volume in a dynamic way from moment to moment, the ability to do so without reaching the maximum level possible and in doing so, create clipping and distortion of the audio file.

You can import a WAV file created by Pianoteq into another program (such as Audacity (for Windows, Linux and I believe OS X) or Ardour, or another audio editing program, and use the "normalize" function to maximize the volume while still leaving headroom, by specifying -2 to -4 dB as the maximum allowable volume for the normalize function to use.

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Linux, Pianoteq Pro, Organteq

Re: Mendelssohn Lieder ohne Worte

Nice piece, sounds great. Well played.

I agree with the distortion; digital distortion should always be avoided. Usually, in classical music, the mixer tries to keep the dynamic range, so too much compression and limiting is not the best solution. Just turn the levels down and leave enough headroom so you can see that the peaks don't clip, then you should be fine.

It's not advisable with this kind of music to try to compete in loudness wars.

Re: Mendelssohn Lieder ohne Worte

Stephen and Lindmusic both thanks for the advice!