CP-80 Electric Grand

... reminds me of the "the CS-80V does not sound like my CS-80" threads in several forums ...

Sorry, could not resist  ;-)

Frank

Omissis, you can make the CP-80 much closer to the real thing by:
- selecting mono output (the real CP-80 has a stereo line out but the sound is in fact mono, as the two chanels deliver the same electric signal issued from the mono pick-up microphones. The stereo becomes effective only when using tremolo),
- turning the reverb off,
- increasing the hammer hardness (between 1.5 and 2).
(All this is suposed to be using the preset "CP-80 original".)

Maybe we should have put these settings as default, but I had the feeling that mono sounded a bit sad...

Ditto.... a CS80V does not sound like a CS-80

I feel, on a pesonal basis, that the piano should deserve a proper pickup modeling, the sonic feeling should be like that on an electric guitar, where some harmonics are smoothed, with a bias on the bass frequencies; as for the commercial add-on, EvilDragon, it could be a  solution only because that would push the coding team to do an accurate work : I believe that the work should be done on the pickups because that would detect a definite sound, focused on a certain part of the strings rather than on the resonances which, on an electroacoustic piano, play a relatively minor role...

Just tried "CP-80 Bright Restored" with my new headphones, which are purportedly very good for midtones.  IMHO it is OOZING with steel-string-guitar-like overtones!!   Very very good indeed.  I really do find the CP80 hard to fault.  Being VERY picky, I think it could do with a smattering of very *deep* hammer thud. (the existing hammer noise isn't all that deep) Naturally I'll welcome any further improvements brought on by folks with more discerning ears than mine though.

RE: the upload - might get to it later unless someone beats me to it.

Greg.

Thanks a lot , skip
Hmm,a lot better like this, but to me it still is bit "resonant" and, skip, you maybe could be right on the mono thing although I didn't notice such a dramatic phasing; I think that this is rather a side effect of the, my opinion, "acousticness" of this model....of course there's always time to tweak it, Modartt proved they hit their targets (compared to somebody else)....
My personal feeling is that this is the sound of the piano actually, without the electric amplification.
No intentions to be controversial in any way, just feel that it sounds more "acoustic " than "electric"; as Guillaume and the guys at Modartt showed also their skills to render out the model of the picked up tine, I would warmly suggest to improve the CP-80: the base is already here, there is just the need to improve the "amplification".
One statement on the commercial product: an independent CP80 model, sold as a separate instrument at a fraction of the full Pianoteq with the option to upgrade would be a nice commercial solution...
M

PS: a proper CP-80 add-on should , on the pickup model, feature a nice feature of the original CP: an amplification overdrive when you raise the volume at high or full value, so to make it resemble like a distorted guitar!

Hm, don't know, as you know I can't actually load the addon so to try and do a little tweak to see if the sound improves....one thing that underlines my guess that there is no amplification model is in the fact that the pick ups kind of "isolate" the strings so they limit the intermodulations, I mean, not removed, just limited...

If there are two instruments that I can reasonably know these are Yamaha's CP-80 and CS-80 ( right, Fr@nk   ?)

Anyway I can understand what amount of work lies behind the Pianoteq interface, and this should involve a bunch of supplemental research....I have really positive expectations about the CP-80 model on Pianoteq ,and I believe that these adjustments may give out a great sound.

Also, a pick-up model could be useful for any further development of other electric piano models, not counting the fact that this may widen the space to acoustic models i order to make them sound different....well, at least to have a dedicated electropiano product so to focus on these matters (just an idea).

Anyway to get a nice usage of the CP just to have a glimpse of what I mean, try to listen to the German ambient posse called "Spheric Lounge", by looking to the Testrauschen tracks.

www.sphericlounge.de

Guillaume,
Ok, thanks, I'll have to take your word for it, but mono for me sounds pretty bad, whereas I haven't had the *slightest* problem up until now, playing the other presets - up until now it's sounded fantastic.

When I play mono through the headphones, it sounds like I am playing a stereo preset through loudspeakers which hasn't been designed to be played like that. For example, I have a sampled piano (Gigapiano 1.0) which is very stereo, and sounds excellent when played with headphones. However, when I play it mono (L & R summed), or through loudspeakers, it sounds pretty bad.  That's the kind of problem I am hearing when I play the CP80 mono. Anyway, I'll just keep away from the mono CP80.

Greg.

Strangely I like more the monophonic version, at least gives an impression of what the amplified sound is ;if we assume that the piano is modeled without the amplification then stereo feels better though; believe me I'm not looking for fight , I really wish that the sound of this add-on would improve...

The mono is true mono, not the sum of two chanels. Concerning the sound, it is very close to the original one, this was confirmed by the owner of the real instrument himself. But I believe that there can be important variations between different CP-80 instruments, so that may be the reason why... I would even add that from a personal point of view I would voice it a bit differently (for example the second overtone is often a bit too strong in the octave above middle C), but we just wanted here to have the same sound as the original instrument. Note that the future pro version will allow you to change the voicing note by note...

Greg, please allow me to stand corrected too , I agree with you, there are some more noticeable changes in mono than in stereo (could be due to the fact that what is missing on one side can be found on the other side), and what you tell makes me think that a mono preset should require a specific voicing!

Yes, pickup symmetry and distance will be editable note by note.

Not sure to understand your question... pickup symmetry and distance are available for electric pianos such as the Wurly and Rhody, not for the CP-80 (which has a different pickup device).

Omissis,
I've only listened to the first recording so far, and to me that just sounds like a very clean CP80 recording - I cannot hear anything in the sound which sounds like it's due to amplification.

It *does* sound more percussive, and "twangier" than the default Pianoteq presets, and I like the recording a lot. However, I think it would be quite easy to adjust Pianoteq to sound more like the recording.  (famous last words perhaps!)

Take this for what it's worth - I know my credibility is very low at the moment. ;^)

By the way, I spent a lot of time with a CP80 for a few days in succession, and I noticed that it often didn't sound exactly like it does in commercial recordings, and in fact, sounded more like Pianoteq does.  I think we have to be very careful to compare apples to apples, and eliminate any effects and adjustments which are due to the skill of the recording engineers.   However, that Beethoven recording *does* sound more like the sound I am used to in commercial recordings.

I have a feeling that the unison tuning might have a lot do with the sound.  One idea I have for Pianoteq is to add a "twang" parameter, which allows the degree of unison tuning between attack and sustain to be varied.  I.e, for a really twangy sound, the unison width would start off quite wide at the attack, and then narrow during the
decay/sustain. Aside from this, though, I do think Pianoteq's attacks in general need to be improved a bit - there is just *something* missing - the satisfying "thwack" and "twang" that a real piano makes just isn't *quite* reached in Pianoteq IMHO.

Greg.

Are you saying that Pianoteq seems to have too much sustain? (decay taking too long?) Yes, that is VERY easy to adjust in Pianoteq.    The two settings for that are Soundboard Impedance, and Direct Sound Duration.  Someone posted a "Japanese" recording here lately using a modified Wurlitzer preset - it is completely unrecognisable as a Wurlitzer - there is almost no sustain at all - just "plink plink plink".

And you can adjust the way the overtones decay as well, seperately.
(Q Factor, and Cutoff)

Greg.

Ok, now I understand what you mean by "amplification", and you have brought up a very interesting point: how much does the CP80 electronics alter the signal from the pickup, in order to make a pleasing sound?  I have no idea at all and would be interested to know this!

Generally, yes, you can make the kinds of changes that you want, however currently the changes would effect *every* note. For example, if you just wanted to increase the bass frequencies for the middle three octaves of the keyboard, you can't do that yet.  Apparently there is a "professional" version of Pianoteq in the works, in which you will be able to edit each note seperately. (that's the impression I get from some forum posts I have read, anyway)

I'd feel more comfortable allowing Modartt to handle this request. (maybe you could send a MIDI file to Support, explaining that you need some assistance to evaluate the CP80?)

Greg.

Oh sorry, we were not speaking about the same thing! I listened to the demo and could get closer to it by EQing the CP-80, lowering the high frequencies. Note that the demo that you linked is from a CP-70, which might explain the difference in sound (but even between two CP-80 there can be differences). The hammers were in their original state: covered with leather.

The soundboard absorbs energy, so everything beside being equal, removing the soundboard induces longer notes. Thus the reason of a shorter sound is to be found elsewhere. The intermodulation that you mention might come from the slight detuning between the 2 strings of each unisson. Note that these 2 strings are quite short and have not exactly the same lenght, so they are difficult to tune and there are always some beatings between overtones (not to mention the high inharmonicity).

That’s correct, 2 strings from G1 (MIDI note number 43) up to the top. That does not mean that there are less overtones, adding strings does a priori not change the relative loudness of the overtones, it changes mainly their decay characteristics. And you are right, there is no amplifier included in the model, only the CP-80 in the way it provides the signal in its line out, which served as reference.

I didn't mean an "amplifier", like an external speaker which you can take the signal from by a microphone, I say "amplification", which is referred to as picking the vibrations up and convert them into sounds, nothing more....

Despite the bad audio quality it sounds indeed like an "unplugged" CP-80, to me at least!

Maybe some people complain about CP-80 pianoteq add-on, about the sound don't be exactly the same, cause when they paly the real one they also heard a bit of the unpluged sound.

I once sugested to add a option to have the unplogued sound. Maybe a control of blendinf the pluged and unpluged.

Pianoteq's CP-80 doesn't sound bad at all, the sound is there, it sounds just unplugged and a little bit prone to long decays when sustain is not pressed, but for the rest it is indeed a good sound.

Hi Bouloutaur, it's a pleasure to meet you here too; well, before Vangelis, almost all prog bands had it (together with the CS-80) in the 70s and 80s, it's also rather common as an instrument in the US.
If I could do anything to have this CP80 bettered I could be happy; it's likely that the perfect emulation of the CP lies among the Pianoteq sound and GSi's MG70 (is it called so?) which has different problems than the Pianoteq but retains most of the "electro" side of the CP models.
BTW: I'm not supporting GSi in any possible way, I don't know the people behind that company and I'm not having any ad purpose by mentioning them.