Topic by Upal

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  • Upal
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Topic: New to Pianoteq

Hello

I downloaded pianoteq demo, here's my setup :

PC
motherboard : ASUS P8P67
UC : i5 @ 3.3 Ghz
Ram : 8 Go
Soundcard : Soudblaster Live! 5.1

Keyboard : Roland ep7e

As you can see, the combo keyboard / soundblaster is pretty old.

But as the ep7e only has MIDI to "joystick" connection (no USB), the only way I find to plug it to my computer was through my old Soundblaster Live! (from my older PC).

And It works great !

Soundblaster for MIDI IN, audio chipset from motherboard for audio out, ASIO drivers and I get a very decent setup with low to none latency.
I use a BOSE headphones directly on the chipset.

I put those options :
Type of output : ASIO
Output : ASIO4ALL
Freq : 44100 Hz
Buffer size : 512


I want to know if the sounds in the demo are different than the full version ? because I'm having hard times trying to tweak something that fits me (particularly in the middle section of the keyboard), and I need to know exactly what pianoteq can give me before buying it.

Or I tweak very badly and there's somewhere people share their settings (I have only the demo and I don't know if all the settings are available ?)

Thanks for your answers

Reply by EvilDragon

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  • EvilDragon
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Re: New to Pianoteq

Upal wrote:

I want to know if the sounds in the demo are different than the full version ?

They're not.

Hard work and guts!

Reply by paulmanjarres

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Re: New to Pianoteq

The sounds in demo are the same in full version.

I started with the Stage and I was amazed with the sound, so decided to upgrade to Standard and I couldn't be happier. By using the FXP files you can get a lot of different configurations and tweaking, the microphone placement really change things.

So, buying pianoteq is really recommended, and going for Stage is really optimal.

Reply by stamkorg

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Re: New to Pianoteq

Upal wrote:

Hello

I downloaded pianoteq demo, here's my setup :

PC
motherboard : ASUS P8P67
UC : i5 @ 3.3 Ghz
Ram : 8 Go
Soundcard : Soudblaster Live! 5.1

Keyboard : Roland ep7e

As you can see, the combo keyboard / soundblaster is pretty old.

But as the ep7e only has MIDI to "joystick" connection (no USB), the only way I find to plug it to my computer was through my old Soundblaster Live! (from my older PC).

And It works great !

Soundblaster for MIDI IN, audio chipset from motherboard for audio out, ASIO drivers and I get a very decent setup with low to none latency.
I use a BOSE headphones directly on the chipset.

I put those options :
Type of output : ASIO
Output : ASIO4ALL
Freq : 44100 Hz
Buffer size : 512


I want to know if the sounds in the demo are different than the full version ? because I'm having hard times trying to tweak something that fits me (particularly in the middle section of the keyboard), and I need to know exactly what pianoteq can give me before buying it.

Or I tweak very badly and there's somewhere people share their settings (I have only the demo and I don't know if all the settings are available ?)

Thanks for your answers

Hi,

Welcome in the Pianoteq world,

With your pc, you should be able to play at 128 samples of Buffer without problem.

Now, for the sound...
1° Are you familiar to play on acoustic pianos? I ask because when I first begun to play piano on Pianoteq, my first impression was "what's that Celesta!!". I was familiar to synth piano sounds. After listening some cd music, I realised that Pianoteq was right and really fine to emulate the real thing.

2° The first things to do are:
1st) to tweak the sensitivity of your keyboard to be able to cover all the velocity range, from 0 to 127. It is important. Be aware that the factory sensitivity setting of your Roland could be good for the internal sounds but inadequate to control a software.
2nd) probably to tweak the velocity curve to your liking. That will change the sound a lot.

Keep us informed,

SK

Last edited by stamkorg (11-10-2016 17:40)

Reply by Upal

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Re: New to Pianoteq

Hi,

Actually I didn't play on an acoustic piano for years, so it might be part of the problem.

I follow your advice and did the tutorial to tweak the velocity, then downloaded some FXP files.

I don't know if those FXP are fully handled by the demo but it's better now

Not perfect, but my headphones may also have a part of responsability (BOSE soundtrue)

Thanks

Reply by sjgcit

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Re: New to Pianoteq

First, the only difference I'm aware of between the demo version and the full version is that some keys are disabled ( which may be putting off your testing a little ).

As a relative newbie to all this I was surprised by a few things.

(1) The choice of microphone placement ( or binaural mode ) makes a huge difference.  It was naive of me to think it would not be so important, but it is.  Binaural mode can be quite a shock to the system, and some people hate it, although I've found it useful myself.

(2) Headphones.  As it happens speakers are out ( house rules where I am ) and honestly, reasonably good headphones made a big difference and frankly I prefer them. YMMV.

(3) Watch the reverb model being used.  This also makes a huge difference to the sound.  Note that with Stage you can only use the "built-in" reverb choices ( which are not bad ), but with Standard and Pro you can use Impulse Reverb files, which do make a difference and greatly increase the settings.

Also :

(4) FXP files.  Stage cannot properly use them and standard can fully utilize them, even settings you could not change with Standard itself will be used correctly.  I always found the K2 defaults to be irritating but I with Standard and a couple of FXPs for the K2 I found a much nicer ( to my ear - these things are personal ) sound.  Note especially that the different pianos cannot be converted into each other just using FXPs - they are fundamentally different.  For example, a D4 cannot be changed into a K2 or a Pleyel.

(5) Using standard you can make a piano more ( or less ) metallic ( or woody ) is different tones.  This is possibly something you may need to look at.

Good luck.

StephenG