Topic by SmilingKeys

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  • SmilingKeys
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Topic: Pianoteq phase coherence?

Hi -

I noticed that when I played a voice/piano song (mixed in stereo) on a mono system, the piano was noticeably less prominent-sounding than when played on a stereo system. In this song the Pianoteq D4 "Daily Practice" piano was mixed choosing the stereo piano. The voice is panned down the center, but some effects like vocal reverb are sent out to the sides to some degree.

Trying to quantify that, I compared integrated LUFS values with my DAW while playing the song back in stereo vs. mono, and found that indeed the song is 1.7 dB quieter when playing back in mono than in stereo (at all pan laws tested).

Looking at a "width meter" graph of Pianoteq's stereo signal when it was playing, I noticed that it was not infrequently in the red, > 100% (where up to 66% is blue, considered normal stereo, 66-100% is green and pushing it in terms of phase coherence, and > 100% is red, where the side signal exceeds the mid).

Though 1.7 dB isn't a lot, it was noticeable enough to bother me and start me out on this exercise.

I was wondering ... is there any way to narrow Pianoteq's stereo width (shy of choosing a mono version of the piano)? Or would I need to do that in my DAW (maybe by adjusting the phase of Pianoteq's side signals?)?


Thanks for any thoughts!

Reply by lem18

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  • Registered: 29-01-2016
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Re: Pianoteq phase coherence?

There's a slider called exactly "Stereo Width" in the microphone section (I have Pianoteq 5 Standard), maybe that would help?

Reply by SmilingKeys

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Re: Pianoteq phase coherence?

lem18 wrote:

There's a slider called exactly "Stereo Width" in the microphone section (I have Pianoteq 5 Standard), maybe that would help?




Thanks, lem18. On Stage here, I don't see that option .

I wonder if I need to buy (and learn to use) some sort of phase rotator to get rid of the drop in volume when the Stereo piano is played back in mono.

I originally thought that collapsing the stereo field in my DAW might do the trick, but that may (is likely to?) result in a certain phasiness to the sound the more I collapse it.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the best way to proceed engineering-wise, short of upgrading to "Standard"? Again, the problem I'm noticing is that when I play my stereo D2 "Daily Practice" patch in mono, there is a noticeable drop in volume (measured at 1.7 dBLUFS, but it sounds like more than that to me).

Or are the engineers here thinking I'm looking at this all wrong, upside-down and inside-out ... the solution lies elsewhere?

Thank you!

Reply by EvilDragon

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Re: Pianoteq phase coherence?

You should most definitely upgrade to Standard, to get some more tweaking functionality of Pianoteq

Hard work and guts!

Reply by Lucy

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Re: Pianoteq phase coherence?

What I experience is that generally stereo sounds (not particular to Pianoteq) seems loader... I think it is due partly to the sound immersion effect. That might explain in part why the difference seems to you more extreme than just 1.7. I don't know if what lem18 wrote will do the trick, I also have standard so I don't know if it's there with the stage version.