Topic: Astonishing video featuring harmonic pedal's effects

Here is the video itself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHWex94-mHg

Examples of how it sounds is in its last half. I wonder: can it be properly simulated in Pianoteq? I tried to employ Harmonic pedal type it has in the list, but it doesn't produce the same sound as you can hear in video - this magnificent, powerful, almost organ-like long sound. What am I missing here?

Re: Astonishing video featuring harmonic pedal's effects

Quoting Bambers' post from PW forum: "Should be noted that the parts at the end aren't the harmonic pedal as such but just the sympathetic resonance isolated entirely, presumably through recording twice, with and without damper and subtracting."

Re: Astonishing video featuring harmonic pedal's effects

The first thing that came to mind as I listened to this post was to create "pad effects" in a second instance of Pianoteq layered with a primary Pianoteq piano preset.  Altering the spectral content would produce a wide range of secondary or background layers.  This, of course, would be an enhanced "Harmonic Pedal" setting.  Future stuff maybe.

Lanny

Re: Astonishing video featuring harmonic pedal's effects

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crSi9IxPfYA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu5s381u19A

Last edited by GRB (17-10-2017 14:58)
Pianoteq Pro 7.x - Kubuntu Linux 19.10 - Plasma Desktop - Hamburg Steinway

Re: Astonishing video featuring harmonic pedal's effects

I posted that video-link days ago but people didn't opined about these isolated sounds.

Pianoteq could have a option to allow we sellet only certain types of sound, ressonances, sounds origineted only from string sympathec ressonance, or only from body ressonace, soundboard sounds, or only the sound of the hamer-hitted strings, and perhaps choose the desired octaves for each one of these proposed features. We could have the option to choose one or more feature.

AlexS wrote:

Here is the video itself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHWex94-mHg

Examples of how it sounds is in its last half. I wonder: can it be properly simulated in Pianoteq? I tried to employ Harmonic pedal type it has in the list, but it doesn't produce the same sound as you can hear in video - this magnificent, powerful, almost organ-like long sound. What am I missing here?

Last edited by Beto-Music (17-10-2017 16:04)

Re: Astonishing video featuring harmonic pedal's effects

(Sorry for resurrecting this thread, I thought it was better than making a new one..)

So I was equally intrigued by the same video, and searched to see if anyone had mentioned it here.. I guess I was hoping Pianoteq might have a secret commandline option to disable the direct sound, or a hidden config, etc., so it would be possible to get a similar effect. (Hey Modartt! I do think this or a "direct note volume" would be a cool setting! I guess it might not be so easy to implement though :-) )

Anyway, since that doesn't seem to be the case, I thought about how this could be achieved by other means.

I hit on the idea of running two instances of PT simultaneously, identically set up except one with the harmonic pedal depressed and the other not, then phase-inverting one of them, so "subtracting" the direct sound. Maybe it wouldn't work exactly but might get somewhere near.

Before proceeding, I tested my phase inverter: I routed a single instance of PT directly out, and also out via the phase inverter (using calf stereo tools on Linux, setting stereo phase to 180, all other settings at default.) As I was hoping, the result was silence, indicating that the phase-inverted signal exactly cancelled the direct signal.

I then went to the next step and started two identically configured PT instances, output one directly and the other via the phase inverter. To my surprise, this did not result in silence. The sound was quieter and thinner, but output was quite audible.

I reasoned at this point that there must be some nondeterministic factor involved in sound production on PT, creating some small random differences between the notes that make phase cancellation ineffective. The only setting I could think of was the humanisation setting in the mallet bounce section, so I turned this off along with all effects. I believe this improved the cancellation somewhat, but not completely.

Regardless I carried on with the experiment, since the non-cancelled sound was fairly quiet, and in any event even with perfect cancellation I might expect "leakage" once I introduced a difference between the two instances by depressing the harmonic pedal since this might well introduce other differences due to details of the modelling.

So with sympathetic resonance turned up to 5 and everything else as described, the "resonance only" effect was mostly achieved. You could hear bits of the direct note, but the sound was predominantly sympathetic resonance, and sounded not entirely unlike the sounds in Paul Barton's video - a bit thinner and less sustained perhaps, but that could be the particular piano model I was using; setting up a piano model for the best "resonance only" sound is an entirely new enterprise, after all.

So.. The point of posting this, anyhow, is partly to enquire if other PT parameters might be worth setting to avoid randomness, partly to ask if anyone from PianoTeq could confirm that there is some randomness (i.e. I didn't just blow my experiment ) and partly just to pass on my idea in case it interests anyone.

Last edited by petez9 (12-05-2018 15:49)

Re: Astonishing video featuring harmonic pedal's effects

No apology necessary petez9

Thanks for resurrecting this. It's similar to my tweaks with Piantoeq's distant mic instance on track 2 with a gate (for a soft increasing ramp with velociy) and optional left right travel to mimic the sound being thrown off the lid into the space - and sound stages with a mix of audience and up close perspectives.

Similar but slightly differing things in play, in achieving this type of thing - listening to track 2 by itself in my setups (esp. with further treatment) you can certainly create your own 'pad' to rival anything provided as a VST - Rather than being harmonic resonances, you hear the harmonic resonances of the modeled space Maybe forget to mention convolution reverb is made for this - real spaces are awe inspiring.

Like the video, you probably never thought of it, unless you hear it

I'm definitely making some DAW starting points with this kind of setup in mind - thanks all for bringing this up. Helped me expand my process!

Pianoteq Studio Bundle (Pro plus all instruments)  - Kawai MP11 digital piano - Yamaha HS8 monitors