Dear All,

I found that Miles Black (among other pianists) provided Songs to demo the quality of Modartts physical modeled Pianos. He is often found in the Blues cathegory.

Have a look here if you like: https://www.modartt.com/pianoteq_instruments

Choose one of the Pianos (e.g. Bechstein) and you find some of his contributions.

Enjoy

Those pianos sound very real to my ears, but I am not a pianist so I will await one of their opinions.
Those EPs and vibes sounded excellent also.
Thanx for sharing.

Big Fan of Pianoteq. Never regretted the purchase.

I can hardly call myself a pianist. Started playing with retirement and still get the grasp of it after 3 years practicing. But pianoteq helped a lot along the way. Not for the sound alone but the pianos respond so subtle to my playing - I can feel a connection with the Instrument I never had with sample libraries (And I have played with a lot of high quality ones). You have to try to understand. And trial is for free.

Two of the biggest advantages of a modeled piano/keyboard virtual instrument like Pianoteq are the small load size and RAM requirements, and the number of velocity layers. Using current MIDI 1.x, you have OFF (0) plus 127 velocity levels. With sampled libraries, I'm going to guess that 8 layers plus 3-4 round robins would be a LOT, resulting in a huge library.

I spent a lot of money to get a 2 TB Thunderbolt 3 SSD for my sample libraries, and have two 2 TB USB3.2 SSDs for other things. Pianoteq is small enough to just reside in my VST folder on my internal 1 TB SSD.

There have been major improvements in sound quality as Pianoteq has advanced through major versions. It just keeps getting better. Even the entry level Pianoteq Stage version is super usable and plays ALL of the available instruments. If you have no need or desire to tweak things, that's all you'll ever need. Except for buying additional instruments.

Pianoteq Stage by Modartt

I "only" have 8 instrument packs plus the freebies, but I'm certain that number will grow.

C. Bechstein DG, Steinway Model D, U4 upright piano, YC5 rock piano, Petrof AP275 + P284, Blüthner Model 1, Grotrian Concert Royal, Electric pianos

Pianoteq Free Instruments

EDIT: OK, make that 9 instrument packs. I just bought the new Classical Guitar pack. That's what I get for clicking around on Modartt's website.

And while there is really no need to tweak things, for those with a desire to do so, it is amazing what you can do.
It is almost (when having the Pro Version) like you could build your own piano from scratch.
And there is more, also physical models of many microphones are ready to deploy and to place them at any distance, position and height in a virtual environment.

I'm not a pianist, but I've played pianos a lot.

It and small and painless install. If you're even curious, I'd suggest downloading it.

The biggest problem I can see is that it's got way too many expansion packs. So if you've got GAS, be prepared to go broke if you like the sound.

For a while It was stopping and complaining that the CPU was maxing out, even though the polyphony was only about 10 voices and Task Manager said that the CPU usage was only at 50%. It turned out I had my audio running through RealPhones (studio specialization simulator). Once I turned that off, the problem went away.

I wasn't entirely convinced I was playing an actual pianos. It seems there's something lacking in the tone.

On the other hand, it's got a nice sound and is very playable. And that's what really matters, right?

There seem to be enough options in the Stage version for most people. Heck, you can even set the level of disrepair for the piano, which is very cool.

I agree with most of that, though I think the expansion packs issue only applies if you want multiple up-market pianos models. You get two of your own choice bundled with the STAGE version anyway, and there are also a few free packs. I think it inclused demos of everything, so one can do plenty of try-before-you-buy. There are (to me, at least) some interesting historical pianos included free.

I rather like the "condition" control. It can adjust the piano model from "Mint" to "wor" and moving it just a little away from Mint can make the pioano sound more real. YMMV.

Yeah, I was being just a bit glib about that point.

And each Instrument Pack comes with a bunch of variations of the basic instrument (typically Intimate, Pop, Jazz, Felt, etc.). But each piano retains its specific character, so it's good to be able to explore the various pianos before making a decision.

And that feature - the ability to play with everything before making a purchase decision - is pretty awesome.