I don't know how to "multi-quote" on this forum in order to reply to both Tono and Scott, so I'll just add what little I can.

A few years ago, I recorded a song live on the piano, played it back in Powertracks using the same piano to generate the sound. It sounded OK when played this way. Last night I loaded the same song into Pianoteq, and in one spot, the notes were cut off too short.

I attempted to fix it in Powertracks, and to be honest, I had limited success. It's really difficult to put the Pedal Controls in afterward and to get the note lengths correct.

This points out a difficulty in playing a piano piece with software on which it was not created in the first place - different programs interpret the midi commands slightly differently (of course different acoustic pianos react differently too).

Tono:

As Scott said, I don't know how I could describe the process to you if I can't make it work quite right myself all the time.

How do you make every tone clear and crisp? I believe it has a lot to do with whatever generates the sound - and of course it's obvious how it was recorded makes a big difference. My mother was a piano teacher, and I well recall beginners when they first tried to use the damper pedal - they didn't yet understand when to release the pedal, so when their fingers changed the notes (harmony), they achieved some very muddy sounds. After sixty plus years, I still make mistakes with this - the timing is absolutely critical. We're talking very small fractions of a second.

When playing very fast pieces with many notes, many or most pianists won't use the damper pedal because the notes are so close together and sustain isn't needed or wanted - otherwise the result is "soup" as you say. You are correct about slower pieces - the damper pedal is essential. Unlike horns, pianos don't have much control over how long a note sounds. This can be an advantage too.

As for "what controls to reach for", I think a recording made by a good pianist is required. Changing controls after the fact could be futile (useless?). There is an old expression in English - "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear".

Can't help you with panning as Pianoteq can use up to five microphones or one set of headphones to adjust the width of the sound. I have no experience at all with soundfonts.


Scott:

Pianoteq responds to the full midi range of 128 (zero to 127, where zero is no sound of course). It also responds very well to velocity - in fact the Dynamics value can be adjusted - so if one isn't very expressive while playing the Dynamics can be turned up, and vice versa. The biggest "problem" with Pianoteq, is that it requires some good knowledge about the physics of the piano, and how various parameters affect the sound.

There are at least 17 basic adjustments to the physics of the piano (hammer hardness, string length, resonance, unison width, etc), plus another 11 to the sound with equalizers and velocity response - and that's before one has selected the piano type, and has adjusted the microphones and/or headphones. It's not for the faint of heart or those with limited piano knowledge. The person that I know personally that understands it best is a friend of mine, and he is both a piano technician and a very good pianist.

True about some software - the EMU software (Emulator X) doesn't know what to do with multiple values of Pedal Control, so I gave up on it and soundfonts.

Glenn

Last edited by Glenn Kolot; 04/14/09 11:20 PM.