Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards What exactly is Pianoteq?

I have looked at the Pianoteq website...

I appears to be musical sounds that get updated every few years?

What am I missing?

Pianoteq is a software program that produces a highly accurate model of various piano sounds, rather than simply playing back recorded piano notes (called sampling). Because it procedurally models the sound on a computer, you can adjust the sound in real time.

This sort of program needs a fairly decent computer to run, as well as a keyboard or digital piano to act as a MIDI controller.

There are dedicated digital pianos that use similar technology, such as the Roland V-Piano and Viscount Physis.

..and the entire Roland HP and LX line and the DP603 and Kiyola model


The advantages of modelled vs sampled sound is the seamless response tonally and interaction between notes - sampling is done usually at around 4 levels of striking a note - soft to hard - this changes the tone of the note; with modelling there is no discernible stepping in this tonal quality. Another advantage is the resonances - with modelled piano sound these are more dynamic. Many in the sampled lines of other manufacturers include a modelling part for just the resonances between notes played also to fix this aspect of sampled pianos.
In our HP605 hitting a lower note I can hear the resonances last well into 30 seconds - my wife notes that sitting a few metres away, she still hears them going on for a bit longer even ^^

A nice plus of modelled vs sampled is the quick startup time - my hp605 its just under 2 seconds flat ^^ A sampled piano needs to load samples into memory first.

You can reduce the sample size in Pianoteq, and other stuff to enable it to play perfectly on more humble laptops. I never noticed any reduction in quality.
But I notice the upgrades keep getting better. I`m so glad I got mine. Great value! And you can hear the keys clattering if you want to.

Download the free demo, and play it, hear it, experience it, have it, use it, tweak it, see for yourself...


The only thing you'll be missing are ten black notes.

I'm an intermediate pianist. If I was stuck on a desert island and could only pick one type it would be pianoteq. It's excellent. In fact, in a way it is better than an acoustic piano. What I mean by that is that in my climate, an acoustic has to be tuned very frequently or it sounds like crap. At least quarterly. Pianoteq always sounds amazing.

Some have mentioned computer requirements. Actually, the beauty of pianoteq is that it takes much less computer power than the bigger sampled softwares which often have gigabytes worth of samples to load dynamically. Pianoteq is a relatively small program - almost any newer computer can run it.

yes- it is quite light Tiny too - what was the installation size now - 60megabytes?
The only possible problems you can run into on any pc old and new is USB latency issues - most laptops have poor USB - and audio output quality - standard DACs on laptops and pc's are far from high fidelity but there are solutions out there ( best is and add on sound PCI card )

Whoa! Where's the Roland FP90?

..it's cowering in the corner, not being able to stand up by/for its self XD

Aren't some of us here layering humble modelled piano and humble sampled piano, thereby producing not so humble combo piano?

if you mean to say that the new Roland range of Hp and LX and one DP and FP are not fully modelled - nope, it is the new and improved supernatural engine- fully modelled - not like the old Supernatural which was a hybrid ^^

I think he was referencing the user here (don't remember who it was and am to lazy to search) who was layering his AvantGrand sound (sampled) with Pianoteq (modelled).

Fronkensteen? XD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxxSIX3fmmo

So... with Pianoteq you can take an old, crappy sounding, keyboard that has MIDI in and connect it somehow via a computer to make it sound like/better than today's expensive digital pianos...?

Or...?

Right in one. Many do this.

Not if you play Gymnopedie 2 . .

Okay that made me lol

Well, not exactly.

Some may think of the sound as better. Some do not.

You will have to hear it yourself and make up your own mind.

Perhaps you have known Pianoteq from this forums' ads. You should know that there are plenty of other "virtual pianos" which does the same (generate in real time the piano sound of the keys you play). The main difference is that Pianoteq is modelled (the sound is calculated from mathematical formulaes) ans the others are generally sampled (the sound comes from an acoustic piano sound record).

See my signature if you want a list of somme virtual pianos.

My opinion is just the opposite - the USB on most laptops will be just fine, and the onboard audio fidelity will be very good as well. Of course, it depends on what you will be connecting the onboard audio to. E.g, a headphone amp may well be required for high impedance headphones, simply to make it loud enough.

Greg.

If using Pianotek with a DP, do you typically get good results looping it back to the line-in on the DP and using its speakers?

I tried this with a Clavinova and the short answer is no.

I do that periodically and the results are fine.

Actually, what I specifically do is send the Pianoteq output out through my external audio device and into my mixer and then back through my dp. That way, I can shape the sound a bit in my mixer. Seems to work fine.

Works fine? Sure.
Sounds fine? No!

For Pianoteq to sound good, you still need good headphones or speakers. Pianoteq is not magical. If the sound amplification and reproduction is low quality, then the result is still terrible. Expensive digital pianos generally have much better amps and speakers. Older DP still sound good by today's standards. Despite all the hype, technology has not progress that much for DP. Something like the CLP-280 is probably pretty affordable today in the used market, but it was never crap and still isn't.



Low end DP heavily EQ their sound before hitting their speakers, so only the built-in sounds would sound right on such a unit. Pianoteq might sound really wrong through the built-in speakers. Best to just bypass and use only headphones or studio monitors directly from the PC/Mac.

In a parallel thread somebody recorded using Pianoteq and the very old CLP-990. It sounds vastly better than using the old DP's built-in sound - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEB9NAePphg. Pianoteq does significantly extends the life of old DP's.

Personally my best Pianoteq sound happens when I go from my computer into a DAC/headphone amp and into my Beyerdynamic headphones.

Next best is when I use monitors, I go from Computer to audio interface to monitors.

I never rely on my computer sound card, and rarely ever route back into my slab.

You don't really need a huge budget to make a big difference. And the added benefit is if you use high definition audio files for your music and a player like Fidelia you can get some amazing music listening too.

When I saw this comment, I had to check the sound again and ...

Yep ... It is not something I can say I prefer over my ES8 built-in sound. It still sounds a bit what I call "Tinny".

I want it to be good because then we can start buying less expensive DPs and just hook in Pianoteq ... but not yet.

Now, I should say ... I do not prefer any of my other VSTs over my ES8 sound either. Some do. Not me.

And I am with the Pianoteq lovers. If I get bored with one sound, I switch to another, or vary the mic positioning, or do one of many other tweaks that are available.

And God bless us that we all have such vastly differing views of what we like and what sounds most "authentic" to each of us, and you know what -- we're all right. The terrible thing is though that when I'm playing live with my rock band, the quality of the note doesn't really matter all that much, unless I'm playing completely solo and to a completely hushed (or usually empty) audience.

I run Pianoteq on a not-very-new Dell Optiplex through a Roland Quad Capture USB interface and out to Roland CM-220 2.1 monitors via SPDIF. It sounds great. (Keyboard is a Yamaha CP4.)

It's also worked fine for me on a newer MacBook Air and an older MacBook Pro. I can haul it to my parents and plug it into their piano.

Thanks for the replies. I'm new to paino and in the market for a DP for my 4 year old (and me!). I'm reluctant to drop too much into one when there's a modelling revolution on the way. Surely there must be a niche for a DP with a great action/feel, a flat response/full range speaker setup that can use an outboard modeller, or indeed an onboard modeller where the supplier commits to provide regular firmware updates as modelling technology advances ...

Pianoteq has improved incrementally over the years. It's good, but I play my CP4 just as often with its own sounds. Neither one of them is quite the same as playing my acoustic, in good and bad ways.

The piano industry is slow and cautious. Digital pianos improve incrementally, too. My advice is to go try out a bunch of digital pianos and see if any of them really speak to you.

Playing the piano is a two way experience, one plays and receives emotional feedback from the instrument, digitals have a hard time in this area, they are not "alive" like an acoustic is.

The OP has been posting exclusively in the digital piano forum and seems to be looking for a digital piano. If he wanted an acoustic he would probably be over in the piano forum. Even the high-end digitals vary as much as acoustics, so you need to play them. I like my CP4. Others here might point out that it's missing certain things that they would find unacceptable. We all go mad in our own way.

Therein lies the rub ... I remember as a kid being fascinated by my Grandfather's piano: opening the lid to look at the hammers, hearing notes ring out with the sustain pedal etc. then being completely underwhelmed when a crappy plastic keyboard arrived at my house. I struggle with the concept of a DP as something other than a piece of consumer electronics, that said I'm in the market for a DP!

Hi G-now If you don't want to be underwhelmed - Roland LX17, Kawai CA97 / CS11, Yamaha CLP-585, Casio GP400 / 500 ^^

Or a midi controller or slab type based on one of those console pianos ( Roland FP90, Kawai MP11, Nord 3, etc.. )
and a good pair of headphones or monitors with woofer ^^

FWIW --

Get him a Yamaha P115 or Casio PX-160. And do it now.

By the time he's ready to benefit from a "modelling revolution", it might have happened.

Either of those has a decent action, and decent onboard sounds. If you want to play with modelled (and sampled) software pianos, they will happily drive a PC.

And then you can investigate good speakers . . .

I may be biased, since that's (basically) the route I followed.

That is a very sensible suggestion - thank you.

well said Pete, I agree, different horses for different courses. I can respect opinions are different and it can be interesting to read, not annoying, but once it starts going along the lines of forcing opinions that x is better than y as we often see on the internet and here sometimes, I usually turn off, when I don't believe the issues discussed are actually that clear cut ... often times.

Now, this week I have not touched pianoteq at all, it has all been ivory for the particular pieces I have been practising, because I think the sound goes better with them.

As I always say, I am not a one the people leaning strongly towards modelled or sampled pianos one way or the other given the few I own, it depends on the situation. I own both some sampled libraries and pianoteq these days, and enjoy the fact they have strengths and weaknesses in different areas and therefore enjoy/use both.

I love the flexibility of pteq in some areas, as an example where pteq can be really cool: I recall playing a piece on an acoustic in the shop, and it was only on this one acoustic when pressing a particular note in a chord, where you have to emphasise a note, where it had the most interesting bloom in one of the overtones, but no other acoustic piano did that quite like this one I came across, I rather loved it. At home I tried to recreate it and played around with the soundboard changing the qfactor a little, after a while toying around I was able to recreate this behaviour in pteq quite well too.

The sampled instruments on the other had also did their own thing, some somewhat differently than others, but they cannot be changed at that sort of level. None of the sampled ones quite did it in the same dynamic way as pteq did or that acoustic, depending on velocity/dynamics, it seemed more fixed over the dynamic range in most cases too, some not responding at all to that sort of scenario, more like it is just giving me back a copy of a sample combination with the same resonance characteristics, but the interaction between the notes did not respond much at all to that scenario.

Many will now say undoubtedly, that's limitation of sampling in many respects with some of these products, it will be part of it yes I believe/suspect. OTOH there were acoustics too that didn't respond at all to that scenario of note combinations either over the dynamic range.

I keep an open mind ... since there are other situations as well where the sound and overtones of modelled pianos sound somewhat unnatural and too pure to me that I never hear in an acoustic, as much as it is alive/expressive and pleasing in some cases for some, so then, I am back to square one, is one really obviously better or more pleasing to the ears than the other in as obvious a manner ??

You the readers/players decide for yourself .

I'll keep learning away, keep an open mind about that, and more importantly, have fun in the meantime with whatever it is we all like to use for whatever type of music we engage in.

I'd say, both can be enjoyable, both can have issues, they don't for that matter always have to emulate an acoustic either in all respects, but also can be seen as pleasant instruments in their own right.

Digital pianos are a piece of consumer electronics. You can always get a better one. You can always wish those darn digital piano makers would get it right and finally make the perfect digital piano, with every possible feature and no more expensive than a nice smartphone. But they never do.

Acoustic pianos, even the best ones, are a project. They require ongoing maintenance, and that has a price, unless you do it yourself. If I haven't already, I'm going to end up spending more maintaining my acoustic than I've spent on my digital. I've improved the digital by adding things to it, but that's about it. If I didn't have an acoustic, I'd probably be stewing about how the new ones are so much better, etc., but I don't. An acoustic is like buying a horse. You can get a nice horse, but if you don't take care of it you're not going to have a very nice horse.

@Vid : what problems did you get while pluging a Clavinova to the Pianoteq output. I had some troubles with ground loop noises, but with a plain MIDI connection instead of USB, I get rid of them.

A ground loop filter could also be used.

In my experience DP are not for children. This is opposite of what DP salesmen may say. My own experience with my children tells me that it is far better to give them an acoustic upright that cost $3500 then a DP that cost $3500. Very young children can and will pick up all sorts of things from a piano that adults never will. It's like learning to speak with a regional accent. Children are able to but most adults that aren't professional actors are not.

DP are really best for apartment living where headphones use is required. My children who grew up with a vertical piano hates the DP even after I tried so hard to outfit it with Pianoteq and Ivory. They just say it sounds and behaves very fake and have no motivation to practice on it. I tried for years to get them to practice at the same time, one on the vertical the other on the DP but in the end, they just wait in line for the acoustic.

Don't short change a child by giving him / her a DP unless you live in an apartment. Pianoteq is not a cure, just a Band-Aid. I'm totally into DP, but it also took me a long time, 5 years of lessons, to finally understand what the children were going on about. I don't have the same wiring in my head as they since I started piano in my 40's and probably never will, so DP is fine for me.

There is no modeling revolution going on. It's been a very slow incremental improvement over the last decade. You could wait until your child is an adult and not see anything that behaves and sound like a real acoustic piano at an affordable price when judged by a trained musician's ear and hands. It is simply much cheaper to buy a $3500-$4500 acoustic upright that you could sell for $2000 in 10-15 years than to expect Pianoteq or anything else to get there.

In my opinion and experience DP are better for adults despite all the marketing materials with children in the pictures. I practice with headphones even though I don't live in an apartment because of all sorts of reasons. Children shouldn't have their development limited by a synthetic instrument that mimics the real thing. They should have the real thing.

I have a young child, and got back into pianos and DPs for this reason. You make a lot of good points here, 8 Octaves, and it's really making me think about whether I should just start her off on an acoustic, as we are fortunate enough to have that option.

I would, however, like to present the flipside: I took years and years of lessons as a kid, starting from a very young age. I never thought about action, about the quality of sound, whether the piano was in tune, or how an upright, grand, or digital piano actually works. None of these instruments felt "right" or "wrong" to me, I just played on what I had to play on. And on the few occasions I played on a keyboard, I could tell the tone and feel was clearly different but I just didn't approach it with the same level of scrutiny as I do now when comparing DPBSD samples. When you're a kid, you just do it, and you just adapt.

And now I've grown up, and you know what, I really like DPs, and think about them way more than I've ever given a thought to an acoustic when I was playing and giving recitals and taking exams. And when we have family visit, the kids (age 5-12) love the DP and sometimes play on it for hours. I've never asked them to compare it to their uprights and grands at home but they're clearly not disgusted by any sense of fakeness.

So I guess kids differ. If there's something really lacking about today's DPs that hinders learning and hampers building technique, that's a really good reason to try to stretch for a real AP. But if it's just because they'll notice it's different, then who knows, some might like the digital even better...

+1 =]

I've heard that digital pianos are better for children as their developing brains are more likely to develop perfect pitch with an instrument that is always perfectly in tune.

I don't doubt that some children don't like certain digital piano sounds. But that goes for adults, too. I often can't stand certain brands that are other people's favorites. That also goes for acoustics. You just need to involve your children in your pick of digital piano if they are to play it.

If the child is 12, I might agree. Since the child is 4, I don't think it's very important. It's reasonable for Dad (or Mom) to decide on the piano -- the child's job is to learn music, and it's just a tool for doing that.

I had a bunch of reasons for getting a DP, rather than an acoustic. So far, in three years or so, I haven't regretted the decision. There's something really nice in being able to say to band-mates:

. . . "No problem, I'll bring the piano."

Another consideration for digital - when we were making our decision, we came to the point where we said ok, we'll go for a nice upright acoustic with or without a silent system and settled on a max budget ; looking at a few models (Yamaha, Kawai) and then finding out their weight I set about finding out how one would actually make it to our house and then up the stairs to our livingroom ( our house is a drive-in model , with garage and garden room on the ground floor ) and found out I would need to basically dismantle part of the stairwell structure to get it up to the livingroom and that getting to our house and then up those stairs amounted to inflating the budget by another 20% ( delivery and up those stairs was about 800€ )

Then the maintenance questions arose - and with our house going from cold n bone dry to hot and humid with regularity, those numbers were adding up to a picture that started to pain us a little.

So eventually the question became one of do we do this or not - and the DP allowed it to be a yes we can do this.

Yes the action from our digital is different from an upright, as an upright is different from a grand, as one piano would be different from another, and the sound is different ( but tonally correct due to modelling used ) but it is a _musical_ instrument and one that is there as opposed to one that could not be ^^

My kids started piano at ages 5 and 8. They played when I told them to play and with what tools I gave them. It's been 3 years now and the youngest has fingers that can fly. If we were crazy parents, we'd send her to a music conservatory where she'd be learning music 6-8 hours a day and she probably could end up as a concert pianist in the future.

But really, she'd rather play video games, watch TV, read comic books, skate, bike, even just talk random nonsense with her brother -- than practice music regardless of whether it was digital or acoustic. So we demand they practice a reasonable 30 minutes a day and they'll just grow up to be ordinary people with decent music skills.

Basically this discussions is way too advanced for a target 4 year old. Get a Casio PX160 ($600) or a Roland FP30 ($800) and it'll last many years for your kid. If they have the SELF-MOTIVATION to practice nonstop, then it's time to consider something beyond amateur playthings. If you want to play around with VSTs and high tech toys, that would a spending decision for you -- not your kid.

Thank You !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yeah I think this thread has cross threaded a little with some others ^^

My main regret is will be zero chance I will remember that this discussion is in a pianoteq thread when I want to come back to it in the future.

Apologies for turning this in to a what piano thread! I managed to try out the Roland mentioned above, it was surprisingly good for the price, so perhaps I'll follow the advice above ... the Roland for the 4 year old and Pianoteq for me ... and perhaps another guitar given I came in way under budget!

Good Decision.

And ... be sure to try out the DEMO version of Pianoteq before buying.

Since you are just beginning, my personal thinking is that you will have your hands full just trying to learn to play without adding in the issue of an external sound engine.

good choice ^^

The cheapest pianoteq is 99 - and upgrades to more expansive models is only a small hit on going for the fuller packages right away

There is a new player in town for fully modelled piano software but darn it I forgot to bookmark it.. I remember they are going to be at NAMM so probably soon some more easily found news out there on it.. I think I remember their price was around 249 or therabouts with free updates and free custom model expansions

Try the Pianoteq versions of both Blüthner and the Grotrian, you'll be amazed.

If you plan on getting some of the extra pianos (Model B, Bluthner, Grotrian) and you also want electric pianos, the better deal is to buy Pianoteq with the Electric Piano flavor because you get both the R2/W2 and the Hohner pack. There are plenty of free acoustic piano packs available so you may not need/want the D4/K2.

+1.

I learned a lesson, quickly, after I got Pianoteq:

. . . Just because the piano sounds better, doesn't mean
. . . that you can _play_ better !

I'm really happy with the Pianoteq Grotrian (and the Bluthner, before that), but they don't fix my mistakes.

true true XD but shiny buttons =D

I need an interpreter for this.

I have no idea what this means.

lol Sorry
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/017/436/XD_Face.png
Similarly =D when seen vertically..

and no not a teenager - good half century almost =O

So ... if I understand, correctly ....

the XD is supposed to show up as the face.

and =D is also supposed to show up as a face from a different angle.

Layering Bluthner and K2 in Pianoteq and playing at the same time gives very realistic sound of piano.

Thanks for the tip. The Grotrian is definitely on the list, but I also like the K2 and alot of the electros!

I have to say I find the 1st Rachmaninoff Grotrian sample on the Pianoteq site breathtaking, I think I've just found a new long term goal ...

The Roland FP-30 arrived Friday. It has a very pleasant and useable out of the box piano sound, but within 5 minutes I had downloaded the demo version of Pianoteq. Uncalibrated and listening directly from my macbookpro it did not sound great, but after careful calibration and using an outboard DAC the 20 mins trial period was passing in the blink of an eye, think I had to restart ot 6-7 times. I really like the Bluthner and the electro piano sounds. The Roland is fine for daytime, but at night it will be Roland - bluetooth midi - Pianoteq - USB - Zoom interface - Grado headphones.

Are there any plans for a MIDI successor or anything in existence that surpasses the 127 levels of velocity of the MIDI protocol? I can't help but feel if the software can handle an infinite number of velocity levels, why not take advantage of it with an updated protocol?

There is an expanded protocol that I think is called High Resolution MIDI. Casio DP's have it and transmit it, and Pianoteq is High Resolution MIDI capable. Some other DPs might have it.

When I turned high resolution MIDI on and off in Pianoteq while playing with a Casio keyboard, I couldn't discern any difference. Others have reported the same.

Most couldn't tell the difference between velocities of 62 and 63 let alone 62.0 and 62.3.

So, the future is here, and it's no big deal.