Now the Steinway's are official versions instead of merely "Model D" and "model B" All 49 instruments ( available in Pianoteq have been overhauled. That's the pianos, EPs, percussions, etc, (including KIVIR - which is the free instrument collection). Directly compare 5 and 6: https://www.pianoteq.com/listen_comparison
Last edited by Softsynth; 09-07-2017 at 05:28 PM.
Reason: Add 5 to 6 comparison page.
Up till now I did not "bite" after trying out the free trial, but stayed with sample instruments for Grand and E- Piano and even my Dexed emulation of a vibraphone to me was as realistic as the Pianotec's.
Demo video of 6 pianos impressed with Grotrian (fav) seeming very cool !!
Upgrade may be fine, but still steep $$ to get Standard (or higher) from scratch.
Same reaction to Keyscape .. so pass for a bit longer on either/both....
Demo video of 6 pianos impressed with Grotrian (fav) seeming very cool !!
Upgrade may be fine, but still steep $$ to get Standard (or higher) from scratch.
Same reaction to Keyscape .. so pass for a bit longer on either/both....
I agree the upgrade price to what they call Standard is steep. Thing is you don't need Standard!
You probably don't need what they call "Standard" as Stage does so much!
You only need "Standard" if you want pianoteq specific tuning tech that isn't available on the sample products out there anyway.
Try the demo of Stage. I have tried Standard twice now and frankly even in 30% off sales I find the upgrade price a little steep for what you get compared to the options of generation upgrading (5-6 and so on) and individual piano models.
The microphone positioning tech in "Standard" is unique to Pianoteq. I might upgrade for that in another sale but given the options in presets and ability to tune the sound with reverb and EQ....meh, it can wait, if at all.
In stage you get a bucket-load of presets which relate to choice microphone positions. you can then adjust sounds within the convolution reverb and effects/EQ section. That relates to what you can do in any sample library - though you actually get far less microphone positions in sample libraries than you do even in Pianoteq Stage because they would all rely on another set of 24/48 24/96 samples.
Standard and Pro offer good things but most will not need them. Certainly it shouldn't put you off the product entirely.
It is as if the perception is Stage = value/budget brand and that puts some off trying at all, this is silly. It is not sonically inferior, it's just got a few less options.
The comparison page is really rubbish as there are obvious volume, stereo, and eq differences that could've been narrowed considerably...
I agree Stage is still more flexible than sampled libraries at the same price. I love moving mics around to get that perfect placement in the mix, but I'd say it's more of a psychological thing and the same results could be obtained using the Stage presets.
I agree the upgrade price to what they call Standard is steep. Thing is you don't need Standard!
You probably don't need what they call "Standard" as Stage does so much!
You only need "Standard" if you want pianoteq specific tuning tech that isn't available on the sample products out there anyway.
Try the demo of Stage. I have tried Standard twice now and frankly even in 30% off sales I find the upgrade price a little steep for what you get compared to the options of generation upgrading (5-6 and so on) and individual piano models.
The microphone positioning tech in "Standard" is unique to Pianoteq. I might upgrade for that in another sale but given the options in presets and ability to tune the sound with reverb and EQ....meh, it can wait, if at all.
In stage you get a bucket-load of presets which relate to choice microphone positions. you can then adjust sounds within the convolution reverb and effects/EQ section. That relates to what you can do in any sample library - though you actually get far less microphone positions in sample libraries than you do even in Pianoteq Stage because they would all rely on another set of 24/48 24/96 samples.
Standard and Pro offer good things but most will not need them. Certainly it shouldn't put you off the product entirely.
It is as if the perception is Stage = value/budget brand and that puts some off trying at all, this is silly. It is not sonically inferior, it's just got a few less options.
Looks like Stage only includes D & K2 so Grotrian adds $59. ... not huge, but is key to my decision to purchase. Seems like in past, they have been unwilling to substitute.
It's not steep, it's exactly the price difference between Stage and Standard.
You can consider it a multi-tier payment from Stage to Pro, basically.
It is totally subjective. Someone else could consider it an absolute bargain. My main point is that no one should be put off getting into Pianoteq because the pricing of Stage only gets them the bottom of the range feature set, because in this case that still means they get something more flexible than normal piano products (IOW any sample libraries) and IMHO it is plainly a better product too.
The Pianoteq 5 VSTi remains after P6 install. I guess for backwards compatibility.
Out of curiosity I just replicated the settings from one preset on the P.6 new version Steinway D4 to the older P.5 D4 (right click EQ settings to match settings exactly).
This got the two versions to sound much closer and made the P.5 version sound better too (mainly the addition of extra bright EQ and matching dynamic range). The preset is a classical BA setting.
I was able to more closely compare the two engines, with this allowing for a more honest AB comparison.
I've got stage so I cannot see if they also changed the microphone position too (non Pianoteq owners should understand that this is separate to the reverb section), but certainly the sound is a lot closer with EQ matched.
Then comparing Pianoteq 6 to 5 the sound remains more airy, piano body resonance is richer. It seems 5 is slightly darker, more mellow, less alive. To sum it up I would say 6 has more of a high fidelity sound, like comparing a so so recording with a carefully crafted audiophile recording. Version 5 was darker and softer with less life to the sound (still sounds great though).
It's nice to see they have tweaked some the presets as well as the engine too.
Regardless of the question of what they have actually done with the existing engine itself or within the fine tweaking of the presets the resulting quality in the upgrade is a no brainer.
I only wish they had added a new Piano model, such as an Imperial 290.
*another comparison added*
Fig 8 K2 comparison with settings matched as closely as possible in Stage suggests the microphone positions have been changed on this particular preset with the new version image steering more central and the old P5 version was more broadly dispersed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sostenuto
Looks like Stage only includes D & K2 so Grotrian adds $59. ... not huge, but is key to my decision to purchase. Seems like in past, they have been unwilling to substitute.
Will surely try Demo now for 6.
I don't think that would make much business sense on their part to say for instance produce a Bluethner/Grotrian intro pack. Those are more exclusive to them. Far more likely to generate extra sales keeping to the ubiquitous Steinway D as the standard starter pack.
Last edited by Softsynth; 09-09-2017 at 03:58 PM.
Reason: Another preset model and comparison note added.
Re: Sound differences between PT5 and new PT6; While I have no doubts that Modart has "ported" all of the latest piano modelling refinements achieved for Bluethner/Model B/Grotrian of PT5 to the other instruments in PT6 (such as the Grand D4, K2, etc) I think many of the perceived improvements come also from re-doing/optimizing the old instruments presets, and not necessarily from modelling improvements.
For example, if you copy the old PT5 "Grand D4 Intimate" preset and load it in PT6 (appears in the Grand Steinway D menu), you'll be hard press to hear the difference. What Modart has done in many cases is they've kept the old PT5 presets names but have totally change the presets parameters settings (EQ, Hammers, Mic positioning, etc) So any fair comparison cannot be made directly. For example, go compare the "W1 Bright" of PT5 with the "W1 Bright" from PT6. In PT5 it has Tremolo enabled with "Smooth Spring reverb" and in PT6 they added EQ plus a heavy Flanger and a different reverb, making the preset sound totally different, irrespective of modelling improvements. However, after again copying the PT5 "W1 Bright" preset and loading it in PT6, even though it sounded much closer to PT5's, I did hear a obvious difference that is most likely caused by the new modelling engine. It sounded smoother with the "bark" been more dynamic, not always "on" like in the PT5 version.
IMO, Modart should not have kept the same instruments presets names if they knew they would also be changing so many of the presets settings, let alone use a new modelling engine, which would result in a vastly different sounding preset than the ones in PT5. This is bad planing. What this mean in practice is that anyone who has done projects that use PT5's original presets that are still available in PT6 with the exact same name (but sounding totally different), will have to keep PT5 installed. I think Modart should have chosen totally different preset names for PT6, the sound difference between PT5 and PT6 presets are way too big. This has the potential to cause a lot of issues for its users.
Still, I think it's a worthy upgrade, with many new features added (I like the new Chord detection) and with improved sound in many cases. CPU usage was slightly higher (+1% on my PC) and the upgrade is reasonably priced, even for PT PRO owners like me (29EUR/39$USD).
For example, if you copy the old PT5 "Grand D4 Intimate" preset and load it in PT6 (appears in the Grand Steinway D menu), you'll be hard press to hear the difference.
So it might be that the old preset does not use new features in v6 that the new preset is able to use. Regarding your point it would be more interesting to try to use a new preset with v5 (if this even is possible).
With Kontakt libraries it's very very common that new ones need at least a certain Kontakt version-
So it might be that the old preset does not use new features in v6 that the new preset is able to use. Regarding your point it would be more interesting to try to use a new preset with v5 (if this even is possible).
With Kontakt libraries it's very very common that new ones need at least a certain Kontakt version-
-Michael
You can see from my post above Chucky's that both of us have tried patches from one version and transferred them to the other version.
I did it by typing in the values copied across so there could be differences in mic positions.
Chucky's post confirms my findings (details in the post above his) via the reverse procedure.
I tried improving V5 by copying the V6 patch modifications.
He tried V5 patch settings in V6. Both of us found they can get much closer than you might expect by this alone. This is to be expected really as V5 was already excellent.
My guess is that for any significant further improvements they would now need to substantially increase the minimum CPU requirements for any dubious subtle improvement they might achieve (to be enjoyed on a far smaller number of capable machines) by say for instance increasing the amount of interplay between different resonant structures in the model. I imagine the law of diminishing returns weighs heavily on their business model and physical model!
Maybe one day that will make an CPU hungry audiophile version (or simply built in mode) for say 3ghz and above desktop CPUs. They would have to be careful not to alienate the majority of customers with machines that don't come up to scratch (most users with affordable older laptops) that have been used to Pianoteq upgrades working on existing hardware.
Then people could bicker about whether or not they can hear a difference or not switching between normal and -lets call it- "discerning" mode in blind listening tests.
oh... no... not $29 upgrade for the standard version... it's $150 <-- edit: It's not I'll be fine with Pianoteq 5 for now
maybe... can I upgrade to PianoTeq stage 6 for $29 and maintain the pianoteq 5 standard? That would be nice.
oh... no... not $29 upgrade for the standard version... it's $150
I'll be fine with Pianoteq 5 for now
It is 29 euros to upgrade to 6, regardless of version. Better patches, cosmetically better GUI, more features, tweaked engine. Every single instrument (including the freebies) tweaked.
No new instruments, unless you consider all of them as new!
So it might be that the old preset does not use new features in v6 that the new preset is able to use. Regarding your point it would be more interesting to try to use a new preset with v5 (if this even is possible)...
Unfortunately it's not possible. You can save a PT5 preset and then load it in PT6 (backward compatibility), but if you try to do the reverse (load a PT6 preset in PT5), PT5 will "complain" that your not loading a valid preset. Modart must have changed the preset format for PT6.
So the only way you can replicate a PT6 instrument preset in PT5 is to do it manually like Softsynth did. And if you wanted to replicate it as close as possible, you would need PT6 PRO and go through 100's of parameters, so this would involve a lot of work. Just to give you an example, the "Spectrum Profile" parameter (available in the PRO version only) has 88 keys X 132 harmonics that can be adjusted separately!... a "bit" too demanding for me
Pianoteq 6 comes with VST2 and VTS3 version.
I'm having a problem with the VST3 version x64. At least in REAPER. It seems the sound is in mono. The pin connector outputs are not the same as in the VST2 version with both output L and output R.
It's not very important because the VST2 version works well. What is the advantage of the VST3 version if any?
Pianoteq 6 comes with VST2 and VTS3 version.
I'm having a problem with the VST3 version x64. At least in REAPER. It seems the sound is in mono. The pin connector outputs are not the same as in the VST2 version with both output L and output R.
It's not very important because the VST2 version works well. What is the advantage of the VST3 version if any?
Not seen that issue with VST3 here (in Stage)but I have seen issues with reverb and saving patches.
Moddart are already working on a bug patch, I expect it will fix this too. Keep checking for updates, I expect we will seen something soon.
Send a report to Moddart. That way they find out about these things!
Strange. Yes. I'll report it to Modartt but I wanted to confirm here because maybe it is REAPER doing something strange because it is the first time I have the chance to test a VST3 instrument.
Pianoteq 6 heads up.
Linear Mode
