How playable is Pianoteq 8? (Exploiting the Physical Model)
I recently saw @haniaranimusic perform Hawaii Oslo, where she had one hand on the keys and another constantly messing with the soundboard -- muting the sound in varying degrees, pressing her hands into the strings, moving the felt around, and inserting fingers between the hammers and strings, etc. She ran this through a delay pedal and a looper to create an evolving pedal tone to improvise over.
I thought it would be fun to try something similar on a virtual piano, so let's give this a whirl in Pianoteq 8!
I'm using 4 pedals, a mod strip, aftertouch, a macro, and some automation to constantly modulate various parameters of the piano model in real-time. This level of playability is something uniquely possible with physical modeling synthesis, and it's a lot of fun to experiment with!
Hope you enjoy!
Hania's video: • Hania Rani – Live from Studio S2
Also, I've been asked for the FXPs (Pianoteq presets), which I'm happy to provide. To be clear, you could make these types of sounds with any of the pianos -- just start with classical presets and change the pedal assignments as shown in the video, use controllers+macros and/or automation to manipulate Q factor and impedance, and set your aftertouch curve to a slope that feels good to you if you want string bends. That's all I did inside Pianoteq.
The first track was sent through Panflow (free plugin) to pan it slowly back and forth, and Deelay (also free) to create a single ping-pong echo. Both pianos were then sent through Valhalla Shimmer (default preset), and the mix was automated to shift between 0 and 0.1 (10% wet), and finally through Eventide Blackhole on the Blackhole preset, 21% wet. You can get a similar sound using free plugins as shown here: • NOIRE Walkthrough: creating beautiful cine...
Muted loop FXP (Ant. Petrof): https://forum.modartt.com/file/3oz5tk1t
Improv FXP (NY Steinway D): https://forum.modartt.com/file/b1dawws2
0:00 Loop Start
0:22 Felt thickness and string bends
0:51 Buff stop pedal
1:05 Celeste pedal
1:18 Pinch harmonic (flageolet) pedal
1:34 Sustain pedal
1:45 Impedance and Q factor
2:10 Tying it all together
#pianoteq #improvisation #physicalmodeling