Pianoteq 8 - Is this the Future? (yes I think so) 

Thank you for your support! 😊🙏 Spotify: spfy.link/music 🎧 Music: nordstarstudio.com 🎹 Learn: mastersofmusic.net ▶ Playlists: spfy.link/playlists Music Licensing & Business: nordstarstudio.com Mikael "Mike" Baggström Composer, Musician, Artist

Pianoteq sounds better than my real Piano (Yamaha CP60M). If I need the CP60M sound, I use the free model in Pianoteq and guess what? It sounds much better than the real thing. To get my piano tuned/maintained would cost 10x what Pianoteq does.

I use Pianoteq 7 and absolutely love it. But I must upgrade to version 8 now. I also have GB-size piano samples, but I keep returning to Pianoteq for the realism of sound and expressiveness. They also always keep the software updated and getting better and better. Compared to the sampled ones who rarely update their products, that's a huge plus when you're a Pianoteq owner/user.🎹

Hey Mike I hope you are doing well. I just wanted to thank you for all you have done for me. I was sick for 2 years at home and watched all my friends go to university all I had was working on my music. I was super inspired by Kygo and Avicii but didnt have a music background. Now a couple years later I still feel behind in life but your classes on skillshare are amazing. I haven’t been feeling that great recently but your classes help me relax and forget about the stresses in life. I have 2 really bad learning disabilities so it was hard for me to follow other people but your classes were so easy to understand. I loved the vibe you created by telling us we are going on an adventure and mastering a skill by the end. I know you are done with educational content now but I love the channel. Im so glad I looked you up on RU-vid. I binged a couple of videos tonight and the vlogs you posted being in nature were so good. No matter what you do im a fan for life. You have had just as much of an impact on my music journey as Kygo and Avicii. Best wishes from Ontario 🇨🇦. I hope to visit Sweden someday. I got obsessed with Norway and Sweden after discovering Kygo. Scandinavia looks beautiful.

Exactly what I was looking for without looking for it haha :D Great content, I can feel how passionate you are

Hi Mikael! Thank you for another great video! I hope all is well with you!

Just got the entry level pianotech stage version after watching Venus Theory´s walkthrough and his whole-heartedly recommendation. Im in love. Two simple clicks (drag curve to reduce the velocity cand then increase the dynamics and for my application, the result is always optimal after this 2 second modification. Super awesome! From now and on it will be impossible to avoid a smooth nice modern piano in my "supposed to sound plain 8 bit digital early 80s tunes"... Best Regards, random Swedish producer, previously with ambitions to keep my 80s sound profile relatively pure and free from modern hifi sound influences. Now I suppose this ambition is history...Thx for this comprehensive walk-trough in terms of instruments!

5:06 - When placing mics further away from the piano, you can move the little navigation square in the centre window, to help quickly navigate around the recording space.

it plays magical and, in a certain way, "clinical". Probably my ears are more sample-oriented (along with their inner "faults") but i admit this one sounds definitely "authentic"!!! Thanks a lot Mikael for another great review!

the most plugin piano i used until today is pianoteq. they give me all i need, specialy recording tools.

Very playable and I definitely think it’s the future of piano playing, I’m positive they’ll eventually get to a point where it will sound as good as an actual grand piano but to me pianoteq only sounds decent at lower velocities where it really shines, once you play more notes together and at higher velocities it turns overly harsh and just turns into a complete mess, but it really does play better than any VST on the market. For recording purposes why would anyone use this over garritan or ivory 2 for example, they sound almost perfect and don’t have the unnatural sounding elements to them.

Wow version 8 looks dope af

For anyone NOT liking the reversed 'sustain' pedal functionality, I found this in the Modartt discussion forum: "As for your issue [reversed sustain pedal polarity], you can invert the sustain pedal in MIDI options in Pianoteq... just set min to max and max to min and off you go."

Great vid, brother ❤ great stuff without fukn samples. what would u recommend for best modeled orchestra instruments (especially strings) and drum kits?? Big thanks

Pianoteq has been my goto piano for both practice and production since version 3 (I only went up from state to standard with v7). In general I love physical modelling synths, and have AAS and Arché amongst others. Sampling just seems to suck the life out of an instrument. I was impressed with Arturia's Piano V when it appeared in Arturia's V-Collection, thinking that Modartt finally have competition, then perused the binary with a hex editor and saw that it is a rebadged Pianoteq-lite.

Got a roland fp30x , i bought the stage version with steinway model D and the Upright U4, good combo i think :)

You miss out on a lot of the realism by leaving the condition slider at MINT. Before declaring it sounds fake, try the demo and be sure to change that slider. There is a sweet spot around roughly 85% mint. It comes up in the video around 6:40 if anyone wants to hear what it does

About the sustain? A long the sound stay until the sound fades

Today my dad told me he was going to sell ou genuine Yamaha CP-70 and it made quite sad as I've grown attached to the piano over the years. Then, he shown me Pianotech 8. I sat down and immediately wrote a new melody in the first 1-10 minutes. I was blown away to tears! I said, my God - he's right!! The CP-70 was a cutting edge instrument, but not anymore. This is just a whole other level. I am less sad now knowing he gave me a license of this :D

Hi Mikael. Congrats for your Video. I use korg krome ex88 with piano colossus. Do you recomend to me Change to Pianoteq? Stage versión with stenway D and grotian or stenway B better? I play the most or my songs with acoustic pianos. Thanks a lot

Why did it change to the morph panel when you choose layer, and change to the layer panel when you choose morph...? Rather confusing... Other than that, it looks just simply incredible! Thanks for the vid!

Of the few different models you played, all sounded impossibly miked, as though a mic per key. I’m sure that is an option but I couldn’t really fall for any of them ‘as miked.’ Real pianos, even the best, have some variability that says “hey it’s real!” It would be confidence-inspiring to hear that by default.

The biggest problem I have with soft-pianos is that I yet haven't found any VST wich actually sounds like a real recorded piano(its the curse of having to good monitors in the studio). And I have tried a lot of them: Keyscape, Ivory, UA Ravel. And more... One of the problems I've found is that VST pianos are incredible sensitive to velosities, and there seems to be a small sweet spot were the pianos actually sounds OK. Play just a tiny bit to hard, and the piano suddenly peaks out with a hard and metallic character(maybe due to the fact that VST normally has only 4-6 velocity layers/samples while a real grand has infinite). When recording a real grand with my Schoeps microphones you get this sense of real size of the instrument and a sense of real space and distance between the listener and the instrument. The sense of distance (not really reverb) you get with a real microphone is extremely hard to replicate with using reverb in post... Sorry, but I still don't think VST beats a real (not sampled) recording of a Fazioli or a Steinway anytime soon.

Hello my friend,good to see you again

Thank you for this review, I have just the Stage version which is enough for me. Upgrade is just 29 euro, so pretty cheap. I like pianoteq a lot, never had big sample piano's, too expensive for me and too bulky.

I have pianoteq 6.7 is it like much better than older?

I have Pianoteq but I’ve forgotten how to correctly set it up when I play my piano there is no sound I have the Yamaha CP88 and an IMac Hope you can help.

What I like is you can use it stand alone (no daw) and it auto saves everything you play. I have it on my dock for quick reach

Vamp the thing!

Hello Mike, i know that find differences between this and the previous version might be very difficult, but from your perspective, did you notice something? Even subtle differences i mean... Thanks a lot in advance and keep up you GREAT work!

One big tip I got from a piano tuner who reviewed Pianoteq 7 was to reduce the 'mix' setting in the reverb functions. He said that Pianoteq has too much 'wet' in the setting. It really does bring the sound of the piano out. Also you can take the lid completely off by double clicking the top edge of the lid, also works on the upright too. It makes for a more expansive sound.

I will try to use this with one of those foldable keyboards from Amazon. It has midi, so it should work. Connect it to a nice speaker and actually make it sound good.

That's interesting. I also own the same bundle, although I have more instrument packs installed than you currently have. It appears you are missing a few of the additional free packs that you can download from within your account product page. _Acoustic Pianos:_ Erard (1922) Pleyel (1926) CP-80 _Chromatic Percussion:_ Church Bells Tubular Bells _Piano Predecessors:_ Cimbalom Neuport Clavicord F.E. Blanchet Harpischord (1733) C. Grimaldi Harpsichord (1697) _Historical Pianos:_ J. Schantz (1790) J.E. Schmidt (1790) A. Walter (1790) D. Schoffstoss (1812) C. Graf (1826)

yamaha ydp 145 pianoteq keyscape does it work?

Anyone who doubts this vst should download the demo version. You will be hooked. So real it’s incredible and so flexible …..you cannot do near as much with just samples.

What DAW are you using to play your VTS pianoteq?

Opinion about ravel of uad?

is the upgrade worth it from v7 to v8? thanks

Very cool! What keyboard are you using?

Mikael, do you know of any guitar amp VSTs and/or drum kit VSTs that are modeled this way?

The pro version only includes 4 instruments - you need to buy the Studio Bundle, which will set you back an additional €500 !! (and AFAIK, you have to buy it at once, there's no upgrade path from any other version) If you need many, many different piano's, maybe that makes sense, otherwise better spend it on something like the Arturia Collection, some good sample libraries,etc. I think the Pro is a good value proposition : the amount of included instruments is OK (I might eventually buy 1 additional set), and the possibility to randomise parameters transforms it into an interesting Sound Design tool. And of course : the sound stays great, and it's very expressive ! If the Studio would included lifelong updates & every new sound set released in the future, it would be a much better offer, at the moment I think it's not very appealing ...

I'm still not convinced about the attack profile of a single note without pedal, still doesn't sound natural to me, it's more like a sine wave. Less dramatic than in 6 or even 7, but still not quite there. Also might need more than 8 overtones to be convincing (playing classical music).

pianoteq is a sampled piano killer ... just the way modern ir tech killed convolution reverbs

Small hint: If you bought Pianoteq 7 less than one year ago the update to 8 is *free*. 👍 Afterwards you'll have both versions available as standalone and as plugins in your DAW. Downside: At least In the latter case it seems that you can't use your v7 user presets in v8.

and this all comes in ridiculous 50Mb, great job

Hello Mike. You really look like an extraordinary, eccentric person. I hope I can meet you personally one day. By the way, I would like to know what keyboard you use as your midi controller, the one you use in this video. All the bests, dude. 🖖

I have Pianoteq 7 and I love the steinway D. I thought about buying the electric pack, but the Rhodes+ Wurli sound to me very cold. What you you think?

Do all those presets at 1:47 come with it or are they add ons?

it is free plugin?

which keyboard are you playing with?

I don't know, there is something surgical and lifeless about the sound, crystal clear, flexible, clean but something is missing. take Galaxy Steinway or Vienna grand for example, they drag you in, they mesmerize you with the tone you don't want to stop listnening to. I don't have the same experience with Pianoteq, but I tried.

you have dt770 80ohm? i have korg krome piano and when I plug them, it sounds terrible in them. cheap koss30kpi headphones much better sound. dt770 dont play bass notes as it should sound. worst overhyped headphones ever. plus my eardrum hurt each time I used / tested them

I like pianoteq , but there are a few false myths about it . ( 1) infinite velocity . This is a total marketing myth . Pianoteq uses midi protocol , therefore there are only 128 different values . But the myth is even worse than that . Best pianists on the planet can only achieve up to 10 different levels of velocity . An average pianist will do half ~5 (2) reality of modelled vs sampled . This is equally a myth . If you play one individual note at a given velocity , the recorded one on a top notch grand piano will always sound more real than a calculated one . The fact that is is calculated in real time doesn’t affect the final tone . Microphones are simulated in pianoteq , whereby there are the real thing in best sample VST’s . Now when it comes to what happens between 2 notes , what happens with sympathetic resonance , this is modelled in all softwares including samples , so it is a false debate . On the reverb front , you get the real samples as captured in the studio with best VST . Abbey road reverb is to die for with Garritan CFX and it is the real thing . You get something 100% artificial with pianoteq . Bottom line , even though I like pianoteq and I have used it since early version , there is a lot of false facts about its playability and how expressive it could be. Cheers

u are on udemy man

if you have this one you could create any anime theme ahaha xD

Maybe it's me, but although a TON of features it sounds less good than Native Instruments NOIRE.

While the Piano modelling seems to work quite well, the Rhodes models are just fails.

Physical modeling only makes sense for instruments that are played analogously with keys. The sound of a guitar, for example, can never be reproduced by pressing a key only.

I still have no use for it, because of (imo) a very important missing element: emotion. When I play my vsl sampled piano's, I feel the emotion of the music. When I play pianoteq, most of that is just missing. It feels very empty to me. I'm not here to diss pianoteq. That's just my opinion. I guess there's that something special about a piano that' still very hard to model I hope they can somehow get this right in the future. Maybe some artificial intelligence could do the trick?

I don’t think it’s better than NOIRE of native instrument

Sounds good, looking good, but IMHO it can't compare with the VSL Pianos which are basically unbeatable.

This... from the Modartt FAQ page: "Does Pianoteq support high resolution MIDI files? Yes. Thanks to the physical model that Pianoteq is built on, it has the unique capacity of reproducing all the 16,384 velocities by the Hi-Res CC#88 format, and all the 1,023 velocities by the MIDI XP format."

Supporters windows computers?

I still can't understand why the basic "stage" version of this product is so cheap for what it offers. I hope they don't see this comment.

it sounds too toy piano for me honesty. It has a long way to go, but would like to see this take off more.

Sounds still not full enough with a plastic touch, well, it seems to be typical of physical modeling

I don’t know what it is. I always find Pianoteq harsh. Always.

Honestly doesnt compete with Keyscape.

The midrange still fails: so digitalish (like every digital software piano reviewed on youtube). Highs are definitely the best of Pianoteq, while basses are in the middle.

bro just buy an acoustic piano

Sounds does’nt looks great :-(

Pianoteq should offer these upgrades for free....I have 6 and it doesn't sound any different to 8