Download Piano Real
Golda Opell
Use your computer mouse or keyboard to play the virtual piano keyboard (or the device touch screen for mobile devices). You can view the corresponding computer keyboard letters by activating the Real Keys feature. For the entire keyboard spectrum, click it twice.
A virtual piano keyboard is perfect when there isn't a real piano or a keyboard at home or when your piano or keyboard isn't next to a computer. The online piano keyboard simulates a real piano keyboard with 7 1/4 octaves of 88 keys (only five octaves for mobile devices), a sustain pedal, ABC or DoReMe letter notes representation, a Metronome, zoom-in, and a full-screen mode.
Use your computer mouse or keyboard to play the virtual piano keyboard (or the device touch screen for mobile devices). You can view the corresponding computer keyboard letters by activating the "Real Keys" feature. For the entire keyboard spectrum, click it twice.
I played classical piano for 10 years as a child/adolescent, but now want to transition to jazz piano now that I've finished college. I figure I should start with a Hal Leonard Real Book, but I'm not sure which one I should get since they're all in different keys. It seems like the main one is in C, but I already feel pretty comfortable in C, so I'd like a Real Book with jazz pieces in different keys. Does this exist? I see Real Books in Eb and Bb, but no general books.
Here's pianist extraordinaire, fellow Pianoteq forum user and very earnest gentleman jcfelice88keys playing Rhapsody In Blue, some 10 years ago, to give some sense of how even back at that version, a fine pianist might use Pianoteq. (With more than mere thanks and appreciation to Joe who's certainly inspired myself and many others to look into Pianoteq with a sincere justification because of his many informative posts. Joe's impressive playing has also certainly inspired the realisation that I must 'git gud' in terms of my own pianistic skills and I can also then hope to better experience more of the joys Pianoteq has to offer us, a journey I wish should never come to a close).
IF we find ourselves temporarily embarrassed in the shade of someone in the top tier like Joe with his many years of dedication to his calling, we do have the ability to load excellent MIDI files in both regular and high resolution, like those from the International piano-e-competition.
The next by dklien is a situational recording via cell phone, a real Steinway M and Pianoteq Steinways on good speakers in the same room. It's not scientific but specifically shows that on equipment which can handle volume, you could be stood in a room with eyes closed and probably have to second guess. I enjoyed revisiting this for the delightful candid interractions.
Next one I remember well, is gtingley's interesting comparison (not sure right now what version of Pianoteq, but around mid last year). He was in the company of a fine recording engineer with good microphones and set up his Pianoteq preset to fairly closely simulate the way the real piano was mic'd up. The link to the initial post, the second link to the post containing the audio.
In some videos, people take a lovely studio produced recording of a real piano played well by a fine pianist, then A/B it with a badly played or stiff MIDI piece with totally different kind of preset (or piano type) audio and zero production values (compressed Youtube audio etc.) - much of this kind of thing is, other than novelty, utterly useless to anyone without any sound basis for comparison.
Pianoteq, for me, is like an armada of incredible pianos (from any angle, audio thru playability - esp. with good digital keyboard), a library of recording and playing possibilities - and not a day passes where I don't feel compelled to dig in to it in some way.
At just over 50 Mb, I can tell you that I've regained many gigs of HD space by removing many old sampled piano libraries, which I now find un-listenable, and entirely unplayable (with some regret for the wonderful work these people and companies have done of course - hat tip! but I feel Modartt's modeling is out of bounds or off the old chart by comparison in too many ways to be worth comparing now, esp. after version 4), therefore other systems seem honestly un-recordable by comparison, to me these days. Playability is important to me (and the only way to truly improve! is to have that faculty in the piano product to adequately respond in as many ways as in reality on a real physical piano), and there really is nothing else like Pianoteq in the software world.
It's like having a well recorded piano, already on tape with every session played (auto record to MIDI and easy export to audio etc.) - then it's up to us, with our producer hats on, to decide if we want to run it through a tasty DAW/studio production chain and so on.
Just like a real piano recording, you can accentuate or damp any frequencies, push, pull, compress, get shimmer, get it wide, put on some warm tube or console vibe in the same way that "real pianos" get treated in a studio (often the ones people want to compare Pianoteq to).
Well the best "test" is not a direct comparison but the fact that Steingraeber use Pianoteq in the adsilent system that their acoustic pianos are equipped with. If Steingraeber consider it good enough for people who actually have a real piano they sold them to compare it with, then that's pretty much as good as anyone can hope for, IMO.
The fact that the modern piano models in Pianoteq are all approved by the makers (including Steinway, which is rather impressive) ought to be pretty heavyweight evidence as well. These companies don't throw their names out to attach to just any old products - sound is their reputation.
When professional musicians and piano tuners tell me it sounds really close to the real thing, I'm not going to do better with my ears. They don't say it's perfect because a physical piano gives physical feedback and have a huge soundboard that a few speakers cannot ever completely emulate. All pianos (even of the same make) will have slight differences which an experienced ear will notice if they listen for them.
True, but that's why I was interested in the difference in a recorded version. In other words, both would be coming out of speakers, but one is an acoustic piano recorded with microphones, and one is Pianoteq, recorded directly through the computer.
I also am a bit more interested in whether "regular" people can tell the difference when they hear them side by side, and consistently rate the acoustic better. This would be a good thing to know if you have a recording studio and want to know whether it is worth your money to invest in an expensive piano, along with climate control and regular tuning. (not to mention the fact that an acoustic piano doesn't allow for tweaking the MIDI and such).
Given that my playing time in the future will be a fraction of what I have already had, I'm very happy to have Pianoteq and now that I have settled on one - for the most part - the Steingraeber - I can enjoy playing "my" piano. It reminds me of the settled phase - 20 years - of my harpsichord playing/owning. The joy of becoming really familiar with your own instrument. (It was roughly equivalent in piano terms to a Steinway D) My occasional use of other Pianoteq instruments necessitates a short period of adjustment, not just to the sound but also, weirdly, the touch, as if the physical keyboard was different. Evidence of the quality of the modelling.
Yes, a good test would use the same person playing. A really good test might use something like the Steinway Spirio, which is a high resolution player piano, so you could actually have both recordings created from the same performance. Or maybe have them play it live on an acoustic piano that also has MIDI out (e.g. -moog-piano-bar ), which you can use for the MIDI data to drive Pianoteq. (that's a bit cheaper than a Spirio!)
The sort of A/B test which I would be very interested to hear would go something like this:
A: record an acoustic piano in a nice resonant hall.
B: in Pianoteq, recreate the mic setting from the acoustic session and use an IR taken from the actual hall.
It would be possible, if somebody had the time and resources to do it.
Having had to try and explain to flat-earthers the physics and reasons why Earth ain't flat and how we know this, I can tell you that even if you revealed t them that - ta da ! - the one they thought was real was Pianoteq - they'd still tell you all sorts of reasons why the test was invalid. You can never overcome hardcore skeptics.
I can also tell you that if you did a dirty trick and played them the same recording, one labelled "Pianoteq Steinway D" and one "Real Steinway D", they'd flock to tell you how "obvious" it was (to them) that Pianoteq didn't sound real. If you reveal the con, they'd simply say you're lying or there was more trickery at work. There is no winning with people with such entrenched views.
I was interested in the difference in a recorded version. In other words, both would be coming out of speakers, but one is an acoustic piano recorded with microphones, and one is Pianoteq, recorded directly through the computer.
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