Pianoteq claims that multi-sampled pianos aren’t true to the pianos character and that a true-to-the-source emulation would have to be created in another way. Thankfully they have done that, let’s see if they can convince me.

The idea

So the basic idea is that a sampled piano doesn’t capture the complexity of the piano. Surely Pianoteq are not the first to think about this. In fact, several companies have reconsidered the “old ways” of making plug-ins. With effects this have revealed itself through new perspectives on what to emulate (for instance, the end result versus the internal processing of the original piece). Apply this to virtual instruments and one must question the use of samples (again, end result versus “internal processing”, how vague that term ever may be when talking about an acoustic instrument).

This thinking has some incredibly sweet side-effects as well. For instance, the installer is only a couple of megabytes big, compared to the several gigabytes that the sampled pianos end up on. Another bonus side-effect that I experienced is that it doesn’t tax your computer nearly as much. You won’t need 4 GB RAM just to run three instances of Pianoteq. I have heard from other users that Pianoteq is heavy on the CPU, but running on an Intel Mac I found no problems with that whatsoever.

The controls

So what do you need to emulate a piano? Well, Pianoteq has possibilities for tuning, voicing (including hammer hardness, noise, and character among other things) and design (soundboard, piano size, resonance and more). There’s also an EQ and a reverb built-in, as well as sliders for volume, dynamics and stereo width.

There are many more options than those that I just mentioned, for instance for controlling the spectrum and if you want to have an open or closed lid. Thankfully small boxes with tips and explanations show up when you grab one of the controls. This is a great thing since a lot of people otherwise would have a hard time getting to understand what the various controls do.

The sound

So these “side-effects” are obviously very good. But on top of this Pianoteq claims that emulating a piano this way is actually a better way than by sampling it. Is it? To be perfectly blunt - my first impression with Pianoteq was that the sound wasn’t quite there yet. While i understood (and certainly liked) the philosophy behind Pianoteq it just wasn’t as realistic as the multi-sampled pianos out there.

Pianoteq recently gave away a few new piano models to the registered users, and if they keep on doing that their product of course get much more interesting. It’s cool that they emulate older pianos from the 1700s and 1800s right down to the serial number, but are they as good replicas as they would be if it was multi-sampled?

When I first tried Pianoteq I found it to sound a little plastic at times, especially in the upper mids. I’ve gradually changed my mind a little after trying out more of the presets and piano models. It also seems to me that the later models by Pianoteq sounds better. The fact that it’s easy to make new piano models compared to multi-sampling it is of course a big plus as well. This makes Pianoteq a much more complete piano VI than the competition, because instead of having 4 models emulated, it can have a whole lot. I have somewhere around 25-30 installed myself, and they take virtually no space whatsoever. Among these is for instance a harpsichord, an instrument not so commonly emulated as other pianos. This also sets Pianoteq aside from other piano VIs, because you can actually “build” your own pianos.

Conclusion

Pianoteq has a tried a different approach than the major players are doing today. Instead of building a bigger sample library for their piano emulation they have removed the samples and depended on modeling. I wouldn’t say that I appreciate the sound better because the multi-sampled pianos sounds really good these days, and some of the Pianoteq emulations still sound a bit plastic to me. The technique does have other advantages however. For instance, the installer is only a few MB big, furthermore it doesn’t tax your computers RAM nearly as much as the competition, and it’s also possible to expand your virtual piano collection very easily. If you’re a “sound tweaker” then you’ll definitely enjoy Pianoteq as well, it’s easy to come up with new sounds and wicked overtones.