Modartt has released a add-on for their Pianoteq plug-in. Unlike many piano VI’s, Pianoteq is not samplebased and constantly gets updated with new ‘instruments’. The latest in line is a virtual copy of a Walter pianoforte, Vienna, ca 1790 belonging to Paul Badura-Skoda.
From the Modartt press release:
Paul Badura-Skoda, born in 1927, is a pianist, music editor and pedagogue with an outstanding repertoire of more than 200 recordings, focusing mainly on the piano works by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. The legendary conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan discovered his talent in 1949 and brought him to fame. Thanks to his splendid musical personality, Badura-Skoda is considered one of the world’s most important pianists of our time. To the delight of many music lovers, he is still giving solo concert to dazzled audiences worldwide.
Quoting Paul Badura-Skoda: I was surprised hearing “my” Walter when playing on the digital keyboard! This skilful performance by PIANOTEQ is a marvel of intelligence and art; I admire the whole knowledge collected by my friends, musicians and engineers, and the relevance of their analysis: being able to reproduce, from samples, the whole sound scale of an instrument in all its palette of timbre requires a very precise analysis and a listening virtuosity that no computing system can invent. Congratulations for creating the tool that goes beyond our wildest hopes! I am eagerly waiting for what will come next.
Opinions about the quality of Pianoteqs sound seem to vary. Personally I applaud their attempts to move away from samples. I also think they’re doing a very good job keeping the customers satisfied by constantly releasing new models of pianos. And, as this post clearly shows, it’s not only the major pianos out there sampled by all other VI’s, but many more as well. Did I mention the add-ons are free?
More info about the new Walter as well as the other add-ons is available on the Modartt website.
Hi Stiff
Personally I love what Modartt are doing with keyboard physical models. I’ve used Modartt sounds prominently on a couple of commercial recordings. Really, really cool…
I’m way into it as well. I just love that the approach is unapologetically innovative. You definitely can’t accuse the company of conformity!
There’s something lovely about the textures they arrive at, whether or not you want to acknowledge them as “authentic.” They’re undeniably musical.
- c
it’s all about the sympathetic resonance… sample libs just can’t do it right now, period. they might be able to someday but they would probably have to have some sort of convolution technology working “under-the-hood” – ie, pianoteq-style modelling – to do it properly. Big fan of Pianoteq here!