Modartt Pianoteq – the first truly modeled piano
Modartt Pianoteq is a high-class virtual instrument using breakthrough technology, available for PC and Mac as a VST/AudioUnit plugin and stand-alone player.
Feature
- Responds in real time to pianist's interpretation
- Sounds and behaves just like a real piano
- Extraordinary playability and expressiveness
- Advanced tuning, voicing and soundboard adjustment
- Extremely small (15 MB) and fast loading
The Modartt Pianoteq sound
Vivid
The piano creates the sound in real time while you are playing and takes into account all the complex factors that makes the piano a truly vivid instrument, such as the interaction between strings, the use of pedals, the cabinet resonance and the position of the hammers. It will feel like you had a real piano in front of you... as if you could just lean over and touch the strings!
Versatile
Pianoteq introduces new possibilities to adjust the piano sound just the way you like it! Things that until now were dedicated for piano tuners are now possible directly from the interface. Within seconds you can adjust the sound to a particular type of music or playing style. The many choices can be saved as a customized setting which you can share with other Pianoteq users.
Expressive
All the detailed variations of the timbre are there, from the weakest pianissimo to the strongest fortissimo! What you express on your keyboard will also be what you actually hear. The sound of even the weakest pianissimo is absolutely pure without any audible quantization noise.
Convenient
Thanks to its rather modest system requirements, Pianoteq is suitable to run on a modern laptop, convenient for the travelling musician. The extremely small size (15 MB) and the fast interface means no loading time. Just a few mouse movements to start playing.
The Pianoteq technology
- The piano sound is constructed in real time, responding to how the pianist strikes the keys and interacts with the pedals
- It includes the entire complexity of a real piano (hammers, strings, duplex scale, pedals, cabinet)
- No quantization noise (32-bit internal sampling at 192 KHz)
- Real progressive variation of the timbre (127 velocities per note)
- Adjustable hammer hardness (voicing) and other similar parameters
- Adjustable unison width (tuning) and other similar parameters
- Adjustable piano size (soundboard) and other similar parameters
- Adjustable spectrum profile, based on the first 8 overtones
- Progressive sustain pedal, allowing partial-pedal effects
- Sostenuto pedal, harmonic pedal and Una Corda (soft) pedal
- Microtuning with Scala format
- Lid position (open, half-open, closed)
- Stereo width slider
- Key release velocity
- Very fast to install and initialize
- Total size is about 15 MB (MegaBytes)
- It can be used successfully with a laptop (low hardware requirements)
- Adjustable optional samples of acoustic noises (pedal and key release)
- Built-in graphic equalizer with freely adjustable key points
- Built-in graphic velocity curve with keyboard presets
- Built-in reverb unit with presets
Why a sampled piano is insufficient
The very best sampled pianos of today are the result of many hours of careful recordings associated with complex solutions designed to provide a valuable piano sound. We respect the work of these high class competitors who manage to develop sampled based pianos of this quality. However, it is since long well known that the sampling technology as such has some inherent disadvantages.
To give you an understanding of the reasons why we chose to develop Pianoteq we find it necessary to describe the shortcomings of using samples to create a digital piano:
1. The sampled piano contains static recordings of each note, how it sounded during a particular moment in time. It does not take into account the influence of other strings vibrating, cabinet resonance, pedal interaction and hammer position.
2. The sampled piano can not alter the existing piano samples when it comes to parameters such as hammer hardness, unison tuning, cabinet size, overtones spectrum etc.
3. The sampled piano has several technical limitations such as audible quantization noise and uneven variation of the timbre (from ppp to fff).
Despite many recent attempts to enhance the sampled piano sound by adding convolution reverb and other post processing effects, the technology as such has too many limitations when it comes to achieving a truly vivid and convincing piano sound.
Pianoteq interface
The many adjustable parameters make it possible to not only adapt the existing adapted piano model but also to create new piano sounds. This is one of the advantages of a truly modelled piano — it opens up new possibilities for the creative musician.
Modartt Pianoteq gives you all the possibilities to do several tuning improvements which are usually done only by piano tuners. Example: diapason (414-467 Hz), different kinds of temperaments (from equal to well tempered), microtuning, unison tuning (for changing the timbre or colour of the sound), octave stretching and direct sound duration.
System Requirements
PC
Mac
- MacOS X 10.3.9 and up (Universal Binary)
