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didn’t buy the Ilio/Andy Narell one (yet)…but the one in Pianoteq is remarkable — and iPad compatible 🤔
Nice!
Gavin, check out both videos on the Ilio site and you will quickly realize that Pianoteq’s pans can’t hold a candle to Andy’s library: https://www.ilio.com/andy-narell-steel-pans-the-ellie-mannette-collection
The video where he demonstrates the layering is also impressive. I tried to replicate the Rhodes/Pans layering with some Rhodes presets from Pure Synth but the experience was nowhere near what can be heard in the video.
I would not claim that it’s impossible to achieve the quality of this library with physical modeling. But Pianoteq would certainly have to put a lot more effort into coding and probably provide its own app with a dedicated UI for it.
Cheers, Chris
I see what you mean @Polyphonix - Andy’s pack can emulate a whole steel band, the pianoteq pack is just a solo steel drum, so of course there’s a huge difference right there. That’s a bit like comparing a violin pack to a strings ensemble. It is also 50 euros for the pianoteq instrument vs 200 bucks for the steel drums pack - that’s a pretty niche market I’d say. Sounds fantastic though, for sure, the sound seems a lot richer than the pianoteq instrument, and Andy is clearly an expert on steel drums
Fair points…as a user I’m more focused on the solo steel drum…if I needed ensemble it would be more fun and inspiring to record an actual live ensemble
In a way I get your point with the string ensemble comparison but 3 of the 5 instruments sections of a steel pan orchestra are ‘solo’ steel pans. And you can also solo on both bass sections as you can do on a double bass or a tuba. Admittedly with reduced tone range on the bass pans but you can. Besides, if you decide to virtualize steel pans on a midi keyboard, it is obvious to model its complete range realistically and not to limit it to the double second pans. With a concert grand piano, physical modeling also works, without difficulties, despite the enormous range.
I have been very familiar with Andy's recordings for more than 30 years, on each of his albums he plays not only the double seconds, of course. Their sound has has apparently established itself as a kind of signature in the ears of most steel pan casual listeners. But that is less than half the truth about this instrument.
From this point of view, this is nothing more than a nice, though admittedly quite good-sounding, add-on and not very suitable for serious professional use. Not least because a few important features are missing, such as the handling of rolls. To get the Pianoteq steel pans officially, as we know, more than 50 euros are due. So if you can do without all the fantastic instruments and primarily want the best steel pans, the Ilio library is without question the better bang for the buck. More precisely without alternative.
I’m a terrible pianist but I have pianoteq stage on Mac to use when I am mixing projects that have midi piano parts. To my ears, pianoteq sounds better than any sample based piano library I’ve heard when played by someone with a great touch.
I have the Steinway D and Yamaha instruments, which covers most territory in the mixing work I do, which is mostly jazz, or Broadway type stuff, or pop that has that kind of flavor to it. For classical projects a real piano has always been involved, so I haven’t used it for that.
The iOS version of pianoteq works great on my iPad 9th gen. That will be helpful when I’m doing live sound with a keyboardist and a better piano sound is needed. So far the stage version has done everything I need, so I haven’t looked at bigger versions. If I need to do something the v stage version won’t do though I feel very good giving modarrt money for their work, it’s really impressive.
Oops!
That limitation of Pianoteq is easily overcome. Load as many instances as you want (or as your machine can handle) as AUv3's and send midi as desired, using something like Polythemus or Mozaic utility to direct notes to different instances/voices. From there it's a only a small step to Pianoteq as roll-your-own MPE enabled, if you set channels up correctly you can independently modify or automate each voice to your heart's desire using an MPE controller or just simple midi automation.
Sure, you could easily set up ensembles with slight (or large) variations in each instance. Wonder how many you could run at a time, I haven't even tried more than one at a time yet.
Real clavichords have per note vibrato - would be a nice set up to help emulate that too
I don't know how many Pteq instances you could run either. But I suspect: many. In case like this where each instance would be monophonic, very low overhead.
Re: per note vibrato, you can get that from a single instance of Pianoteq. If your keyboard is aftertouch-enabled, then you could use Pteq's polyphonic aftertouch support and direct aftertouch pressure to pitch bend. Not sure offhand how to do it if controller is not aftertouch-enabled or MPE. . . .
When we say piano we get a wide variety of hammers striking targets.
Organ has a huge variety of approaches. I was simply looking to make PAD sounds with I added this steel pan in a layer and I heard the Cathedral Pipe Organ. The Modartt folks have an OrganTeq Product that focuses on the 3 “register” with bass pedal monsters. Creating the MIDI controller setup must be expensive to really play from the literature.
The Hammond B-3X is my organ but the Farfisa and Combo amps are fun for that
60’s era tone.
Anyway… back to seeking more PAD sounds.
Nice to hear that the 5 years of work Andy Narell has put into this steel pan library has dissolved into thin air with a simple workaround. Sorry, but I can't really take this statement seriously...😂
When you CAN’T have something it’s wise to seek a workaround. If NI produces an IOS product then Andy’s 5 years of work might become available for IOS users. The suggestion to create ensembles on IOS from solid physical modelers like PianoTeq and SWAM is just such a solution while we wait for the really good stuff from the Desktop world.
Have you heard the keyboards in Omnisphere? How about the toys in Reason like the new Objekt? It’s killing me waiting to have the option to use the real Pro products. We will get there as the customer base becomes evenly split and iPad get more RAM to satisfy all those cores.
Physical modeling is the way I hope. Machine Learning should prove useful to analyze an instruments parameters and set up a useful model.
Does anyone know if there’s a list on their website of all the free synths your purchase comes with? I’m curious what all you get and that may aid in me choosing which packs I end up with it.
Sorry, I wasn't making any comparison to Andy Narell's work, and I don't even know anything about steel drums. I expect if you want to professionally perform with finely tuned steel drum ensemble software then someone would want Andy Narell's stuff.
But, aside from that, what I was pointing out is that you can certainly create ensembles of instruments using Pianoteq. There's no need to limit yourself to a single instance. If, e.g., Pianoteq had a preset for steel drums that were tuned for upper ranges, another preset tuned for middle ranges, and another preset suitable for lower ranges, then you could start up a different Pianoteq instance for each, and load each with different "instruments". Then direct midi as appropriate for each instance.
This is essentially what people do with ensembles of the SWAM instruments, though in that case the SWAM instruments are all artificially limited to precisely the range they're tuned for. You have no such limitation with Pianoteq, but you can impose the limitation yourself if you want. That is, you can avoid playing instruments outside their range, doesn't apply to pianos of course, but only to a handful of Pteq instruments. Though I think there are two pianos in Pteq, Steinway and one other?, where you can expand range from 88 to 105 keys.
I still can’t pick my two pianos.
I understand that you want to try to close certain gaps for iOS with workarounds, that's absolutely legitimate. But we are here in the Pianoteq thread and I was discussing the best steel pans available. So it's about the best and most realistic acoustic instrument simulating sound generators. So I feel such a suggestion is a bit out of place because it doesn't do justice to the high end sound quality theme we are dedicated to here.
I agree with you about physical modeling and hope for more instruments across all realms and genres to be released for iOS. The more Pro products the better.
Another Preset demo:
https://forum.modartt.com/file/c8rqqhgf
Rendered audio file by PianoTeq without any additional software used (except the conversion and compression processing SoundCloud performs on a large high quality 32-bit wave file):
indeed…and I do think there’s a solid business model for NI to port Kontakt Player to iPadOS….just not sure who’s doing the sw engineering these days…but I look forward to lobbying hard for it this summer. Spectrasonics…probably no chance…but they’ve always been pretty closely aligned to Logic maybe they’ll consider it for the culture.
Thanks for your clarification. I have already applied various workarounds myself, especially when it comes to SWAM ensembles, and the results are really worth listening to. So you’re absolutely right with your approach but sometimes has its limitations which can be a showstopper in case you need professional sounding solutions without compromise.
It was important for me to point out that fantastic results can be and have been achieved with physical modeling, but in the case of the steel pans mentioned, the possibilities on the part of Pianoteq have not yet been exhausted and Andy's library (still) clearly delivers better results. But there is no doubt that physical modeling is the future and maybe machine learning will accelerate this development in terms of time and quality.
Yeah, it's on their website under a section called 'free stuff' with audio demos for each instrument. Cimbalom, harpsichords, clavichord are all fantastic, and the 2 more modern pianos from the 20s are very good. The historical pianos are very 'interesting', they mostly sound dated but you might dig that. The electro-acoustic piano is good but I prefer the Rhodes. There are several free bell packs which are very good. All in all, if I compare what you get here for 130 bucks - all the above plus 2 paid instruments - to the kind of crazy money people often pay for pretty mediocre sample packs, it actually is pretty damn good bang for your buck.
https://www.modartt.com/free_stuff
You are referring to the AB forum in general? ☺️ Because this statement of mine refers just to this Pianoteq thread.
You think we’re safe here to adore the really good toys. I guess buying a $900 software product (with a $26 discount) is a rejection of my $10 rule for purchasing. After several years of “meh” purchases I just wanted something to really get the juices flowing but how will I put them Genie back in the bottle. “How can you keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Paris?”
Partially, my change is attitude is due to my facing down the barrel of my imminent mortality… with imminent being 5-20 years.
Time is the precious commodity.
I didn’t realize the amount of free stuff you actually got. Those pianos definitely sound great but not enough to forgo buying the Steinway, but I’m glad they’re included. And the historical stuff is weird enough to be right up my alley.
Agreed, though. It’s really great for the price and kinda equals out to the same amount - or cheaper - than buying the same in sample packs. Since you can’t go from free straight to standard I may get stage first so I can get the packs sooner and then upgrade later in the year. Now that means I have to chose between the Rhodes and Hohner packs 😬
One thing I haven’t seen yet: in stage mode can you change the effects? I know in demo mode you’re stuck using whatever effects are on the preset and you can’t say change the phaser for flanger or a chorus, etc.
Thanks! They all sound really great.
Sure, you can start out with Standard if you want. It doesn't save you any money over buying Stage and then upgrading, but you can do it: https://www.modartt.com/buy
You can literally do everything with the demo that you can with the licensed version (except it's limited to 20 minutes and a few keys are disabled). In Stage you can modify any of the accessible settings, including all of the effects. Plus you can save your specific settings as new presets if you want. And more.
I had a similar awakening experience when SWAM instruments suddenly appeared for iOS. I love high end quality instruments and pristine recordings. However, in contrast to this and in complete contradiction, I have heard great recordings and performances over the last few years that often do without sonic perfection and finesse and still reach my heart and emotions directly with sometimes quite simple means or are just damn fun. Knower, Louis Cole and the live gigs of The Fearless Flyers fall into this category among others.
For sure there is no one truth. One time you use all available means, another time limitation is the way to express yourself and discover new territory. Sometimes, however, it seems to me that renunciation provides the most direct access to creativity. Then again, great sounding instruments are the inspiring initial spark. In the end, as we all know, many roads lead to Rome. With this in mind, yeah, let's make the most of the time we have left, and not dwell on the sordid finances.