GPP-3 and Piano-Teq3

[David]

Hi

I am definately purchasing Piano-Teq, I was especially swayed by the review of a member on this forum, and it is a great product for what it does.

To get to the point, my question is, has anyone used or had experience of the 3 pedel contoller from CME, the GPP-3? I'm interested in this item as it allows the use of the 3 pedal arrangement of the new piano-teq. I am hesitant as I am unable to try before I buy and any review would be a great deal of help to me.
Also are there other such pedal controllers which perhaps perform better.

Any answers greatly appreciated.

Of course I realise, having read other topics on digitised pianos , that I should buy a real piano if I am looking to play piano rather than emulate one but nonetheless it is my accomodation which restricts me to said digitised versions.

Many thanks
feg

[kensuguro]

can't you just download pianotq demo? that's what I'm doing just to check out the sounds.

"review of a member of this forum"... let's see, it's either me or Jimmy. My reviews have been very negative about pianoteq so far... it's gotta be jimmy. lol. Na, I think this version is a big step forward. I'm giving pt3 another demoing, and have learned a lot about its sound in this run. It's sound is very multidimensional, much like that of a real piano. The piano is not voiced particularly the way I like it, but I can appreciate that it is a good sounding piano. This pretty much the same for the new C and M model pianos.

Nevermind whether it's a Steinway D or whatever, I found it much easier to approach it as if it were a completely new, unknown piano. Almost like playing a pre-owned piano imported from a different country. It sounds very classic, and all of its pianos are voiced in a particular way. (very un-jazz / rock / blues) You also have to play it a certain way.. the c4-c5 range responds very well to p-mf, but not so well to f or ff where it starts to sound very puretone and thin. (like the strings were too much in unison) The mid C and lower range responds very well to a wide dynamic range. Which seems to be a good classic voicing, but very opposite of jazz.

But it's interesting, I can sit down, and play for hours trying to understand its sound, and it has a lot of detail. It does feel much, much more alive than any sample lib. I realized it most when I switched back to TBO, which is my regular lib, right after a hour of pt3. I like TBO better, but the sound is much more static and 2D so to speak. I just wished the model in pt3 was voiced in a different way. All in all, it does sound incredible, and it is up to a point where after your ears get used to its sound, you could play it with a slight illusion of playing an organic instrument.

[Mr Arkadin]

i am also trying Pianoteq 3 - hated the initial version. i have Ivory which sounds amazing but for various reasons want to drop it as for me it's no longer supported. Also not having to have huge sample libraries for everything is great and i really like the Wurli and Harpsichord on Pianoteq 3.

When i get my studio back in shape (bit of a mess at the moment) i'm going to give this a full workout, but the classical pianos haven't jumped out at me and grabbed me yet.

[dawman]

Welcome............another Piano guy.
Let me know about the GPP-3.
For a solo Piano gig, PTeq 3.0 and a laptop w/ a good controller, and GPP-3 should be a great set up.
PTeq 3.0 is a jack of all trades, and master of none.
But after hearing version 1, then version 2, I figured it would suck like those, but I was shocked at how good it sounded and how litlle resources are needed.
The Rhodes and Wurlitzer are a bonus too.
Later this year their " Pro " version should be the one that puts an end to all of these gigantic Romplers.

The newest VE Piano is capable of 100,000 samples..........
The sickness follows suit with O.S. developers, why perfect something that works and costs R & D money to further develope, when you can give it another name, or 64bit and even 128 bit which generates more money....
Ivory is a prime example of most Piano Romplers. They have a great sound, but there's no help or developement because of the competition, and cost of bug fixing.
PTeq 3.0 actually has really good sounding Pedalling techniques too. Just imagine how big of a DAW one would need if the Rompler guys decided to actually add those overlooked features.....

Below is a jpeg of the requirements for a basic String & Piano...........

[Mr Arkadin]

Ivory is a prime example of most Piano Romplers. They have a great sound, but there's no help or developement because of the competition, and cost of bug fixing.

Part of he reason i left. No forum. Change in software protection to iLok (spun as a requested feature, funny i don't remember being asked), which means i can never update unless i wish to buy an iLok (i don't). Change in expansion policy (ie. expansions stopped - you have to buy the full Ivory engine for each new sound). Generally a feeling of no love, whereas Pianoteq have a forum, developers who seem to be getting better, generally i less corporate vibe and more customer-based.

[dawman]

Exactamente Cabrone...

PTeq is just an evolving work.
I am guessing they lurk here, as Kensuguro and I were contacted from doing demos I suppose to BETA test last year and of course I open my emails........sorry Ken, I couldn'r resist...

But about 12 guys were involved and they have 3 guys @ Modartt that were very quick to join in the criticism and provide immediate attempts to change the features and sound.
To me it's all about support, and the difference in the sound from the previous versions was so drastically improved, it's hard to not become involved.

The whole iLok money feeding process is profit driven which I understand, but then those developers should also understand the art of communication too.....

At the end of the day, I have a Grand Piano, Upright, Rhodes & Wurlitzer that can has actual preformance pedals, good sound, and a bright future.
This is perfect to take to jam session with friends, and in my case those slutty sequence dressed singers in Vegas that pay 150 USD for an hour and a half of playing in the Foyer at the Paris, and other properties that spend lots of dough on entertainment.
It is torurous having to listen to these cackling hens who think they can sing, but it pays for my gear so I can continue playing in quality gigs at night where people dance and have fun.

I can do 2 of these jobs with a 10 minute set up, twice a day. Thankfully I haven't needed to resort to those gigs, as hearing such yoodling could stifle my creativity.
But nice to know if I need to make 1500 USD cash weekly, the oppurtunity is available thanks to the quality of this app.
Sure an MP8 Kawaii sounds equally as good.
But a 9 pound M Audio ES88, small powered monitor, and a laptop is a breeze to set up. One trip w/ a dolley, and wam-bam thank you Ma'am..........

I have a lot of time with this Mr. A., I owe you a favor anyway, let me know....

[kensuguro]

btw, jimmy, were you able to get pt3 to sound the way you want it to? I'm trying to get a good sound on the demo... pretty close, but not really. Probably better to just wait for the pro version.

[dawman]

Well my needs for a live piano are much less than for recording w/ dynamice, etc.
For what I will be using this for it will work really well.
Especially as I have 3 placements where I can have the app ready.
I am recording a bunch of cheezy songs to put on a singers laptop using Reaper, and she can trigger little cheezy sing alongs, but once I install it on her laptop I only need to show up w/ a M Audio ES88 and GPP-3 or cheapo sustain.
I really need 2 singers w/ laptops and I can then delete and transfer one of my instances to a second laptop........
Dude can you imagine making 300 USD a day for 3 hours of work with no gear to lug around !!
Bands are just becoming too much effort and I grow weary of wearing wigs for Progressive rock/psychedelic gigs, etc.
Who knows........however for me, XITE-1 and PTeq.3.0 are a great way to travel and cover multiple gigs.
I use to do a day gig of Piano, Evening showroom, then after hours jams for free Jager...
I would rather do the Piano gigs for a while so I can stay at home and prepare for an upcoming gig this Fall.

Anyway Ken, I would wait for the Pro and stay w/ TBO as it is a fine sounding Piano too.
But if you want a fast set-up w/ a small 88'r under your arm the PTeq 3.0 has no equal.
It is so light on the CPU one could have other sounds inside of the laptop too.
More of a question of mobility.

[David]

Yes Kensuguro, you're right it was Jimmy singing the praises of Piano-teq and I was suitably impressed when listening to version 3.

I had previously been looking at synthogy pianos but although I believe these are good they didn't have all the tweakable options which are available with piano-teq. And for me when it comes to sculpturing a piano sound to the way I would mess around with an original then hence piano-teq has become my choice.

I was also asking in my original querey whether the CME GPP-3 was a reliable controller and was of adequate resolution to make it usable. I have tried a few half dampers and found they have been more guess work at where a suitable dampening point can be, making playing somewhat dissapointing as it can be a struggle to become accustomed to find with confidence the dampening you wish to acheive.

However Jimmy has kindly directed me to an excellent array of pedal controllers namely the Studio Logic VFP 3 10 Triple Pedal which seems more than robust and consistant for my purposes. Although, while I was reading the reviews of this product I stumbled upon and even greater controller which is the Fatar Studiologic MP-113 13-Note Dynamic Pedal Board Controller and this appears to be able to open up many more options when included with the scope platform.

Thank you for your replies
feg

[kensuguro]

I actually just bought the pt3+ep combo, so kudos to the modart dudes for putting up with my bashing. It's really for ease of loading and to have simple setup I can use for laptop playback like jimmy says. The sound is okay, we'll have wait for the pro version to see how far modart will push the bounds. But for now, pt3 is okay for practice, and for live gigs, the eps are more than fine. I don't think I'll ever use the piano live though, just because I don't carry around speakers, and I don't know what the venue's system is like. Eps seem to carry across much better in that case.

I think I actually like pt3's rhodes. Just needs a bit of post processing. Can't believe they didn't put in a drive unit.

[dawman]

If you would have opened your email you would have had this for free, and probably could have had some drive added....
I think they are always going to upgrade their products every couple of months so make a little noise at the forum. They aim to please or so it seems.
Just watched your organ video.......
Speaking of J-Pop, I bought my boy the old style Modded out PSP from a guy I met in Osaka a few years back, and it's packed w/ JPop, and a shitload of cracked games I guess as I see some games from PS3 on it, and it has an 8GB stick too.....I really wish I could go back to Japan again, they got the tech shit covered. This thing even hooks up to the internet...

PSP MOD.JPG

[braincell]

I had the CME UF8 keyboard and it sucked. I sold it which is something I rarely do. Keys stuck and the action was slow. Maybe the pedals are good though. The knobs seemed nice. Personally I don't think I will be buying anything from them again.

[kensuguro]

lol, I touched CME keys once, and never go near one of them again.

[dawman]

It's a profit driven market, it's not their fault.
But you must admit the Dragon is on the rise these days.
I still say if one can handle the mediocre action the sheer amount of controls and features the KS88 is the best all in one package available.
The Yamaha's are cheaper than ever, my old KX-88 was awesome for 12 years, but so heavy.
If one wants the best action available, just look around for the FP Wood keybed and pray they give you at least a split keyboard.....
Therein lies the problem.
Developers seem to think anyone who wants Piano action, doesn't need controls, etc.
These guys probably had the Republican Party do their polling prior to building a product...they were way off base.

After 24 years of using weighted action controllers I can honestly say say they get worse every year, cheaper parts, etc.
At the end of the day, you can either whine, play or do both....
The last option is what I do every time I go to a trade show..some things never change.

[braincell]

As far as rompler resources go, RAM and hard drives are so cheap now there is no excuse to say this unless you are using a 32 bit OS in which case I feel sorry for you. I was not impressed with Pianoteq 2. I am sure version 3 is probably better.

I am having a ball with QL pianos and the upgrade was within my budget. I got compliments for the previous version and this one blows that away.

[David]

I can see that, Braincell, and it's a mighty fine solution for when using one instrument.
In my experience however, it does consume the hard drive access time using one massively sampled instrument to that degree and for especially when using an array of these large sampled instrument databases I'm finding it does hammer the machine and harddrive. Perhaps an even larger bus is necessary or maybe its just the way I got it set up. To me it's a fine solution to the space saving concept but in this instance I was looking for a more viable way to create an ensemble of pretty reasonable representations of instruments for a more live approach from one machine which is why I'm steering towards piano-teq. I guess it's the musical style I employ

[braincell]

It doesn't seem to be a strain with a RAID array.

[David]

Quite so - as I've just seen this link in the other thread
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs

apologies for the cross post link

[astroman]

thanks for mentioning, also downloaded the version 3 demo.
Not a proper keyboard here, so only a very rough check of the tone.
I had the impression that the Rhodes tone character was a tiny bit too clean and even (or call it sterile), but aside from that I liked it very much - at least for me the most responsive app I ever tried in that domain.
I mean the emulation hits the instrument's character just perfectly, but the fake tines are just that - fakes.
No problem in a band context, tho

cheers, Tom

[dawman]

Agreed Brotha' Man Astro.
These guys are just getting better with every version, and I expect to see even more.
Their BETA testing chat forums are a great way to develope a product too.
They are private but a dozen performers all bouncing their ideas around and then having these guys correct and add things everyday over a one month period was lots of fun, and actually when the BETA period ended I was unconvinced still but a month after that they sent us all the 3.0 and the EP's and Grand sounded even better.

Also Brotha' Man Feg,
EAST/WEST just released a new upgrade of PLAY that a quad and a single HDD can run QLPianos much better with.
I am upgrading it now. I love the Bose 290 but I bought these a while back when PLAY was in it's infancy and had too many bugs.
I guess after months of complaints they really dug in and fixed the streaming engine.
IMHO they should have never released their new engine until now.
Most DAW builders were politiely saying it was rough around the edges, which means go with another engine like VE / Giga or K2.

One thing is certain though, PTrq 3.0 has made many developers release " upgrades " and new and improved versions.
The reason I liked Giga and Kontakt Pianos is because I could go into the app and delete several of the layers that aren't necessary or noticable.
Only a sequencer can trigger those layers using custom velocity drawn curves etc.
But the never ending flow of cheap controllers we keep seeing won't trigger jack shit. Maybe 6 or 8 velocity levels period. They make bigger claims and show pretty pictures, but onstage those Dogs Don't Hunt.