CyberGene plays this piece very well and he was also trying hard to phrase the melody in the right hands with different colors. The right hand themes appear several times with different harmonics so a better interpretation is to play those themes in different color (or timbre). The left hands must be very soft, almost a lazy sound.
This Chopin prelude could be a beginner piece, but could also be a difficult piece under the hands of professional pianists. Classical music is all about expression, phrasing and direction of the melody. I've been a classical pianist for more than 10 years and I just found something important is missing in Garritan CFX. Then followed by Pianoteq Bechstein, Garritan CFX and Pianoteq Steinway D. However, after I used Pianoteq exclusively for a month and I listened to these recordings by CyberGene for several times, I would say N1X is clearly the best among all of them!. Didn't like any DP's internal samples or Pianoteq because the timbre just feels thin. A year ago, Garritan was my go to piano and I liked the deep and resonant sound from the rich reverb. I've been using Garritan CFX all the time for one year until I switched to Pianoteq last month, and there is no going back. I must say my opinion varied a lot from last year. I finally had time to go through all the recordings from this post.
It sounds the most natural and realistic to my ear.
All 4 recordings are high quality and sound lovely but I do have a slight preference for the binaural N1X sound. I listened to all 4 recordings twice using my Sennheiser HD 6XX’s and Dragonfly Red. Not a giant leap, but not a small step either But the Bechstein makes up for it and is a promising step towards the hope modeled pianos can actually compete with sampled ones. It epitomizes everything I used to hate about Pianoteq. The others have slight discrepancies, would need voicing here and there, maybe brightening some notes, darkening others, changing velocity not just globally but in regions or even per key, etc. Maybe that can also be achieved with a note by note editing in Pianoteq but as of now the N1X expectedly is the only one which feels like a real piano, and an excellent one at that, when played. It shows nothing about its playability that puts it miles ahead of the other three. I went through the files now with my headphones and while I like the N1X best, I can also understand why people may not be impressed. MacMacMac has a chance to decide whether he wants an N1X or a Novus. CyberGene runs this same test on the Novus.Ĥ. I didn't know whether or not I'd like a CFX. GARRITAN CFX (Note: You said these were all wav files, but this one is an aiff file. Gorgeous.īut when I say high notes keep in mind that this piece goes no higher than the #5 octave. The upper notes were clean and beautiful, though. The lower notes (no lower than A3 or B3 IIRC) were boxy. Since this is binaural I'll have to try it again with headphones. Much better than the Steinway, but still drab. I smell a defamation suit against Modartt. Seems that bell like aftertaste is too prominent.ĭrab. Just listened to a few other Pianoteq renditions and they are all similar in sound. Interesting, although I think that the Pianoteq needs more bass in the EQ or maybe just the mids seem too loud. What would be cool would be an acoustic recording of the same by your hand.
Pianoteq is a trial version, so a few black keys at the end are silent
For the Garritan and the N1X I normalized the wav files in Oceanaudio on my Mac to -1dB. In Pianoteq when exporting I selected high quality and normalization. Pianoteq 6.5 - Bechstein DG ("Prelude" preset)Īll are WAV files. Pianoteq 6.5 - Steinway D ("Prelude" preset) I was in a hurry and couldn't show my best, and also my daughter went in the middle of recording the last one (Bechstein DG) and I was barely able to hear how I will finish it but anyway
I didn't have time to look for it again and I prefer always playing the pianos live to have the aural feedback than use a MIDI file, so created a quick comparison today with N1X vs Garritan CFX Full and Pianoteq 6.5 (released yesterday). There was a very old thread in the past where I recorded the Chopin Prelude in Em with various VST-s and I also posted the MIDI file for people to compare.