Pianoteq as Effects Chain

Plugins
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I’ve been messing with Pinaoteq recently, new to it, and I was having a play with the audio input feature, which seems to take the incomming signal (another VST) and play it solely through the effects chain but this behaves in a curious way.

The room mic levels affect the output (or is it input? hard to tell) of these inputs to the effects chain (or from them) but not the room mic configuations or how many of them are active, so it’s not a proximity effect, the mic levels are just acting as a gain stage.

In the effects themselves, everything is only additive, so there is no ‘dry’ there is only more wet and the overall FX gain stage has no effect in negative values, it can only boost the effects signal.

So where, aside from adding a gain stage between the incomming VST and Pianoteq, is there control for how these audio inputs are being mixed or is this just a route wtih no control independent of Pianoteq’s own sounds?

I see nothing in the manual about these inputs.

I was thinking about if it would be useful and simplified to use pianoteq’s effects chain as a catch all for my other percussive (or not) based e.piano/clav/FM EP type sounds so even if I were blocking midi note on msg to pianoteq, it was the master effects chain making it a single point of adjustment for my other keyboard sounds.

What is missing from Pianoteq, unless I am just not seeing it, is while it has 5 assignable outs, they are strictly for the microphone matrix and what would be really useful is if you could assign two of those optinally as the effects return which would make outputs 1-2 dry by default.

Curious if anyone else has tried these ideas with any success?

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I haven’t played with it much at all, but from what I recall reading in the Pianoteq 8 release was that the audio input is put through the sympathetic resonance model. The sympathetic resonance, as I recall, is a function of what piano model you have selected (and whatever tweaks you make to it.)

I don’t believe it’s intended to be used for the reverb/chorus/etc. effects chain.

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The input signal is affected by the delay/reverb and compressor settings so it inadvertanly acts (sort of) like an effects bus.

I just found a thread over on the modartt forum but I am still unclear what people are using this for, to take dry recordings and add resonance to them?

One user sited the simliar approach to the effects bus:

“…Over here, in Reaper, I can apply any of the Pianoteq effects to the audio input. It looks like, as well as the sympathetic resonance, I can also use Pianoteq as a reverb unit, EQ, distortion (amp effect), etc. Of course you can turn those things off if you don’t want them.”

And another seems to have explaned what is happeing with a well illustrated mental image:

“What we hear, is Pianoteq’s internal resonances being excited by the audio being fed through it. (for a solid mental image, maybe imagine a transducer attached to the piano’s soundboard and harp, thumping audio signal into those parts… but with the super-power of cutting all source volume, leaving only what the piano sounds like… and that’s editable into the realms of the fantastic.).”

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