# Guess the REAL piano?



## Auddict (May 17, 2022)

A little challenge for fun! Can you guess which piano is the real one?


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## jim1949 (May 17, 2022)

IMHO, I guess it's piano2. piano1 is something GM midi-based. piano4 sounds like an upright. piano3 sounds interestingly vivid, but I prefer piano2.


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## jon wayne (May 17, 2022)

I say 3 is real.


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## d.healey (May 17, 2022)

2


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## timbit2006 (May 17, 2022)

Make a poll! It will be interesting.
One of them very clearly has noise from some ad/da conversion or something so I'm going to assume that is the real piano recording. I'm not going to say which one though. One of the examples is also noticably less "virtuoistic" than the others.


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## Batrawi (May 17, 2022)

1


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## PhJ (May 17, 2022)

3


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## liquidlino (May 17, 2022)

3 is my favourite but I'm thinking 4 is the real piano, the performance seems more natural somehow. I bet it's 1 though as a trick!


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## Trash Panda (May 17, 2022)

Probably 1. Sounds like there's a constant hiss unless my ears are playing tricks on me.


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## Rob (May 17, 2022)

I guess someone didn't notice that from left to right pianos are numbered 4-3-2-1
1 could be windows' soundfont  2 sounds fake to me... 3 sounds good but with all that room info it's hard to tell, 4 sounds good too, though it's playing only at pp (why?) so it's also hard to tell, I suspend my verdict


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## FlyingAndi (May 17, 2022)

Piano 3


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## Penthagram (May 17, 2022)

4 and 3 are the winners to my ears :D those two sound really beautiful for different reasons. That close perspective in the 4 is fantastic, so intimate. but also in the 3 all that space make for some extra beauty on the nocturne  If any of this two are your Dorian Marko piano. Consider me very impressed.


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## tack (May 17, 2022)

#1 is obviously terrible. If it's real, it's a joke (or something like a prepared piano)
#2 what's with that A at 0:25? Even if it was legitimately played that much harder, it feels out of place, like overly compressed, but I don't think it's standard dynamics compression because the C on the right hand sounds fine.
#3 I think this one is the real piano. Or the least objectionable performance and sound of the 4
#4 has the classic repedal/half-pedal bug in sampled pianos where notes abruptly vanish (0:05)


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## CGR (May 17, 2022)

Hmmm. Only listening on laptop speakers but I think:
#2 – is the real piano (despite that slamming A note at 0:25 as mentioned by @tack )
#3 – the new DMP Steinway? . . . sounds good
#4 – a modelled piano?
#1 – don't call us, we'll call you . . .


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## Virtuoso (May 17, 2022)

From the way the notes are randomly wandering around the stereo image with no regard for the instrument, I'm guessing piano4 is a Spitfire Audio masterpiece. 

I like piano3 but it's almost too perfect, so I'm guessing piano2 with the bum note is the real one.

piano1 - weird dynamics, mono sound, high noise floor. Sounds a bit like a Korg M1 but could be older.


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## monochrome (May 17, 2022)

they're all fake 😌


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## fan455 (May 17, 2022)

2. And 3 sounds almost identical to the Soundcloud demo?


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## José Herring (May 17, 2022)

monochrome said:


> they're all fake 😌


I like that answer. 

My guess is that number 3 is real. Certainly the most compelling sound and performance. I didn't care for the other pianos.


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## NoamL (May 17, 2022)

piano4 is the one I'd most probably use in a mockup.

I guess 3 is the one most likely to be real? There's just something about the way the notes interact and overlap... it sounds like they're actually affecting each other instead of playing back separately... if that makes any sense...


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## liquidlino (May 17, 2022)

José Herring said:


> I like that answer.
> 
> My guess is that number 3 is real. Certainly the most compelling sound and performance. I didn't care for the other pianos.


I sure hope this challenge doesn't backfire and everyone says they hate the sound of the new piano VI! If no3 isn't real, I really want to know what piano it is, and what reverb is being used (or if it's all room samples), I really really like no3.


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## Living Fossil (May 17, 2022)

tbh, i don't like any of them.

4 (the first example) sounds quite muffled. For people who like this sound, it may work, for me it doesn't. Also, the way how some notes decay/vanish is quite strange. If it's the real one, i wonder how this effect was done.

3 To my ear this sounds like a recording in which different mic signals weren't time alligned or mixed together in a completely convincing way. The attack portion reaches my ear a fraction too early and is somehow detached from the room sound. So, it could be a recorded piano or a sampled one. In any case not a sound I'm fond of. Because it's not the way a non-recorded piano sounds.

2 if this is a real piano, its strings are living beings who join a monarchy. they all inhabit the same place, with the exception of their king who happens to be called A. He has his own house which he leaves occasionally, e.g. like @tack mentioned around 25s.

1 I never followed the history of nintendo game boys. However, if one of them existed in the late 80ies and had a 6 bit recording option with some very strange processing happening at the AD stage, this could be the recording of a real digital piano. That's a great sound for people who hate pianos.


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## blaggins (May 17, 2022)

I listened on my phone but my guess is 2. It feels like either someone intentionally played a VST super heavy and uneven or what I think is more likely... the recording wasn't cleaned up much, which makes me think it's a live performance. Sounds like the mics were real close to that hammer action though.


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## dorianmarko (May 18, 2022)

timbit2006 said:


> Make a poll! It will be interesting.
> One of them very clearly has noise from some ad/da conversion or something so I'm going to assume that is the real piano recording. I'm not going to say which one though. One of the examples is also noticably less "virtuoistic" than the others.


Careful using the noise to identify the real one, just because there is noise doesn’t mean it wasn’t added to trip you up


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## muddyblue (May 18, 2022)

I guess it's piano2


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## musicsoftwaredeals (May 18, 2022)

Piano 2 is the real one I think


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## Evans (May 18, 2022)

Auddict said:


> Can you guess which piano is the real one?


No, I cannot.


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## Piotrek K. (May 18, 2022)

Batrawi said:


> 1


I agree, the 1st one is a trap. It's real piano recorded with a shitty phone. I vote for no 1 ;D


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## Auddict (May 18, 2022)

Piotrek K. said:


> I agree, the 1st one is a trap. It's real piano recorded with a shitty phone. I vote for no 1 ;D


Didn't expect this 😂😂😂 can confirm nothing was intentionally made to sound worse as a "trick"... but still, brilliant hahahah


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## adaagaard (May 18, 2022)

My guess is "piano1"


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## wahey73 (May 18, 2022)

Don't know why, but one is for sure the upcoming "Dorian Marko Piano"


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## timbit2006 (May 18, 2022)

This is going to get awkward when it turns out these are the 4 voices from Auddicts new piano lol.

This is also posted in Commercial Advertisements rather than Sample Talk so one is very clearly going to be Auddicts new piano and this whole thread was actually an ad for it. I could be wrong though. Personally I just wish Auddict would fix Angel Strings' broken output routing before releasing another product.


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## lux (May 18, 2022)

i like 3 best so guess that's the real one. 2 has that 0.27 moment when it gets possessed by my old Yamaha XG spirit, which makes it at least scary.


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## Auddict (May 18, 2022)

timbit2006 said:


> This is going to get awkward when it turns out these are the 4 voices from Auddicts new piano lol.
> 
> This is also posted in Commercial Advertisements rather than Sample Talk so one is very clearly going to be Auddicts new piano and this whole thread was actually an ad for it. I could be wrong though. Personally I just wish Auddict would fix Angel Strings' broken output routing before releasing another product.


Can confirm they are not the four voices from our new piano 

And yup - we posted it in Sample Talk and it was moved by someone to the commercial announcements.

RE: Angel Strings - We've patched it! Drop me a PM if you don't already have the working version


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## timbit2006 (May 18, 2022)

Auddict said:


> Can confirm they are not the four voices from our new piano
> 
> And yup - we posted it in Sample Talk and it was moved by someone to the commercial announcements.
> 
> RE:* Angel Strings - We've patched it! Drop me a PM if you don't already have the working version*


Oh damn that's some good news! I'm really glad to hear! I think you should post on an announcement thread about the update, it really is a nice sounding library and that issue killed its uses for me!

Honestly that's a very strange moderator choice, as you can see by my assumption. Thanks for clearing this up now. I think we're all extremely curious to see the results here


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## Real Mirage (May 18, 2022)

I'm a piano major and, these are interesting and nice but none of them sounds real to me, haha.
Maybe 3 is a real piano, but not likely hmmm...

1 sounds like a harpsichord-epiano combo
2 sounds better but! That left hand at 00:25 really, really scared me. No pianist in real life would play like that.
3 is nice, phrasing is good, but the reverb is too much. 4 sounds like using the left pedal (una corda) all the time, I think that's just wrong for Chopin, and it's not likely to be played by a real pianist. Also, all these tracks have one thing in common, which is the slight dislocation at the beginning of each bar.


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## Real Mirage (May 18, 2022)

To find out if 1 is a real piano I just went to check out these videos:

(played on a fortepiano)


(old recording but probably on a grand piano)

1 is still not quite convincing to me, haha.


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## Noeticus (May 18, 2022)

There is no piano.


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## Pedro Camacho (May 18, 2022)

I think 3 is the real one because I can hear the high strings ringing without interruption. 4 is also very nice!


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## Auddict (May 18, 2022)

Pedro Camacho said:


> I think 3 is the real one because I can hear the high strings ringing without interruption. 4 is also very nice!


Good observation!


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## Auddict (May 21, 2022)

Any more guesses before we reveal the answer? 😉


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## mscp (May 21, 2022)

They're all s...buy a decent piano. hahaha.
Just kidding. I am listening them with my iPhone...they all sound alright (Except the far-right one, which sounds like butt scratchings), though the "performance" in some of them are just, ugh. Don't release the answer yet...I want to hear them on proper speakers.


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## HM_Music (May 21, 2022)

2


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## VanSou (May 21, 2022)

what is this comparison, they sound completely different =D 
for me it's Piano3 that could be real or maybe piano1, but recorded with a potato in 1923.. Piano 4 sounds really bad, what's that? =D


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## PeterN (May 21, 2022)

Number 2


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## Michel Simons (May 21, 2022)

5


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## PaulieDC (May 21, 2022)

No one actually asked if the real piano was recorded professionally... #1, the horrid one on the right, is mono, hissy, and sounds like the OP pulled out a 1998 camcorder and recorded that piece on a spinet in the church basement, just to throw us all off the track. 

I say the bad one on the right.

Who just heard John Fogerty singing "There's a bad moon on th..."


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## dorianmarko (May 22, 2022)

PaulieDC said:


> No one actually asked if the real piano was recorded professionally... #1, the horrid one on the right, is mono, hissy, and sounds like the OP pulled out a 1998 camcorder and recorded that piece on a spinet in the church basement, just to throw us all off the track.
> 
> I say the bad one on the right.
> 
> Who just heard John Fogerty singing "There's a bad moon on th..."


None of them were made to sound bad intentionally in any way, I’ll just say that


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## PaulieDC (May 22, 2022)

dorianmarko said:


> None of them were made to sound bad intentionally in any way, I’ll just say that


Got it. Rats, thought I figured out the secret… 😅


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## Auddict (May 23, 2022)

OK so, as a few of you guessed... there is no real piano  
The pianos are as follows:

Piano 1: Terrible generic MIDI sound 😂 (I guess some of you thought this was a trick and went for the most awful one - good idea but nope)

Piano 2: Undisclosed sample library (also sampled by Dorian)

Piano 3: The upcoming new Dorian Marko Piano instrument 😎

Piano 4: Other sample library

Seems that no.3 won and our terrible risk paid off! and no.2 did pretty good! (Remember the numbers uploaded backwards somehow so the second attachment is piano 3 and third attachment is piano 2

Thanks for playing along!


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## fan455 (May 28, 2022)

I love timbre of DMP but...maybe it sounds a bit too dark (or lack of brillance) compared to the real thing? I would prefer this Chopin Nocturne in Eb major recording. Is it possible you render a brighter version of this piece? Thanks!


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## Auddict (May 28, 2022)

fan455 said:


> I love timbre of DMP but...maybe it sounds a bit too dark (or lack of brillance) compared to the real thing? I would prefer this Chopin Nocturne in Eb major recording. Is it possible you render a brighter version of this piece? Thanks!



You could probably get very close to this sound with just a little EQ  Sounds very close character-wise in terms of timbre


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## creativeforge (Jul 2, 2022)

Auddict said:


> OK so, as a few of you guessed... there is no real piano
> The pianos are as follows:
> 
> Piano 1: Terrible generic MIDI sound 😂 (I guess some of you thought this was a trick and went for the most awful one - good idea but nope)
> ...



#3 at 15 seconds could have fooled me with the damper/string short noise. 

I don't usually assume that these surveys questions would be deceptive ("There are NO real pianos" but "can you identify the REAL piano?"). 

Well done though... another piano library that seems to stand on its own in solo mode.


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## scoplunk (Jul 2, 2022)

Auddict said:


> OK so, as a few of you guessed... there is no real piano


Yes, but I don't like this approach. It appears that you're actually afraid of putting a real piano up against your samples. Fixing it so that your new sampled piano sounds better than other selected sample pianos doesn't really tell us how realistic it is compared to a real piano and that was sort of the premise of the entire thread.


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## Vik (Jul 2, 2022)

I'm surprised that 2 is a sample library with the note at 0:15 where one of the strings are out of tune.


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