2023 Winner in the KVR Favorite Keyboard VI category
Five-time winner, Modartt Pianoteq was again voted Favorite Keyboard Virtual Instrument. Pianoteq's unique physical modeling engine enables a level of expressiveness and responsiveness that is second to none. From the delicate resonance of soft pianissimos to the thunderous power of fortissimos, Pianoteq excels in reproducing the subtleties of a live piano performance. They also have a huge selection of instrument packs that span just about anything with strings that can be struck, plucked, or hammered, so there are plenty of things to be morphed with their powerful feature of the same name.
2022 Winner in the KVR Favorite Keyboard VI category
Speaking of Physical modeling and four-time winners, Modartt Pianoteq was again voted Favorite Keyboard Virtual Instrument. As far as we know their Steinways are still the only physically modeled pianos approved by Steinway & Sons themselves. They also have a huge selection of instrument packs that span just about anything with strings that can be struck, plucked, or hammered, so there are plenty of things to be morphed with their powerful feature of the same name. Because it's physically modeled it takes up very little space on a hard drive and loads immediately.
2021 Winner in the KVR Favorite Keyboard VI category
Speaking of Physical modeling and three-time winners, Modartt Pianoteq was again voted Favorite Keyboard Virtual Instrument. As far as we know their Steinway are the only physically modeled pianos approved by Steinway & Sons themselves. They also have a huge selection of instrument packs that span just about anything with strings that can be struck, plucked, or hammered, so there are plenty of things to be morphed with their powerful feature of the same name.
2021 Professional Audio - Pianoteq 7.10
Pianoteq übertrifft mit dem Update auf Version 7 mal wieder alle Erwartungen. Das neue physikalische Modell klingt deutlich anders und tatsächlich dreidimensionaler als die vorherige Version und auch die neuen Funktionen Layering und Morphing bieten, so wie die bereits enthaltenen Funktionen, ausufernde Möglichkeiten.
2020 Winner in the KVR Favorite Keyboard VI category
Speaking of Physical modeling, Modartt Pianoteq was again voted Favorite Keyboard Virtual Instrument, and Pianoteq is another product to be upgraded since voting ended. The new version adds a morphing feature, so one can create their own otherworldly instruments. They also have a huge selection of instrument packs that span just about anything with strings that can be struck, plucked, or hammered, so there are plenty of things to be morphed.
2020 Professional Audio - Pianoteq 6.70
In etwa 25 Jahren meines Musikerdaseins hat mich noch nie ein Instrument so sehr inspiriert wie die Modelling Software Pianoteq von Modartt. Pianoteq ist das authentischste Piano-Instrument das ich je gehört habe. Durch den Zugriff auf alle nur denkbaren physikalischen Parameter, größtenteils per Note, ist es zudem ein fast unerschöpflicher Akustik-Synthesizer.
2019 Winner in the KVR Favorite Keyboard VI category
Pianoteq was selected by KVR Readers as the winner in the KVR Favorite Keyboard Virtual Instrument category.
2018 Platinum Award for Best Software Instrument at MusicTech Gear Of The Year
As good as ever, light as ever, great sounding as ever, Pianoteq 6 is the slickest way to get great piano sound and a whole lot more.
2015 Platinum Award for Best Software Instrument at MusicTech Gear Of The Year
Still the best way to get authentic, belieavable acoustic piano on your computer while using hardly any space, powerful and playable.
2014 MusicTech award for Best Software Instrument
Modartt’s Pianoteq Pro 4.5 is an absolutely fantastic software instrument, combining an intuitive interface with high quality, innovative mathematical approach to generating incredible piano sounds...
2013 MusicTech Innovation Award
Pianoteq is a remarkable instrument and its pianos and indeed the various add-on optional sounds are breathtakingly realistic. It’s all the more amazing that this is achieved with such a tiny footprint and a relatively low CPU hit
2012 Keyboard Magazine Keybuy Award
A must-have for any serious keyboardist who owns a computer. You’ll want the Rock Collection add-ons, too.
2012 Linux Format Top Stuff
We loved the new convolution reverb, which adds a great sense of space to the sound when played alone. [...] If you wear a tuxedo and hide your Linux box under the stage your audience won't suspect that you're not playing the real thing.
2012 MusicTech Innovation Award
A powerful and excellent piano instrument with a wealth of sound tweaking features.
Pianoteq seems impossibly compact for such a big-sounding instrument,
but it successfully brings crystal-clear piano sounds and an astonishing
level of sound tweaking to more or less any system. If you don't need
the detailed note and sound-editing tools, the midrange version may be
worth considering. But to get the most out of it as a sound-design tool
rather than just an instrument, those tools are worth having access to.
All in all, this is a remarkable instrument.
2011 EM Editors Choice Award for Most Innovative Product
Modartt Pianoteq got our attention as soon as it was released in 2007, and V. 2 won the 2008 Editors’ Choice Award in this category. In addition to a host of GUI refinements; improvements in the physical models of many of the instruments; new effects and an improved reverb; player-perspective and surround miking; and a bunch of new free and premium add-on instruments (electric piano, clavinet, mallet instruments, and more), the new Pro version offers note-by-note editing of most of the physical model’s parameters.
In the extreme, you can use note-by-note editing to create your own John Cage–style prepared piano, and that’s a great deal of fun. But the technique has much subtler uses; for example, slightly altering the hardness of the hammers as you move up and down the keyboard, an effect you couldn’t quite replicate with filters. If click-dragging individual settings for multiple parameters for 105 keys (the expanded size of the Pianoteq keyboard) sounds daunting, there are many shortcuts to create smooth parameter transitions across any area of the keyboard. (For details, see the review in the April 2010 issue, available at emusician.com.) Note-by-note editing is what really sets Pro apart from previous versions of Pianoteq and is what earned it this year’s award.
2010 Future Music Platinum Award
If you don't love Pianoteq for its tiny file size (roughly 21MB), serious flexibility, ease of use or low CPU impact, love it for its sound. Pianoteq is one of the most responsive, beautiful and delicately modelled pianos you'll play. It can be as big and bold or soft and subtle as you need it to be, even before you dive in to any mic repositioning or hammer adjustments.
2010 Apfelwahn Music Redaktionstipp
Die Ladezeiten kann man nicht als solche bezeichnen. Es gibt keine! Das ist ein komisches Gefühl. Gerade beim wechseln der Sounds aber unbezahlbar, wenn es um den schnellen Vergleich geht. Das kenne ich sonst nur von Hardware. Für die Live-Situation also ein Riesen-Vorteil.Und ja: Es klingt nach Piano. Sogar überraschend gut!"
2009 Musicianslife Redaktionstipp
Das Update auf die Version 3 von Pianoteq hat sich richtig gelohnt, weil es eben nicht nur ein Versionsupdate hinter dem Punkt ist, sondern eine komplette Überarbeitung des Plug-ins, die alte Tugenden pflegt und neue, nützliche Features implementiert.
Die Möglichkeit im Sound Recording Mode den räumlichen Eindruck über die bis zu fünf virtuellen Mikrofone selbst zu gestalten ist ein sehr praxisnahes Feature, kann man doch so effizient den Raumeindruck festlegen, ohne auf zusätzliche Reverb-Effekte zurückgreifen zu müssen. Die Alternative, hier selbst über die Mikrofonpositionen und deren Verhältnis zueinander Räumlichkeit zu generieren ist in diesem Fall die effektivere, weil vom Klang homogener.
2008 Mac|Life Editors' Choice
Outstanding sonic quality. Decent processor load and memory footprint. Terrific value. Universal binary.
This is one of the most enticing and useful software instruments in existence The range of sounds that emanates from this instrument is quite stunning, and eminently useful in a musical context. It’s clear that the folks who created this marvel did so out of a deep love for the piano, and this is really what makes Pianoteq shine.
2008 EM Editors Choice Award for Most Innovative Product
It's been over a decade since Yamaha introduced the VL1, the first commercially viable physical-modeling synth, and the technology has held great promise in becoming the be-all of synthesis methods. This year's Most Innovative Product, Modartt's Pianoteq 2, is a giant step forward toward realizing that dream. Pianoteq 2 is the most advanced physically modeled grand piano available today, and it just might be the Holy Grail for anyone needing high-quality piano sounds in a compact and efficient package.
Altering the impedance, cutoff, and Q factor of your piano's soundboard and modifying the hardness and spectral characteristics of a piano's hammers are definitely not features you'll find in your sampler or sample player. Nor will many sampled pianos let you use the variety of alternate tunings you can employ now that Pianoteq supports the Scala microtuning system. And, unlike a piano sample library, Pianoteq requires a mere 15 MB of drive space to do its magic. A well-designed and intuitive interface makes adjusting the program's parameters a breeze, and the new AU, RTAS, and native Receptor support will make it even easier to use Pianoteq on a track.
MODARTT is doing a lot to support its users, including sponsoring a composition contest, maintaining an active users forum, and, best of all, regularly releasing free updates and add-ons to registered owners. So whether you're playing keys in a Top 40 band, earning a living reading charts in a studio, or simply eager to explore a vast range of new keyboard-based sonic landscapes in your music, you'll find Pianoteq 2 a perfect tool for the job.
2008 Remix Technology Award for Most Innovative Software
Among the youngbloods, Remix — always a champion of the little guy — honors software companies, whose small employee headcounts don't stop them from doing big things for musicians and producers.
While many piano sampling libraries are now running in the realm of 8 GB of hard-drive space, Modartt took on the task of modeling beautiful-sounding acoustic pianos in a virtual instrument that takes just a dozen or so megabytes on your system.
French Research Ministry innovation award 2007
L'objectif du projet est de développer et valoriser un concept nouveau : le piano virtuel. Il s'agit d'un ensemble de techniques innovantes permettant de simuler un piano acoustique en temps réel sur un processeur, en donnant accès à des paramètres tels que le cordage, la réponse de la table d'harmonie ou la résonance de l'ensemble des cordes. Le piano virtuel permet de simuler tout piano acoustique et d'explorer de nouvelles sonorités en considérant des valeurs difficilement atteignables sur un piano réel. Le logiciel Pianoteq, premier produit issu de ce projet, a été salué unanimement comme une innovation majeure par la presse internationale spécialisée et les musiciens. Le projet d'entreprise appuie sa stratégie sur l'approche de marchés diversifiés en proposant une gamme de produits innovants, hors d'atteinte des techniques de simulation classiques, qui tiendra une place importante dans la musique du futur.
Audiofanzine Innovation Award 2007
Grâce à la technologie « True Modelling » mise au point par l’éditeur français, celui-ci réussit la performance d’offrir à notre avis l’un des meilleurs sons de piano virtuel du marché et de le présenter contenu dans une jolie petite boîte de 8 mégas tout mouillé ! Inutile de dire qu’à ce poids-là (et également à ce prix-là, 249 euros, ça va encore !), c’est une performance qui, si elle a déjà fait beaucoup parler d’elle, risque en plus de remettre les pianistiques pendules VST à l’heure en matière de qualité : réalisme du toucher, sensibilité sur toute l’échelle dynamique, précision du trait harmonique, foisonnement des résonances sympathiques, puissance polyphonique et sobriété en besoin de ressources CPU, profondeur des niveaux d’édition… Il ne vous reste vraiment plus qu’à télécharger la démo et à craquer comme tout le monde !
A la lueur de ce test, AudioFanzine décerne au Pianoteq 2 de Modartt l'Award de l'innovation.
2007 M.A.O. Magazine Award for Best Product
La qualité sonore de Pianoteq est indiscutable, c’est un véritable bonheur, surtout sur les résonances, la brillance est également bien rendue, elle peut être dosée en fonction des goûts de chacun comme si vous demandiez à votre accordeur de piquer les feutres pour adoucir le son de votre piano [...] Pianoteq possède une sonorité qui lui est propre contrairement aux nombreux pianos virtuels faisant appels aux samples et qui n’ont donc par définition aucune identité sonore.
2006 Innovation Competition prize of Région Midi-Pyrénées
Modartt's Philippe Guillaume and Julien Pommier obtain the "Grand Prix Michel Benech" - First Prize all categories - for their "Virtual Piano" project at the 2006 Innovation Competition organized by the Région Midi-Pyrénées.
2006 Computer Music Innovation Award
Far from being a multi-gigabyte behemoth, at just 8MB, their new piano plug-in is a mere slip of a thing. Born in a research lab, Pianoteq has transcended its mathematical origins and emerged as a playable and involving instrument that’s sure to get better in the future.