Hi Zynthian community, I’ve had a Zynthian for about a week and I’m in LOVE. Thanks to the creator and community for bringing this amazing tool to life.
I have been a Pianoteq user for a couple of years. It’s wonderful. When I saw that Zynthian could play Pianoteq, I snapped one up. The results have been terrific.
The FX on Pianoteq are great and I’d like to be able to adjust them on the Zynthian. Since they were made for Pianoteq, they naturally work better for Pianoteq instruments than the FX on the Zynthian. I don’t see a way to adjust or select the type of/amount of amp or reverb for instance from the Zynthian. Am I missing something?
I can do it through the Pianoteq interface on a Mac with the Zynthian connected but can I adjust them through the Zynthian interface?
I searched the discourse and couldn’t find an answer. Thank you for your advice.
Hey Jude, welcome to the community. You are right, Zynthian and Pianoteq are great but the standard access to Pianoteq from Zynthain does not expose many parameters. You can access the Pianoteq GUI via x-forwarding or more recently via VNC which may offer a solution. Another option is to load Pianoteq LV2. You need to enable this from webconf Software->LC2-Plugins. The LV2 presentation of Pianoteq provides access to many of its parameters from Zynthian controllers. This may provide you with the interface you need.
Will these directly unavialable parameters still be possible to map to an external midicontroller somehow? Making realtime adjustments without connecting to a computer possible?
Pianoteq maps its parameters to MIDI controllers by default. If you open the Pianoteq GUI you can change this mapping. Unfortunately this mapping does not persist. You could submit a feature request for such an enhancement.
I am able to adjust parameters through the x-forwarding GUI but I’d like to be able to adjust parameters from the Zynthian when it is not connected to a computer.
I enabled Pianoteq as an LV2 plugin but when I try to assign it to a layer, the Zynthian will not move past the MIDI channel select page. Pianoteq won’t load as an LV2. I wonder if the problem is that the LV2 is Pianoteq 6 while my licensed version on Zynthian is Pianoteq 7.1. Is there a way to load Pianoteq 7 as an LV2?
I am able to control pianoteq effects as well as headlessly switching the instruments with MIDI CC messages. The secret is in the settings of Pianoteq were you have to choose full implementation of midi controls, make necessary changes and then set it as defaut. Works great for me. Switching the pianos is also very fast. Almost everything you want can be controlled from the controllers (can be Touch OSC too).
Hi @dhrupadiya, it sounds like you are able to get the results I’m looking for. I tried to follow your instructions but I’m losing the MIDI assignments when I reload Pianoteq.
I used the VNC viewer in the Zynthian Configuration window to open the Pianoteq GUI. I set the Global MIDI Mapping to “full featured”. I attempted to save my configurations to “full featured” and received a message: “cannot overwrite built-in MIDI mappings”. So I saved the configurations under a new name and set that mapping to default. When I restart Pianoteq, the Global MIDI mapping resets to “Zynthian 0” despite my new mapping still being displayed as “default”. So I tried saving my configurations to “Zynthian 0” and setting that as default. When I restart Pianoteq, the Global MIDI Mapping says “Zynthian 0” and my assignments are not saved. What am I missing? Thanks!
@dhrupadiya I was able to accomplish your results using the LV2 and I’m pretty excited! Thank you for your instructions. @riban@jofemodo thank you for all the work and support on the Zynthian. I am very close to getting my Pianoteq midi rig working and I am very excited!
Hey @Jude ! I am glad you find it useful. In my case, the mappings I make in GUI of Pianoteq via VNC. And all the settings survive during the reboot. So please have a look at your settings and maybe try to save a snapshot of your preset along with mappings. Hope it might work.
I use both. Now (thank s to our amazing community) we can create our own custom presets in the engines, including Pianoteq. For instance I’ve managed to make an instruments with custom temperament for Turkish music project, with custom Velocity curve for specific midi keyboard and all the mappings.
LV2 version I use for experiments during live sessions, because of more controls in zynthian gui. Very convenient in combination with touch screen.
Zynthian is a “dream come true” synth for those like us, who can appreciate all the unique sides of it. Unprecedented from my point of view ! And great people like @jofemodo, @riban and more to be mentioned make it this dream become real !
Regarding the Pianoteq — it is the best thing you can use as midi piano on stage so far. All sampled instruments (including VST CFX, Fazioli etc.) can’t compete with it: nuances, colors, natural and precise response to touch and completely controlled dynamics (I was struggling a lot with not comfortable dynamics response).
The last, but not the least — custom timbres, created or randomly generated are outstanding. When it is hard to say if it is piano, celeste, tampura, hangdrum or some pad — love this !
! I am glad you find it useful. In my case, the mappings I make in GUI of Pianoteq via VNC. And all the settings survive during the reboot. So please have a look at your settings and maybe try to save a snapshot of your preset along with mappings. Hope it might work.