Hi, I just bought my first Zynthian, it’s version 5.1. I’ve been reading the forum and the wiki, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find answers to my questions.
I primarily bought it for realistic piano and organ sounds. I installed the latest Oram build and found a beautifully sounding organ, but unfortunately no piano. I was wondering if someone could help me out by letting me know if there’s a piano sound among the factory files? Maybe something downloadable? Or if there are much higher-quality options, can they be purchased? Since I’m new to this, how do I install something if I download it? Do I just copy it to the card? And if I buy something, how should I install it on the Zynthian? Thank you in advance.
Hi @csokisbugyi! A warm welcome to the community and thanks for purchasing an official kit. You will find the user guide useful in guiding you in your jouney through sound.
Oram catagorises its engines so, when you add an instrument chain, you may switch between the various catagories of instrument with the third encoder knob from the top. The third group is “Pianos” where you will find a selection of piano options. (There are also good piano options in the sampler group.)
The best piano option is Pianoteq which is a non-free instrument. There is a trial version included with zynthian to allow you to assess it. The full version can be purchased from Mosartt and you can install and license it via webconf. I highly recommend this for realistic piano sounds. The biggest challenge will be to chose the instrument packs to include with your purchase.
There are two particularly good organ instruments in the organ category. setBfree is a tone wheel emulation, similar to Hammond B3. Aeolus is a pipe organ emulator, similar to organs found in large churches and cathederals.
Thank you the fast answer, I’m happy too. I’ve been looking at the complete kit for a long time, I really liked it, but I could only buy it now, and I think it’s perfect that it’s now with the new, more powerful Pi5! I will read the User Guide, I hope I will understand it better.
Thank you for the Pianoteq recommendation. I looked into it, and there are a few piano brands whose ‘sounds’ interest me. I have the following questions about it. For example, if I purchase the Bösendorfer 170, will I be able to use its functions without any limitations on the Zynthian 5.1? (I’m comparing this to using it on a PC.)
My other question is that I saw there’s also Organteq with ultra-beautiful organ sounds (of course, customized). In a 2019 forum post, I read that Organteq didn’t work with Zynthian (Pi3). My question is, would it now be functional with the V5.1? In other words, is it worth buying, or is it still only usable with a PC?
Thank you in advance for your reply.
Have a great day,
Joska
Pianoteq is fully integrated with zynthian including installation and licensing of any version. If you purchase pianoteq you will be provided a licence key that you can use on any three machines, including zynthian. Be aware that removing a license from a machine will prohibit adding it back to the same machine so don’t try to circumvent the licence rules.
Pianoteq Stage version provides two instruments. There have been many discussions in the forum (search for them) on which to choose and we have each deliberated on the decision for some time. A general opinion has been that one of the electric piano packs is beneficial which I found surprising because I would have expected to be able to find a good sampled or synthesised epiano (there are some good ones in our collection) but having tried pianoteq epiano I eas blown away by its authenticity. (I immediately felt like playing Supertramp!) To make my decision, I did blind listening tests to narrow the selection and compare with other piano engines. This eliminated many choices but I was still left with a difficult choice. I also considered the free collection you get with your purchase which full some of the gaps.
Organteq has not been integrated into zynthian. There hasn’t been sufficient interest in doing so. Zynthian already has two excellent organ emulators, set free (tone wheel) and Aeolus (pipe) which most users find sufficient.
Thank you for your quick reply. I will continue testing the built-in Pipe organ and try to tune it to sound like the Organteq: Historical: Two-Manual Baroque III (Rötha) from the demo on the Modartt website. To me, its sound is the most beautiful! Besides that, I still have a lot to learn about all of this, the settings, etc., etc.
Have a great day!
And thanks again.
Joska
Aeolus can provide different quantity of manuals plus pedals. We have limited this to a maximum of 3 manuals plus optional pedals. (This was a pragmatic choice based on our historical implementation method but we think it is sufficient. It could be changed if users request it.) There is also a choice of temperament which is where I feel it excels in comparison with many other pipe organ engines. (Organteq excepted.) There is a choice of 13 temperaments, some based on various organs around the world. This is where much of the customisation occurs. If you are trying to emulate a particular organ, you will want to know how its pipes are tuned, to what temperament (division between notes / octaves). If you want to play in tune with the band, equal temperament is likely your choice but others give a more natural / realistic organ experience. Then you need to adjust the stops to match the sound you require. Note that you can save and load presets which include the stops but IIRC not the temperament or quantity of manuals. Each manual (mostly) controls one division which is presented as a chain but the overal audio is a single stereo mix with one audio mixer channel. Presets can act on the selected chain’s manual (local presets) or on all manuals (general presets). There are also parameters for audio effects like reverb, etc. These Audio parameter controls are global, i.e. you can change the same parameter in any chain. The Stops parameters control the stops for the selected chain (division) only. There are options to connect a manual to multiple divisions (like on a real pipe organ).
So, Aeolus provides a lot of configuration during initialisation and subsequently during live performance / soundscaping. I suspect our friends at Modartt have spent more time working on their modelling algorithms and may provide more accurate modelling than Aeolus (which I think mostly synthesises sounds and effects) but for my money, Aeolus is sufficient. We have some pipe organ players in the community that have endorsed Aeolus as being good enough for their purpose which is nice to hear.
To be fair to Organteq, I haven’t tried it in any real test so can’t compare with Aeolus. Nor am I an organist so my opinion may hold less weight than others’. I am not sure whether Organteq is available for our platform. (I have a vague memory of discussing it and think it wasn’t (yet) available.)
[Edit] Organteq is available for ARM64 so technically it could be integrated but there is currently insufficient demand or effort available to do the work.
Welcome to zynthianland! I hope you enjoy a lot your V5.1 as a keyboardist!
Yes. You should try the Salamander Piano. To do so, please follow this steps:
Create a synth chain with “sampler/linuxsampler”
Choose bank “pianos” and then, Salamander Grand Piano v3
This is a quite decent sampled piano that could be enough for some users. Of course, FMPOV it can’t compete in playability and dynamics with Pianoteq, but depending of your needs, it could be enough.
In the other hand, if you are looking for a decent Rhodes Mark-I, you should try “MDA ePiano”.
It sounds really nice, but it doesn’t manage sound volume very well and it’s easy to get clipped sound. So you have to adjust the gain / add a compressor to avoid clipping when playing hard or many notes.
Thank you for your recommendation, I will try it out. Initially, to get back into playing the keyboard, it will definitely be enough. But from what I’ve read on the forums, people are absolutely blown away by Pianoteq. So later on (probably early next year), I would also like to purchase a professional package. For now, I haven’t yet figured out how to do that. They mentioned in the forum that they would create a guide for it in the wiki, but that post was from 2018. Google hasn’t provided anything useful yet either. For now, I just wanted to inform myself to see how complicated the installation might be. Thank you for your quick and always helpful attitude! This is a great community!
If you plan to use it for playing, the STAGE license is more than enough, and i don’t think it’s expensive at all for the quality you get.
The PRO and STANDARD licenses are thought for advanced users wanting to customize the models and sound in a detailed way , but most “players” doesn’t need this level of configuration.
Thank you very much for the recommendation! Then I will go for the Stage version. If possible, could you provide a link on how to do it in the simplest way? Thanks!
Pianoteq Stage is fine for me. My biggest problem was choosing just two instrument packs. (I chose Steinway Model B and Electric Pianos.) The price difference between STAGE and STANDARD is more than the extra instrument pack so you will want the extra features it offers which, as @jofemodo says, are really aimed at sound designers or professional recording studios rather than gigging musicians.
Students and teachers may be able to get a discount. See Modartt academic discount for details. This can be a real benefit for people in education.
If you are on a budget you can also check in the moddart forum or on knobcloud for a 2nd hand pianoteq license.
I bought Pianoteq Pro on knobcloud for 200€.
Moddart allows to resale a purchased licence once for a 29€ transfer fee. After that, it becomes flagged “Not fo Resale” and it cannot be transferred to other users. Still it happens that people sell their user id and passwords.
In case you intend to go for a 2nd hand license, ask if such licence is flagged as such in order to avoid any possible trouble.
Please avoid any practice that contravenes user licenses. Modartt are our good friends and produce a fantasitc product at a fair price. Their licensing is quite generous but they need to make sufficient income to fund support and ongoing development.
I was not aware of the resale license permission - it is interesting. I spent a long time deciding whether the product was worth buying. (I am not a pianist.) I eventually decided it was and am pleased with the purchase.
There are also some free piano samples (and lots of other samples) here: https://www.pianobook.co.uk/
that can be loaded into sfizz, Linuxsampler, etc on the zynthian.
It’s a deep rabbit hole over there, bring a flashlight and a sandwich…
At the end of the day, I second Pianoteq. It is amazing, and not just the pianos. The Rhodes and Clavinet are also killer, and the harp is awesome too – really all of it, though I haven’t sprung for everything yet…
I will read the User Guide, I hope I will understand it better. 
Besides that, I still have a lot to learn about all of this, the settings, etc., etc. 