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OTHER DISCUSSIONS => General Synthesis => Other Hardware/Software => Topic started by: chysn on January 23, 2021, 06:09:53 PM

Title: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: chysn on January 23, 2021, 06:09:53 PM
Can anybody recommend an acoustic piano VST that they love? Mostly, I want a multi-sampled grand piano with velocity-based zones, with an emphasis on quality over multiple pianos and features.

It needs to sit in a mix nicely with Pro 3, but that's not your problem.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: timboréale on January 23, 2021, 06:17:11 PM
Pianoteq is IMO by far the best.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: LPF83 on January 23, 2021, 06:39:04 PM
You might look at Keyscape.. this vid is not about acoustic sounds, but a blind test that turns out in favor of software, coming from a company that makes most of their money selling hardware, wins big credibility points (Jack is great).

Supposedly Keyscape has good acoustic piano as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSamnzXl5J8
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: composerjk on January 24, 2021, 03:06:58 PM
I'll second studiodc’s recommendation of Modartt’s (https://www.modartt.com/) Pianoteq (https://www.modartt.com/pianoteq), physically modeled instead of sampled. Try out the demo. The main limitation of the demo is having 8 notes disabled and needing a restart after 20 minutes.

If you're set on the sampled side, a number of folk I know like and record with the Ravenscroft 275 (https://www.vilabsaudio.com/Ravenscroft-By-VI-Labs) (same name of the piano they sampled). I played it at NAMM a while back using the Ravensworks Digital (https://ravenworksdigital.com) Studio keyboard controller (a customized Kawai VPC1). That combo was quite sweet, especially in terms of dynamic control. I keep sticking with Pianoteq instead of obtaining Ravenscroft 275, though.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: chysn on January 25, 2021, 05:24:07 PM
Thank you for these recommendations!

As I delved into VST pianos, I realized that I simply do not have the disk space for a really good sampled piano. I had no idea that Pianoteq even existed, and it (1) sounds excellent and (2) takes literally 1000 times less space than sampled pianos. So this is probably going to be the one for me.

I'll get two instrument packs with purchase, so I'll spend quite a bit of time this week evaluating which ones I want. Who am I kidding, it's going to be the Hamburg Steinway D and something else. Probably the upright pack. That "ruined" upright really takes me back to my grandma's house.

Incidentally, playing a VST piano really puts an exclamation point on the quality of the Pro 3's key bed. It's short, but it's precise.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: markwilkins on January 25, 2021, 07:53:08 PM
This is an fun topic. Some years ago, I spent a fair bit of time playing around with recording piano pieces. I am not much of a pianist, but I had a lot of fun with it. At that time I ended up buying Synthogy Ivory (wound up with their grand piano trilogy and then the Italian grand). In just the last couple of months I’ve started to start trying to record some things again. Out of curiosity, I pulled my Ivory discs off the shelf and managed to get them installed and working again after dusting off the old iLok hardware key. I was using them on a windows 7 machine back then. And now on a MacBook.

And all that pointless background is really for nothing. But after all these years, those sampled grands still sound pretty good. And some of the recordings from them still sound decent. It has gotten me interested in seeing what is the state of the art now. The Pianoteq software seems interesting. In the past (but that was years ago) the modeled pianos sounded pretty awful to me. I would imagine that it has gotten much better in recent years. 

I found what seems like a potentially useful comparison of some of these on Sweetwater:  https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/virtual-piano-shootout-sound-samples/

It is a couple years old. I suspect the sampled pianos haven’t changed much since then, but maybe the modeled ones have. It’s a fun comparison in any case.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: chysn on January 25, 2021, 08:55:12 PM
Thanks for that link, I love a good shootout!

Yes, modeling has gotten good. I would not have been able to tell that the Pianoteq was a modeled instrument by just listening to it.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: BobTheDog on January 26, 2021, 11:50:53 AM
Even if you get pianoteq keep an open mind to keyscape, it has to be the most impressive selection of sampled keyboards, combined with omnisphere it is just magical.

Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: chysn on January 26, 2021, 06:58:57 PM
Even if you get pianoteq keep an open mind to keyscape, it has to be the most impressive selection of sampled keyboards, combined with omnisphere it is just magical.

Yes, Keyscape is very well-regarded, but I've got 37GB left on my hard drive, which is basically Keyscape's minimum requirement.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: chysn on January 27, 2021, 05:57:17 PM
I wound up purchasing Pianoteq with the Steinway D and upright instrument packs. Between this, an Ableton upgrade, and Serum, I'm going to have spent a fortune on music software this year.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: Quatschmacher on January 30, 2021, 03:47:23 PM
Can anybody recommend an acoustic piano VST that they love? Mostly, I want a multi-sampled grand piano with velocity-based zones, with an emphasis on quality over multiple pianos and features.

It needs to sit in a mix nicely with Pro 3, but that's not your problem.

Synthogy Ivory II American Grand

Garritan CFX Lite.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: BobTheDog on February 09, 2021, 01:36:53 PM
Even if you get pianoteq keep an open mind to keyscape, it has to be the most impressive selection of sampled keyboards, combined with omnisphere it is just magical.

Yes, Keyscape is very well-regarded, but I've got 37GB left on my hard drive, which is basically Keyscape's minimum requirement.

You need one of these :
https://www.samsung.com/uk/memory-storage/portable-ssd/portable-ssd-t5-1tb-black-mu-pa1t0b-eu/

Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: Manbird on February 09, 2021, 02:00:47 PM
I wound up purchasing Pianoteq with the Steinway D and upright instrument packs. Between this, an Ableton upgrade, and Serum, I'm going to have spent a fortune on music software this year.

I didn't want to do it - and I ain't done it yet - but I think I'm gonna order those same two packs. It was the upright selection that really grabbed me. The Monk piano, amongst. I'm trying to re-create a few of my ancient teenage home recordings, and the Pianoteq collection had the right charm.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: chysn on February 09, 2021, 02:06:40 PM
I wound up purchasing Pianoteq with the Steinway D and upright instrument packs. Between this, an Ableton upgrade, and Serum, I'm going to have spent a fortune on music software this year.

I didn't want to do it - and I ain't done it yet - but I think I'm gonna order those same two packs. It was the upright selection that really grabbed me. The Monk piano, amongst. I'm trying to re-create a few of my ancient teenage home recordings, and the Pianoteq collection had the right charm.

I'm happy with my picks. I struggled to hear enough difference between the various grands to get two of them, but the uprights add a ton of variety.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: timboréale on February 09, 2021, 06:16:24 PM
Glad you're liking it! My Nord Stage does piano perfectly well for me, but if I didn't have it, I'd have Pianoteq too. And a good set of uprights is wonderful to complement synths - I play them as much or more than the big grands. Especially the slightly wonky ones.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: chysn on February 09, 2021, 08:13:57 PM
Even if you get pianoteq keep an open mind to keyscape, it has to be the most impressive selection of sampled keyboards, combined with omnisphere it is just magical.

Yes, Keyscape is very well-regarded, but I've got 37GB left on my hard drive, which is basically Keyscape's minimum requirement.

You need one of these :
https://www.samsung.com/uk/memory-storage/portable-ssd/portable-ssd-t5-1tb-black-mu-pa1t0b-eu/

I've got several terabyte external drives for backups. My main challenge is that I need to get organized with respect to the tens of thousands of photos in Lightroom.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: Manbird on February 19, 2021, 08:37:56 AM
I wound up purchasing Pianoteq with the Steinway D and upright instrument packs. Between this, an Ableton upgrade, and Serum, I'm going to have spent a fortune on music software this year.

I didn't want to do it - and I ain't done it yet - but I think I'm gonna order those same two packs. It was the upright selection that really grabbed me. The Monk piano, amongst. I'm trying to re-create a few of my ancient teenage home recordings, and the Pianoteq collection had the right charm.

I'm happy with my picks. I struggled to hear enough difference between the various grands to get two of them, but the uprights add a ton of variety.

Hey chysn - curious if you've checked out the CP-80, which looks like it's included amongst the free instruments that come with a purchase. 
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: chysn on February 19, 2021, 09:08:49 AM
Hey chysn - curious if you've checked out the CP-80, which looks like it's included amongst the free instruments that come with a purchase.

No! It's not in my preset list. Then again, I bought the somewhat-lowlier Stage Edition, so it might not have all the goodies.
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: timboréale on February 19, 2021, 09:15:04 AM
Hey chysn - curious if you've checked out the CP-80, which looks like it's included amongst the free instruments that come with a purchase.

No! It's not in my preset list. Then again, I bought the somewhat-lowlier Stage Edition, so it might not have all the goodies.

There's a page with free downloads for all versions here: https://www.modartt.com/free_stuff
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: chysn on February 19, 2021, 09:45:05 AM
Hey chysn - curious if you've checked out the CP-80, which looks like it's included amongst the free instruments that come with a purchase.

No! It's not in my preset list. Then again, I bought the somewhat-lowlier Stage Edition, so it might not have all the goodies.

There's a page with free downloads for all versions here: https://www.modartt.com/free_stuff

Thank you! It's always awesome to find out that I have even more pianos than I thought!
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: timboréale on February 19, 2021, 09:48:43 AM
Thank you! It's always awesome to find out that I have even more pianos than I thought!

I wish this happened with my Sequential/DSI physical synths!  ;D
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: chysn on February 19, 2021, 10:00:30 AM
Thank you! It's always awesome to find out that I have even more pianos than I thought!

I wish this happened with my Sequential/DSI physical synths!  ;D

"We're glad you're enjoying your Pro 3. Look behind your couch for your promotional Prophet 6!"
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: timboréale on February 19, 2021, 10:17:14 AM
Thank you! It's always awesome to find out that I have even more pianos than I thought!

I wish this happened with my Sequential/DSI physical synths!  ;D

"We're glad you're enjoying your Pro 3. Look behind your couch for your promotional Prophet 6!"

If this would actually happen I'd go out and buy a Pro 3 right now!
Title: Re: Acoustic Piano VST
Post by: Manbird on February 20, 2021, 08:06:18 AM
I went for it, picked up the same Pianoteq instrument packs as chysn - the Steinway D and U4 uprights. I've been on such a 80s jag lately that the bonus CP-80 was what pushed me over the finish line. Really, though, it's the upright pianos that have my heart.

When I was living in Cambridge with my then-wife, we rented the lowliest piano in the basement of Miller's Music. It was the "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree" of pianos. When my band was making our first record, the bassist/co-producer insisted I re-do all my home-recorded piano parts on the studio's Yamaha grand (with its 10cc pedigree, I was told...), to ensure our record was "posh and polished." I was happy to give it a try but I knew my home-baked tracks were keepers and I was pleased when he finally came 'round in agreement. God bless that little scrappy Silberman, with its weird metallic overtones. The Pianoteq uprights - some of them anyway - are, for me, simply the sound of "songwriting." Lovely stuff and thanks to all on the forum who've sung the Pianoteq's praises. I'd not heard of the company before.