Heard Ivory Fazioli, but not used it. It seems somewhere on the middle of the spectrum a bit towards accurate and bright. I would call it a more realistic sound than Imperfect, but without the body or weight of Imperfect. The Ivory pianos I used sounded impressive in mixes, but not enough body or weight to sell me on them in solo use. Imperfect would probably be better for singer songwriter tunes and dark moody songs while Ivory would work best with accurate brighter songs. YMMV
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Audio Addict: Aaron Brown Sound http://www.aaronbrownsound.com
"The best gear in the world can't turn an awful song into a great song. It can however turn an awful song into a fun listening experience."
I know I'm repeating myself here, but all the love for Emotional Piano confuses me. Could anyone who's had a vast experience with real pianos tell me what they think of this thing. I've tried it time and time again and always end up feeling the same. Unplayable. Must be missing something, I just wanna turn that damn compressor off ...
I think they are all to one degree or another...frustrating.
The piano is one instrument we all have a real affinity towards..and one which we all have vast knowledge and experience.
This does not mean we are concert performers but that having sat behind the real deal and felt the huge range and subtle variants possible.. we know what it can be like.
i have:
8dio
piano in blue
ivory 2
pianoteq
kurzweil
i would say my personal choice here are piano in blue and ivory2.
i like them all...and find fault in them ALL too!
they all behave differently and all require a lot of thought as regards performance and setting.
it's an expensive obsession!
Scruffydog, totally agree. NO piano will be a silver bullet. The same can be said of acoustic pianos IMO. Expensive obsession indeed!!
Each instrument has it's uses and unique character. It's even worse with sample libraries as you have an instrument with a signature sound given ANOTHER layer of character based on who records them. So now we have 10 versions of a Steinway that are all different (not that all Steinways sound the same either... haha).
Btw, I have a feeling that the noise people heard in PIB was recorded with the tape setting switched on. The hiss on those samples is absurd even at the lowest noise setting IMO. What could this tape noise possibly be good for? It isn't the lofi kind of mellotron sound either, it's just hiss...
I listened to EW just now, but have never played it. Here's my thoughts after comparing tracks. It sounds apples and oranges to Imperfect Samples IMO.
East West Pianos - Bright (The brightest of them all), lacking a lot of intimacy/body/warmth in comparison, sounds specifically made for dense orchestral pieces. I'd only use this to simulate a staged piano in a concert setting, but it seems like it would be effective for this. I immediately thought of some old classical recordings I have that would fit this. Particularly bright tunes and fast passages.
Now, I've never played it so take this with a grain of salt. This is based on about 15 demos I downloaded from their website.
Hi Aaron,
The EW Pianos has 4 pianos, one of them sounds very intimate, and you can pick the one you need for different music (that is why the demos sound bright, because most of them are bright). Please take a look to this demo I made with Bosendorfer EW Piano (I am not a pianist and my skills sucks, but anyway)
I know I'm repeating myself here, but all the love for Emotional Piano confuses me. Could anyone who's had a vast experience with real pianos tell me what they think of this thing. I've tried it time and time again and always end up feeling the same. Unplayable. Must be missing something, I just wanna turn that damn compressor off ...
You need to disable the compressors, EQs and FX that are part of all presets. Then, EM becomes quite playable and natural-sounding.
...just like most real pianos, pianos, you mean? The only perfect piano I've played is the Steinway D in Rainbow Studios, Oslo - while it was still 'perfect'. Keith Jarrett used to say about that particular instrument that it makes you a better piano player (-ish). Too bad good pianos don't remain good forever.
I certainly prefer acoustic pianos over sampled pianos - but there are more risks involved in relying on acoustic pianos.
I find it surprising that in all these threads about the best virtual pianos, there are a few people like myself who chime in and say the Vienna Imperial is the shit, but it goes unanswered. Now I know it ain't cheap. But if those of you who own 5 or 6 or 7 other sample sets and still haven't found the holy grail just add up how much you've spent looking for it, well you probably could have gone the VSL route and ended the search a long time ago, AND saved some dough. Just my 2 cents of course.
I own Garritan Steinway, HalionSonic, all Kontakt Pianos, Piano in Blue, Goliath pianos and the Galaxy Vintage D.
PiB sucks for me, the velocity response is never right, and worse, there is a noticeable lag. Not much of a problem for atmospheric spaced-out notes, but anything more involved and it is pretty unusable. Cinesamples Piano in Blue
Garritan Steinway is okay, nice tone, but a little too civilized, it doesn't do fff. But it works well for softer stuff. GARRITAN STEINWAY BASIC
I don't use Kontakt's or Goliath's pianos at all, because I'll always grab HalionSonic's Natural Grand or Galaxy Vintage D first. Those two are the only ones that can hang IMO. Steinberg HalionSonic EASTWEST QUANTUM LEAP GOLIATH
It seems that the Vienna Imperial is the way to go ... from all the samples I've heard.
Too bad it didn't come out before I ended up with Ivory. But if it ends up being worth it
I will go for the VSL.
Waiting for Ivory's American Steinway D & just got the Fazioli ... and I'll compare & see.
With all the drum samples/VSTs out there I ended up with Mixosaurus which, at the time, was the largest and the cymbals were the most realistic and happened to be expensive.
Yet people out there still talk about the other programs and end up buying 3 mediocre programs and don't bother even trying Mixosaurus .... or even Ocean Way.
So, I agree with Feck ...
Buy the best one & end the "search & spend" routine ...
It pays off in the long run.
Forgive this question, but anybody know why Vienna doesn't use the iLok for their authorization key dongle?
I'd rather not have a separate USB device for each piece of software that requires it, and it'd be nice to be able to use my iLok for a bunch of stuff at the same time.
Forgive this question, but anybody know why Vienna doesn't use the iLok for their authorization key dongle?
I'd rather not have a separate USB device for each piece of software that requires it, and it'd be nice to be able to use my iLok for a bunch of stuff at the same time.
They've always used it. And they haven't ever been cracked, so it is a good move for them to keep on it I guess.
PiB sucks for me, the velocity response is never right, and worse, there is a noticeable lag. Not much of a problem for atmospheric spaced-out notes, but anything more involved and it is pretty unusable. Cinesamples Piano in Blue
What do you know, someone on the Keyboard Magazine forum did the homework:
Quote:
Upon reviewing the samples I found between 1,000 and 1,200 samples of silence at the start of each note (probably looked at 100 examples). According to my calc, at 48K sample rate, that would be between 20 and 25ms. I don't know if there's an attack sample or hammer strike built into the instrument (right now Kontakt is out of commission for me so I can't look into it).
For responsiveness and user interface, I love the physical modelled Pianoteq. But the timbre is not the most natural sounding.
You know, I've not tried many myself, but two years ago I compared them in detail on the basis of features. I recall that the piano by Vienna had more samples per key than the other libraries I checked out. And I know the new Garritan Steinway (whenever it comes out) will be meticulously sampled, as I used to work with the lead developer at Garritan.
I upgraded to PiB v2 but haven't really used it. Gave it a cursory testdrive and didn't notice much difference, at least nothing that made me wanna check it out more.
One of these days I'll spend some qt with it and holla back.
I upgraded to PiB v2 but haven't really used it. Gave it a cursory testdrive and didn't notice much difference, at least nothing that made me wanna check it out more.
One of these days I'll spend some qt with it and holla back.
I upgraded to PiB v2 but haven't really used it. Gave it a cursory testdrive and didn't notice much difference, at least nothing that made me wanna check it out more.
One of these days I'll spend some qt with it and holla back.
I find it surprising that in all these threads about the best virtual pianos, there are a few people like myself who chime in and say the Vienna Imperial is the shit, but it goes unanswered. Now I know it ain't cheap. But if those of you who own 5 or 6 or 7 other sample sets and still haven't found the holy grail just add up how much you've spent looking for it, well you probably could have gone the VSL route and ended the search a long time ago, AND saved some dough. Just my 2 cents of course.
Why would you want to do that? They fixed the tape sat samples and added a feature. It's not like you're losing anything by upgrading to v2.
PiB is still one of my favorite Piano VIs. After the last price dump to 199$ I might finally get the BDMO, though.
Well they've done changes to the velocity and sound. I might have compensated for this in some projects where I use the original version. Might screw it up enough to give me extra work. Time is precious
And of course there's always a chance you'll like the original tape samples better ...
But paranoia aside, I love the effort they've made.
I'm wondering if there are any members here with the VSL Bosendorfer Imperial? I'd like to know your opinion on how much noise there is in the lowest velocity samples. Opinions from those with the VSL Vienna Imperial will be great too!
(Lusting for the vienna imperial but I have doubts my puny laptop will be able to support it! Plus it costs a bomb! )
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