After having used Ivory and Pianoteq (and still waiting for Ivory 2), I was searching for a better piano, and finally tried Alicia's keys. First I was hesitant because I only play classical music, and it seemed more like a 'pop' piano. But I was wrong it truly is a remarkable piano!

Pro's - Decent size
- Beautifull sound
- Easy to use
- Pretty decent cpu usage
-Extremely nice to play, very realistic, it has an amazing 'feel'
-Price is right

Con's - No real half-pedalling
- Reverb is decent, but not great

Have any of you guys checked it out? Any opinions on it? I recommend it.

Cheers,

Victor

I reviewed it over on the DPBSD thread.

No looping or stretching, 12 layers. The key down and pedal down sympathetic resonance are both very nice. It kind of does half-pedaling, but not very well.

For $99 USD it seems to be an excellent value.

I agree with dewster that the value is pretty good.

For some pieces, I think AK sounds excellent. Moonlight Sonata (first movement), for example, sounds superb. I'm also happy with Chopin's Nocturne in C# Minor.

Debussy's Clair de Lune and Arabesque No. 1 are in my repertoire, and I feel that AK does poorly here. Its lack of true repedalling is very apparent in few spots, and also for any fast tempo piece (like Fantasie Impromptu).

Perhaps most frustrating of all, I find it impossible to play delicate passages (pp or ppp). In Clair de Lune measures 51 onward, it sounds like I'm drilling the keys, in spite of endless tinkering with velocity curves in AK, my DAW, and my controller.

In contrast, Pianoteq lets me be as expressive as I want, but unfortunately its sound is offensive (IMNSHO).

I'm holding my breath for Ivory II. I sure hope it won't disappoint.

I tried someone elses' copy of it when it first came out. It does what it claims, captures the sound of that one specific piano very well. It's not a generic piano sound at all.

It looks like an update is out. If you've got the older version of this update fixes a few things some people complained about.

As for the reverb, you don't have to use that one. You can send it through any other software reverb plug-in you want. There seems to be no end to the number of impulse response based reverb plug-ins but I use Apple's "Space Designer".

I like AK fairly well (with latest version fixes for latency) except several notes starting with the C key one octave above middle C, and particularly that C key, decay faster than the notes just below (compare the C key to the B key next to it). That bothers me a lot on many things I play so I don't use it much anymore.

For the same price, I like the Garritan Authorized Steinway (Basic version - which can be downloaded) much better. I also have the much more expensive EWQL Pianos, which are finally playable (on my Mac) without memory management problems using the latest upgrade of their Play 2 engine. However, I still prefer the sound of the much less expensive Garritan for most of my playing.

I'm holding my breath for Ivory 2, the biggest complain from me about ivory is the pedaling which isn't realistic now at all (it actually teaches me bad technique, because I can hold the pedal down the whole time and get away with it). I also own Pianoteq, but I really really wished they improved the sound on it. Realistically wise its the best by far, but the sound just isn't as convincing as the sampled piano's. Alicia's Keys does weird if you play some notes without pedal, then release the notes, and quickly apply the pedal. Its like the notes are coming back, which is extremely annoying. Thats why I turn off the 'half-pedal' simulation. My piano has a full continuous sustain pedal, but alicia's keys doesn't do any half-pedalling, I tried it extensively. I guess I just have to have some more patience for Ivory, and play Alicia's Keys without half-pedalling. The rest of it really sounds good to me, and I indeed use another reverb (but most of the time I don't use a reverb, my piano has an acoustic soundboard, so my room is actual reverb, much more realistic).

I also tried Native Instruments Akoust Piano today, hoping to find a good Steinway, but it really sucked to be honest. Its got nothing on realism against Alicia's Keys. Cold, sterile and almost brassy. I am interest in Sampletekk TBO, it sounds good, but I read you need some kind of script for sympathetic resonance, this sounds difficult (plus it omits alot of the samples, which kind of seems beating the point of a large sample library). Anyone have some experience with this?

I love playing pianissimo with Alicia's Keys, and just listen to all the detail. This is what I've always been missing in sampled pianos.

I found Alicia Keys a lovely timbre, but does not have the dynamics of others (Ivory and PMI Emperor being my favorites)
I am also waiting for Ivory 2 and expect it to be a winner. Not sure why the delay is though :-(

They should have added an dynamics controller indeed.

I do want to add that I bought Garritan Steinway today (basic) and for playing through my piano speakers (the CA111 has a soundboard speaker which I love), this blows the alicia's keys away. Its definetly more playable in the dynamic range, and also AK just sound's muffled compared to it (but this could be very well because the resemble 2 different piano's). For the same price and application I would recommend garritan. I'm gonna test Galaxy II's Bosendorfer today too.

edit: Got the galaxy II and am very very impressed. This is definetly my nr. 1 piano for normal use. My fingers are edgy to get the Vintage D as well, but buying 2 piano's for today should be enough .

You might want to take a look at these as well Victor. The samples sound great and the price is right. This guy has some youtube videos and it seems really interesting.
AcousticsampleS Kawai EX-Pro

Their Steinway samples sound decent and are even cheaper.
Academic Grand

Jason

5 pedal up layers? Does that mean it only has 5 velocity layer's?

I checked the demo's and for the price its decent, but I feel the Garritan and Galaxy II offer alot more realistic sound.

I really wonder what was on the producers' minds when AK's was created.

Who needs a software piano where the f to fff range is completely missing ? At least the potential buyer should be made aware of the fact that this piano is only suitable for soft playing (at which it does a good job). It fills a niche but is completely unusable as an everyday software piano.

It seems now like you are agreeing with me in your post, while I said exactly the opposite. So just to be clear, I think AK is really nice, better then Akoustik Piano from native instruments. However I would recommend to pay a little extra and get one of the Galaxy II piano's.