Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards which virtual piano is best today?

Hi,
I want to free myself from never-ending chase for hardware digital keyboard with good piano sounds so I thought about virtual instruments. All digital world is going toward virtualization and clouds computing anyway so era for great controllers has began. Since I'm new to software instruments my question is which is the best virtual piano today?
Probably I'll be using it with studiologic VMK-161 and/or numa nero 88 keys.
thanks

Everyone likes different ones. I like Ivory but there are lots I haven't tried.

I own Galaxy Vintage D and Garritan Steinway Basic, I also tried Pianoteq 3.6 (Trial Version). I like Galaxy Vintage D the most. I couldn't get a usable sound with pianoteq out of the box (too much reverb and distortion) may be with some tweaking it will sound better.

Steinway Basic is a complete waste of money. I tried it and was NOT moved to buy the full version. $99 down the toilet.

I get no distortion in Pianoteq. Mess around with the limiter, output vol, dynamic range.

Pianoteq is closest to the real thing in feel and response. So if you're playing classical music, it's the best. If you're playing rock music in a band, then there are probably punchier sample libraries on the cheap.

BTW, the Numa Nero is notoriously buggy and difficult to service. Why not get a digital piano that can serve as a MIDI controller AND comes with internal sounds you can use on the road without a computer?

After our experience with the SL880, I would certainly never consider buying another Fatar product ever again. The plastic support posts inside the case were disintegrating, and the UI was way too cryptic for such a simple product. The guy we sold it to complained about a limited range of MIDI velocities coming from the port to his SW piano, which I found much mention of in on-line fora. So HW & SW both sucked kind of hard.


That's what I would suggest too.

Wow, I didn't know controller can be buggy...what's there to be buggy about? LOL Regarding digital piano I have RD-700GX so at home I can use it but on the road etc I was thinking about 61 keys hammer action studiologic vmk which from some piano players has very good reviews as for the touch and feel. It costs ony 600$ not a over 1000$ as any digital pianno, right?

I Totally agree, very "Basic".

I will check Pianoteq's parameter one more time.

BTW why ivory requires like 28GB of hard drive and trial piannoteq only 28MB??? I guess there are no trial ivory.

It's all subjective and personal, so I would never say anyone is right or wrong. I only use my virtual pianos for live solo piano playing, so I have no interest in how they work in combination with other virtual instruments, or with composing/arranging software, or whether their flaws can be fixed after recording them. Those things are important to some people.

For my money I like Ivory II the best, then Garritan Steinway.

I'd rate Alicia's Keys very low (which got a lot publicity when it came out).

I'd put EWQL Pianos at the bottom (of the one's I own) for sound and playability.

I don't have Galaxy D. I guess I should get it and try it out.

Pianoteq??? Like I said, it's subjective and personal. I don't even think it sounds like a piano, so I don't care how it plays. Many people agree with me, obviously some don't. Interesting that the person above that likes Pianoteq hates the Garritan Steinway. So there you go ...

BTW, I don't know what "very basic" means as a criticism? If it sounds like a piano, and plays like a piano, then it needs ZERO features, i.e. very basic. If it doesn't doesn't sound like a piano, then all the features in the world isn't going to fix that.

wow, is pianoteq that bad really? pianno sounds is probably the most subjective sound of all sounds LOL

Like I said (again) it's subjective. Download the demo and try it yourself. That's the nice thing about Pianoteq, since it's modeled rather than sampled it's very small so you can download a demo. You don't need to (and shouldn't) rely on anyone's opinion about Pianoteq.

Believe me, I was very hard (but polite) on the Pianoteq folks because I thought the tone was off. That's why I tried Garratan. But Pianoteq feels and responds more like a real piano. And I finally did find a sound in Pianoteq that I like, so for me it's the best. The video in my signature was recorded with Pianoteq. I think it sounds like a piano.

But like I said, for rock music or in an amplified band situation, there are probably sample libraries that provide more punch.

BTW, check out Akai's MIDI controller keyboards. Their 61-key MPK61 has weighted action. I tried the MPK88 once and was rather impressed.

ah, pianoteq is modeled something like roland supernatural thing? I had very bad experience with roland supernatural EP's
in my RD-700GX and later in RD-700NX which I have tried also...
The price of ivory I guess is not that much bigger then piannoteq.

I have had Pianoteq, True Pianos, and Ivory for about 2 years. I also play on a Yamaha C6 acoustic grand every day.

With Ivory 1, Ivory was superior in sound, but was not as lively to play as Pianoteq. True Pianos was somewhere in the middle.

With Ivory 2, the German D (Steinway D) and Italian Grand (Fazioli) with their sympathetic resonance and other improvements, are about as close sounding and playing to the real thing as I can Imagine. Ivory 2 puts both Pianoteq and True Pianos to shame.

In fact I am getting a MIDI out system put on my Grand so I can record with Ivory, as it is superior to any acoustic recording I can come up with.

Hello

I would suggest trying the TruePianos vst. They have a free demo version.

The "classical" option in the Diamond module is great. I used that for live performance with my laptop until recently when I discovered the pianos in the Korg Kronos. Wow - they are amazing. But TruePianos was my favorite vst. Very small program and loads very fast. Sounds WAY better than PianoTeq in my opinion.......

Best of luck in your search.....

Cheers.....

Pianoteq is completely modeled, except for a few negligible sounds like key mechanical noise. That's why it's such a small program. Roland's SN sounds are closer to Ivory 2 in the sense that they're both sample-based, with some DSP/modeling done for sympathetic resonance. I think the RD-700NX sounds pretty damn good on its own, and the action interacts with the sound as near the real thing as I've tried.

I'm on a Mac, so unfortunately I can't test-drive Ivory 2 for free. But if you're on Windows, you can try it for free on their site. Since you can demo Pianoteq for free, you can decide for yourself.

Mantis:

Check your mail box.

Glenn

Someone from Pianoteq showed up here a while back claiming everything is modeled, though some sounds are recordings of the results of said modeling to reduce CPU load.


I would bet money that the decays in Roland SN are modeled, with the attacks sampled.

And if you look at the parameters, the sympathetic resonance is clearly based on reverb / dispersion and pitch / phase shift, so I'm not sure I'd call that modeling.

I am on Mac too but I just test-drove Ivory using http://www.try-sound.com/

The Latency is little annoying but overall you get an idea about the sound, however I did this after placing the order for Ivory 2 Grand Pianos Actually Galaxy Vintage D got me addicted to the high quality samples.

^Ah, cool. I was going by Ivory's website, which still says that try-sound is for Windows only. I'mma check it out...

Alright, I tried Ivory II. I'm impressed! It fails the last part of dewster's silent replay test, but other than that it's pretty close in feel and response. I'd still pick Pianoteq, but I wouldn't feel resentful if I had to use Ivory II.