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Joined: Mar 2012
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OP
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Im currently using ivory 2 italian grand but im not all that impressed, it has nice sound but i just cant play really soft and load plus the bass seems to be lacking the power, I want do some good piano solo recording, what is the best piano vst I could use for sound and especially playability.
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Joined: May 2006
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From my experience, if you are serious about playability, then you have to rule out VST and either get a real piano or a good digital piano.
Some will say VST are great. Fine. I'm just telling you the results of my futile quest for good piano VSTs.
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Joined: Aug 2008
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Many on this forum like the Vintage Galaxy D VST. I think some of the pianos in Kontakt Complete are pretty good as well. Pianoteq Play is another popular one because it is fairly cheap. IMO the dynamic range is much better in a software VST verses a digital piano with a 3 or 4 layer sample.
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Joined: Jun 2011
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Some will say VST are great. Fine. I'm just telling you the results of my futile quest for good piano VSTs. Vintage D is great.
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Joined: Apr 2007
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You might start with doing some work to tweak your velocity response curve. That's free. Look at the MIDI your piano is putting out when you play super quietly and when you really pound it. Most pianos don't put out very low or high velocities, so if you map the ones your piano will put out linearly from to 0 and 127, then you will find much greater dynamics. Otherwise you will be playing with only velocities 15-105 or so instead of 0-127 like the VST creators intended.
Vintage D is great, particularly in the quiet stuff. So is Ivory and the main Galaxy, though. In my opinion, it's likely that your problem is that you are playing a Fazioli. I'm sure there's excellent workmanship in Fazioli acoustics, but I think their tone is inferior to Steinways'. At least, I haven't found the same quality in the Fazioli VST's that I've found in Steinway versions.
Last edited by gvfarns; 04/13/12 06:22 PM.
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From my experience, if you are serious about playability, then you have to rule out VST and either get a real piano or a good digital piano.
Some will say VST are great. Fine. I'm just telling you the results of my futile quest for good piano VSTs. I really think you should stop with this VST hate nonesense. Just because you couldn't get it to work doesn't mean it's not working. You either had bad hardware with high latency or you didn't try the right VST's. Or maybe you didn't find good settings for the velocity curve. I think the guy who uses his V-Piano to control VST's is prove enough that it can work well. So well apparently that the playability bonus of the V-Piano is no longer a major factor. Sorry for the rant, but this guy is asking for the best VST and all you have to say is that they all suck. So to the OP, my favorite is Ivory II Steinway. It's the only one that gives me this wonderful clear, open Steinway sound that made the Steinway acoustics so popular. Close second would be Vintage D, although I do think it lacks a bit of that magic. Synthogy will release an American Steinway this summer, wonder what that will sound like.
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Joined: Mar 2012
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Ok Thanks for the advice how would I get the best settings for velocity in ivory 2, also has anyone ever used east west pianos as have just seen some demos on there site and they sound brilliant, is it any good with playability, I am considering buying it but not sure it is worth it over ivory 2 I can get east west pianos full version for £185
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I have to agree. To say that a "good digital piano" is better than a VST piano library is like saying mud pie tastes better than Boston cream pie. Sorry. Wrong. 
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I really think you should stop with this VST hate nonesense.
Last time I checked I can post my opinions without censorship by Gigantoad. Stop nonsense rants and personal attacks. Bye.
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I have to agree. To say that a "good digital piano" is better than a VST piano library is like saying mud pie tastes better than Boston cream pie. Sorry. Wrong. Many times I tested VSTs using Yamaha P140 keyboard as a controller and found internal P140 sounds less accurate in a recording but more playable. That's my _experience based_ opinion. Your opinion is different, but you cannot possibly state I'm wrong. Different is just that - different.
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[quote=MacMacMac]
That's my _experience based_ opinion. Your opinion is different, but you cannot possibly state I'm wrong. Different is just that - different.
You are indeed entitled to post your opinions as much as anyone else. But the fact that you were not able to do what many other people have been able to do might be a reason for you to question your experience, knowledge or ability.
Macy
CVP-409GP, Garritan CFX, Vintage D, Ivory II GP's & American Concert D, Pianoteq, True Keys American D, Ravenscroft 275, Garritan Authorized Steinway, Alicia's Keys, EWQL Pianos, MainStage, iPad Pro/forScore/PageFlip Cicada, Custom Mac MIDI/Audio Software Design, Macs Everywhere
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Joined: Apr 2007
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Ok Thanks for the advice how would I get the best settings for velocity in ivory 2, also has anyone ever used east west pianos as have just seen some demos on there site and they sound brilliant, is it any good with playability, I am considering buying it but not sure it is worth it over ivory 2 I can get east west pianos full version for £185 EWQL produces some excellent demo clips, but the consensus is that it is far inferior to Ivory II. For one thing it lacks partial pedal capability. If you poll people who have used multiple VST's and find which they favor, I'm quite confident Ivory will come out on top followed by Galaxy. Though MelodialWorksMusic has been playing the extreme version of Imperfect samples and says it's even better. It's not nearly as popular so we don't have a lot of opinions on it. However, it is a possible contender for number one. EWQL is probably not. Oh, I almost forgot. There's another universally liked VST: Garritan Authorized Steinway.
Last edited by gvfarns; 04/13/12 10:38 PM.
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You are indeed entitled to post your opinions as much as anyone else. But the fact that you were not able to do what many other people have been able to do might be a reason for you to question your experience, knowledge or ability.
If I don't have needed knowledge, why bother that much about my posts and opinions? Just ignore them, let me sink in my ignorance and suffer from my mistakes. Anyway, I'm sorry to the OP. Those trolls always drive threads to their favorite places. The reason I didn't suggest any VSTs is because you used some interesting keywords in your question, like "playability" and "bass seems to be lacking the power". I gave the best answer I have.
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Joined: May 2011
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I use Ivory 2, Sampletekk's Blanck ambiant, Galaxy Vintage D and Fazzioli Imperfect samples and the internal sound of my digital piano (Kawai CA93). I switch between them given what mood I'm in, and I don't think there's one really above the others in terms of sound. Ivory with Cantabile works very good with my setup, it seems to me it achieves better latency, of course the internal library is the best in that field. But I must admit I read a lot of praise about internal sound vs VST before I purchased my first library (Ivory 2), and I was deceived in terms of sound, I thought it was different, but didn't necessarily sounded more natural or better, whatever you put behind the "better" word. And I have a pretty good soundcard (emu 0404) and an excellent headphone (sennheiser HD800). I'm just saying that for people who absolutely want to try VST thinking they will enter a new world, for me it was not the case.
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 5,894
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I have had a roller coaster ride with VSTs.
Initially I started down that road because I was not a fan of the sound from my Kawai CA63 through the keyboard speakers or through the external speakers I purchased.
You can see the VSTs, etc ... that I have invested within my signature area below.
Initially I thought I had died and gone to heaven after my first purchase of a VST (Vintage D). However, since that time I have gone through several VSTs and have now mellowed a bit to where I find that each of them has a sound that at times I find pleasing and at other times I do not.
What I have discovered is that layering them with the sound of my CA63 gives me many, many options and I find that comforting. I am currently finding that the sound I get blending the sound of the CA63 through the pianos internal speakers along with my external monitors gives me a sound I enjoy. So, I have sort of come full circle and I seldom even use the VSTs now.
It appears that my taste for the perfect sound is in a relative state of flux and there may never be a final solution. So, now I have decided that enough is enough. I have many options for a good sound and that will have to be the end of it.
Now, I can just play the piano.
P.S. More to the question of BEST vst ...
My tastes are as follows ...
Garritan Steinway ... Galaxy Vintage D ... True Pianos ... Pianoteq PRO ... Alicias Keys
Last edited by dmd; 04/14/12 11:14 AM.
Don
Kawai MP7SE, On Stage KS7350 keyboard stand, KRK Classic 5 powered monitors, SennHeiser HD 559 Headphones
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I just had a chance to play on a Kontakt 5 demo copy. Loaded the Yamaha C7 sample and the Steinway D!
The virtual pianos have very good sound quality. The file size is big, so recording is quite detailed.
However, as with computers, the hardware (CPU speed, sound card, memory, etc) plays a very important role in processing the sound. So some people may encounter a very very very slight latency amongst other issues. Other issues like the need to make adjustments to the sounds, reverb, cutoff, resonance, attack, release, etc. Tweaking the many parameters to make the piano sound nice.
On a regular DP, you play once you turn it on. There is not that many paramters to play with. But usually the sound sample is not as detailed and as dynamic as a virtual piano. Maybe due to the sample file size.
With the advances of virtual piano, maybe more and more DP players are starting to use virtual pianos, with the DPs acting merely as a keyboard controller.
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Joined: Apr 2010
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I have to agree. To say that a "good digital piano" is better than a VST piano library is like saying mud pie tastes better than Boston cream pie. Sorry. Wrong. Better yet, like saying a 64 megabyte pie tastes much like a 16 gigabyte pie. This thread is making me hungry.
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Software sample makers figured that too. 99% of consumers indeed are buying number of GB. I am that 1% that prefers quality over quantity. Quality of the job of making a set of audio samples into a playable instrument. Hence I would buy the 24MB sample set of Yamaha P140 for $1,000. I would not buy VSTs that I tried for 1/3 of that price. Here I am - going against the crowd  Saying that, I think that everyone should follow their gut and be happy. I think Ivory II is the best VST I have heard. But the OP was already not happy with it. Hence, back to the beginning of this post.
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Joined: May 2006
Posts: 206
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I have had a roller coaster ride with VSTs.
Initially I started down that road because I was not a fan of the sound from my Kawai CA63 through the keyboard speakers or through the external speakers I purchased.
You can see the VSTs, etc ... that I have invested within my signature area below.
Initially I thought I had died and gone to heaven after my first purchase of a VST (Vintage D). However, since that time I have gone through several VSTs and have now mellowed a bit to where I find that each of them has a sound that at times I find pleasing and at other times I do not.
What I have discovered is that layering them with the sound of my CA63 gives me many, many options and I find that comforting. I am currently finding that the sound I get blending the sound of the CA63 through the pianos internal speakers along with my external monitors gives me a sound I enjoy. So, I have sort of come full circle and I seldom even use the VSTs now.
It appears that my taste for the perfect sound is in a relative state of flux and there may never be a final solution. So, now I have decided that enough is enough. I have many options for a good sound and that will have to be the end of it.
Now, I can just play the piano.
P.S. More to the question of BEST vst ...
My tastes are as follows ...
Garritan Steinway ... Galaxy Vintage D ... True Pianos ... Pianoteq PRO ... Alicias Keys
That's what I was talking about. You see, if you had a VST you liked, would you buy another one? And another one? I too bought multiple VSTs before settling on hardware DP. Only then did I not bother with searching for a better sound and feel. FYI, and I did give the VSTs a very decent chance, running all of them through a $600 24/96 DA interface with 2-5ms latency.
Last edited by alekkh; 04/14/12 01:25 PM.
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Numbers of GB is certainly not the only factor, but it does have some relevance. The more GB the more different samples have been recorded the more different timbres can be achieved and the less looping will be going on.
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