Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards How to connect Ivory II?

Yeah, the iLok sucks. I don't use any iLok pianos, which include all the Ivory pianos. Besides costing extra money, I find it offensive that they require us to buy an expensive and inconvenient copy-protection mechanism. There are a number of audio software products that require the iLok. Apparently piracy is really big in the audio realm or something.

As an alternative, you can get Galaxy. You can buy Galaxy Vintage D, which is a very much beloved piano here. The Galaxy suite itself is pretty good too, or you can buy the pianos individually for like $150 or less each (download only). Is it comparable to Ivory? Yes, though Ivory is newer (I think) and probably has an edge in the reviews. At least, Ivory appears to have a larger advertising budget and larger file sizes, for whatever those things are worth.

Personally I just use Vintage D. It seems that everyone who buys it comes back and reports that they love it without qualification, so I'm always confident recommending it. In a recent thread we had a piece played on Vintage D and American D (among others) and to me and others Vintage D sounded better. American D is definitely cutting edge technologically (and brand new) but whether it's actually a better piano has yet to be established. Vintage D is already kind of a classic.

PC's do often have inferior latency characteristics and are often benefited by the addition of a USB interface simply because it will come with a better driver. More powerful PC's and Macs sometimes have good enough built-in drivers and hardware to have good latency when running directly from the board.

However it should be remembered that external audio interfaces also often feature superior DAC and other hardware. Of particular note is that they may have better headphone amplifiers, which can make a difference when listening with high-end, high-impedance headphones. They also have convenient things like analog volume control, good ADC, MIDI-IN, etc.

But I guess I do think that it's better to start with direct connections and only get an external interface if you find that you need one or if you suffer from an acute case of gear acquisition syndrome. My impression is that a large proportion of forum members do use external interfaces, partially because we love the gear.

There are no latency issues with a Mac, although you might be able to create one using external USB audio interfaces and 3rd party written drivers.



The original diagram I commented on showed an analog audio output from an external sound card fed to the analog input of an A/V receiver. It is extremely unlikely that a cheap external USB audio card is going to have better DAC/analog output circuitry than a decent A/V receiver, and of course good A/V receivers will have extremely good DAC/analog output circuits. The same can be said about any other part of the audio chain including a headphone output, etc. Of course one can spend thousands of dollars on external audio equipment in the form of external DACs, A/V preamps, etc.



I expect a large proportion of forum members also use PCs, which it seems explains the reason for using external interfaces. I'm not immune to the love of gear. On the contrary, (simply to illustrate the point and not to brag) I have 10's of thousands of dollars of equipment and speakers for hi-fi and home theater purposes, and a $20K+ Audio Precision Dual Domain Audio Analyzer for test measurement purposes. But I still don't use an external USB audio interface on any of my Macs for anything.

Since the OP says above that he primarily uses headphones, I believe he will certainly want an external DAC/amplifier of some kind. Either using the MBP's digital output as @Macy suggests if he wants to connect his headphones to a nearby AV receiver, or monitoring via a good external USB interface, will give much better results than headphone monitoring via the Mac's native analog output, IMO.

B.

Mac internal soundcard is better than most PC's so there may be less need to get an external solution. However, saying that there wouldn't be any benefits in doing so is a bit misleading. Most every proffessional I've encountered uses an external interface like a RME fireface or similiar. Better connectivity, possibly less latency and certainly better sound quality. How much a cheap USB card would increase quality is a valid question though.

For home use and just for playing the piano with its limited dynamic range, Mac internal sound is probably enough. Also worth mentioning that PC desktop users can also buy an internal soundcard that usually has even less latency and similiar sound quality unless they are cheaply made and not shielded enough (more prone to picking up interference noise from other components in the PC).

@gvfarns: Does the Galaxy Vintage D have any lag or popping issues when using the sustaining pedal. I've read this is an issue with Galaxy and not Ivory II.

Also, does the Galaxy player software tend to peg the cpu?

I run Vintage D in Kontakt on an old, lame laptop. No problems with latency nor with CPU utilization.

The first release of Vintage D has some odd behaviors. These were fixed in an update over a year ago.

Thanks Mac. Since I have a Macbook Pro, I should have no issues going USB to USB and bypassing all of the midi stuff? I plan to record sound and not as interested in midi (yet).

USB-to-USB is as simple as it gets. You should be good to go.

Vintage D is awesome. However one issue, not a big one cause I don't use them that much, but the pushing or letting go of the sustain pedal while holding a note or chord will kill the pads. Not sure why.

However, vintage D comes with the old vintage D instrument too, and it works fine.

Thanks but what are pads?

If anyone knows, is the difference between Vintage D and Ivory II American Concert D negligible? That's what it sounds like. I just want to stay away from iLok if possible. And if Vintage D performs well (no logging or cpu spikes), which it sounds like it does, then probably Ivory II doesn't have any edge over it.

The above being said, I use the sustaining pedal for nearly everything I play. Most songs I play have the sustaining pedal engaged the entire time. Will that be an issue with Vintage D?

Pads in Vintage D are just a layering of strings or voices behind the piano sound. Most likely you won't use them if you don't know what they are. I hardly do either.

If you're looking for a great piano sound Vintage D is awesome. Your sustain pedal should work just fine.

I wouldn't say the difference between Vintage D and Ivory II is negligible. They are quite different in the way they sound and sometimes the way they perform. But you can't unambiguously say which is better. In that sense, the difference in quality between them could be negligible. I know people who prefer Ivory and I know many people who prefer Vintage D.

To answer your other questions, Vintage D is not particularly prone to popping or clicking. It also uses very little CPU and hard drive speed (it has very good streaming technology). I use it on a very old, weak, underclocked computer and I never have performance issues of any kind. There is also no issue with the sustain on Vintage D. It works great and doesn't particularly tax your computer. There's an indicator for how much CPU and hard drive it is using and it almost never gets above the lowest levels.

Some people have complained that the sustain kicks in when the pedal is pushed pretty far down, while it kicks in higher for Ivory (or the other way around) but that's a very small detail and varies a lot between acoustic pianos. I don't consider it a deficiency.

Pads are a type of synthesized sound--a separate instrument from the piano. Most software pianos do not come with pads but for whatever reason, the Vintage D people threw some in. I don't know anyone besides the poster who mentioned it who has ever used the Vintage D pads (I have never used them myself) as they are not part of the piano.

@gvfarns: Excellent post. Thank you. I'm going with Vintage D.

There seems to be two places I can purchase. One is CD and the other is download. Do you know if there is any difference? I'll get the download if there isn't any difference.

CD @ $135 (free shipping): http://www.floridamusicco.com/proddetail~prod~galaxy_vintage_d.htm

Download @ $138.17: http://www.soundsondemand.com/detail2.asp/best_service_galaxy_pianos/piano_keyb/vintage_d/en/1

I bought from the Florida music co (which was selling through amazon at the time). There is no difference between the download and CD version. If you do the download, just make sure you save the file that you download somewhere safe in case you want to reinstall at a later point. In either case be sure to keep the serial number somewhere you can get to it later.

Vintage D is good stuff. Basically everyone likes it. There may be pianos some people like even better, but I have yet to run across someone who regretted Vintage D.

I never mention the quality of the Mac's "internal sound card" (PC users like to refer to the Mac's DAC [digital to analog converter] and analog output circuitry as an "internal sound card"). I recommended using the standard digital audio output of a Mac.

You can get the digital audio out the Mac using either the direct digital audio interface (standard S/PDIF) or using USB or Firewire or Thunderbolt. Firewire is excellent for streaming digital audio and high quality Firewire audio interfaces are available (such as an Apogee Ensemble at about $2K or a higher priced Apogee Symphony I/O - the RME Firewire interface you mentioned is around the same $2K price).

Whether the DAC/audio circuitry in a $2K A/V receiver or preamp is better than a $2K Apogee is debatable. Both are certainly "good enough" and audiophile-like debates about such matters are a waste of time (at least a waste of my time). But an Apogee audio interface offers many other features that make it more desirable for professional applications.

However, feeding the direct S/PDIF digital audio directly from the Mac to a good quality A/V receiver instead of using a cheap USB 2.0 audio interface is a preferable solution for most users that already own a good digital A/V receiver or preamp, since its less expensive, avoids USB issues (real or imagined), avoids possible 3rd party software drivers, and likely has superior DACs and analog circuitry.

I also bought the Vintage D from Florida Music with no problems.

Wowser. Two THOUSAND dollars? If your equipment is at that level I'd say you would definitely want to let it do the digital-to-analog conversion.

I think I and others in this thread were still thinking along the lines of whether to do DAC on the computer motherboard or in a $150 USB interface. If cost scales with quality, neither are on the same page as what you are talking about.

I put together a few diagrams that illustrate the possible ways to connect a piano, a PC running piano libraries, and a sound system.
Basic connection using an internal sound card

Basic connection using an external sound card

Adding a mixer to allow use of both the piano libraries and the native piano sounds

Adding equalizers, four speakers instead of two, and a DVD player for CD play-along

Macy, Perhaps you could add one showing a digital audio connection between a PC/Mac and the sound system?

The RME Fireface 800 audio interface was mentioned by Gigantoad as having superior sound quality to the Mac's built-in DAC system. It retail's for $1999. I didn't bring up or suggest using any such thing. I simply mentioned the Apogee as a similar firewire product in the same $2K price range.

What I suggested was using the Mac's DIGITAL audio output to a "good" A/V receiver, which can be had for MUCH less than that, or costs nothing if you already have one around. But if you are going to suggest a $2000 Firewire interface than it is only fair to compare that against a similar priced A/V receiver or digital A/V preamp for sound quality. As I said, I won't get into a sound quality discussion here about components in that price range. That's when the audiophile discussions start to kick in, and they aren't appropriate for this forum (in my opinion).

Again, my original response was to suggest using the owners A/V Receiver with DIGITAL output from a Mac. NO external sound card. NO built-in to the Mac DAC. No cost to a user that already has an A/V Receiver. For most users with a decent A/V Receiver that will likely provide better D/A conversion and better audio output circuits than those in a cheap (few hundred dollars) external audio interface (or the built-into the Mac DAC/analog audio - which I did NOT recommend). And I'm talking about Macs, which is what the original poster of this thread has. I don't concern myself with what PC users do or don't do.