Hi everyone - the upcoming Kawai VPC1 makes me wonder if I should finally delve into piano software. A little background: So far I've enjoyed having a stage piano for traveling, the odd performance, and night practice, and as some of you know, for the time being I find great satisfaction in my little Nord Electro 3HP for this purpose. However the action is not exactly close to the real thing and therefore I'll most probably add the VPC1 as a basis for night practice at home. And if it is around, why not try a virtual piano with it as well. Therefore, here is my question:

Of all the piano sounds in the Nord sound library I keep coming back to the Bösendorfer Imperial Grand (and in real grands a large Bösendorfer and/or Shigeru Kawai would probably be my ideal soundwise as well). Which of of the virtual piano libraries has the best Bösendorfer, or something close to that - what do you think? Think of a smooth singing treble, warm midrange, and growling to thundering bass, without sharpness in the tone... If you can compare to the Nord Imperial Grand, please feel free to comment as well! PS: My laptop is an Apple MacBook Pro.

Thanks,
m

Usually when people compare Bosendorfers, the Galaxy Bosendorfer is the one with the standout praise.

I personally didn't care for it, but I haven't liked any Bosendorfer digital sound yet.

I regularly use (and like) the Galaxy Vienna Grand.

i have the Galaxy Vienna too - didn't like it at first but it really grew on me after I played with the tone. It has a ton of dynamics to it.

I agree with gvfarns. Bosendorfer pianos are nothing compared to Steinways IMO in the virtual world. If I'm gonna load up any piano it's gonna be a Steinway D for tone and nuance or a Yamaha for bite. Some people have an appreciation for the Bosendorfer's tone. Hey, whatever floats your boat.

I once found a web page or video where they compared about 20 different software pianos. Listening to all of them the "East West Bösendorfer 290" to me sounded impressive. It was actually one out of 3 final candidates, which I had on my personal list for summarizing what I heard. But I am really not very experienced in piano sounds by now. Take it only as an idea for what to also look out for. Here on the forum I always read only about the same few names, and "East West" is not in it. Don´t know if it actually is bad, or just not very well known. Maybe the ones who like it are more active on the piano than in the forum and we therefore never here their comments. There are also software pianos offered from big players like Cubase and alike, but I again seldom here somebody speaking about them. According to the price it is asked for, they have to be excellent. Maybe because of their high price it is not much spoken about them?

East west is a decent-sized player in the VST market and does come up from time to time. There are some other forums in which it is talked about more.

The problem is that we get far, far more people here talking about how much it sucks than how much they like it. That's not true for any other VST that comes up here (as far as I have noticed). Since its reputation among people who are mastering and mixing music is much better than it is among pianists, my guess is that it has decent sound but fairly serious playability issues.

As someone that owns the EWQL pianos, I would recommend the Ivory II or Galaxy Bose. As a fellow Mac user (the OP is a Mac user) I would never recommend anything from East West.

Thanks guys. I'll look into the software suggested.

here is a guy that used the galaxy vienna - it will give you a good idea of what it sounds like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8ohdhWpvrk

Me too. It was the first piano sound on PurgatoryCreek which truely impressed me. I play a lot Bach with this Galaxy Bösendorfer, it has a very detailed clear sound even if the middle octaves are not the "key competence" of this instruments (the legendary bass compartment is of relevance since Beethoven only).

Since than the SW (Kontakt scripting) has been actualised - it is now on the same (high) level as their VintageD.