Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards I just bought Ivory II American Concert D & Vienna Imperial.

Somebody stop me...Aaagghhh! I can't help it, but I have GAS... guitar acquisition syndrome... er wait a minute, what is it you guys call it here? PAS?

I can't stop it, I'm addicted. After getting Alicia's Keys not long ago, I was floored by the sound, but then I'm like wait a minute I need a good Steinway so right now as we speak I'm playing this gorgeous American D. Then I thought, I really need a fine sounding Boesendorfer, so I threw down the cash and I am now patiently waiting for my activation code so I can start downloading this beast... Somebody stop me before I buy a real Steinway!


In all seriousness, I don't see too many real comparisons of the latest from Ivory II, the American D, and the Vienna Imperial, so I'm here to offer that service. I'd like to throw down some simple tone comparisons for you guys.

And about that half-pedaling, not an issue for me. I'm playing the American D without half-pedal on and I can hardly hear the difference, I know it's there, but hey, I don't play classical gas, and I've only been playing 8 months so.. you be the judge.

I'm so happy I was able to sell some crap around the house on Ebay lately, almost $700 worth of crap. Isn't it amazing what people will buy nowadays?

GAS = gear acquisition syndrome ;-) so not limited to guitars

Heh, nice. Looks like those 650 dollars you had saved by choosing Alicia's Keys was put to good use after all AND you also went for Vienna anyway.

Enjoy, mate!

Not many folks here looking at XLN Audio's Addictive Keys. Their sampled Steinway and Yamaha U3 are excellent. I prefer the XLN Steinway to the Ivory II. The microphone adjustments make them extremely flexible. Also good choices to further the quest for a million pianos Free demo with reduced octave sampling... C1-C4 I believe.

I just acquired Galaxy Vintage D myself after using Pianoteq 4 with the Bleuthner for a while. I like them both and find there are many subtle differences. In general I think Pianoteq is still more "playable" but prefer the the sound of Vintage.

I now want to replace my Clavinova with the Kawai VPC and get some audio gear to connect to it.

It is a sickness and we need help!

That's why I try to avoid these type of threads. I know it can be contagious.

>Somebody stop me before I buy a real Steinway!

Real as in an acoustic Steinway? LOL I can recommend that.

Fun times. I love a good VST and VST comparisons/reviews. Basically I only play Vintage D but I do keep looking at American D wondering if maybe it's better. That grass is on the other side of the fence, after all.

Definitely curious to see how you compare Vienna Imperial and American D after you have them a while.

Enjoy the gear!

It's not half pedaling that makes the biggest difference, it the repedalling. And you can't turn off repedalling on the American D.

As for Alicia's Keys Yamaha C3. Can you hear how dead the C key one octave about middle C is? Its fundamental tone decays very fast and only the overtones remain. Play it without the sustain pedal and compare to the B key next to it. I can't play AK because of that. I prefer the Ivory II Yamaha C7, but I'm still looking for a better Yamaha.

Newbee question: Can somebody explain what repealing is? Thank you!

I hear what you're saying about repedaling, I didn't forget that, and thus why I have Ivory II American D, an incredible sounding piano. (everything sounds incredible to me right now). I can hear that going on in my Yamaha CL340 and Ivory. But there are some things right now here I prefer the tone and response of Alicia's Keys over the Ivory. Floyd Camer's "Last Date" is but one example where Alicia really shines over Ivory as well as his version of "Georgia on My Mind". Both tunes have a similar vibe that don't really need that repedaling so much as more full sustain.

I'm currently working on "Schindler's List" and I'm not sure if I like Alicia or Ivory yet. Seems Schindler ought to be played on a classical sound like Ivory, but then I like Alicia too...

Other tunes like "Blue Eyes Cryin in the Rain" really sound so much better on the Ivory, perhaps due to my constant pumping of the sustain pedal with the beat.


About Alicia, It does seems to have this fullness in lower register that can overwhelm the player. But the higher end has this "pop" that I like. Playing it reminds me of an acoustic bass player and a saxaphone jamming together, that's the sound I hear, the low is full and round and the top really spits at you. So it's really my slow soulful choice. I had not notice that dead C but now I do...

Interesting that you keep referring to the bottom end of AK. It's actually one of the things it has been criticized about since it a sampled 6'1" C3, rather than Ivory II's 7'6" C7. You should try to get to hear the difference. The Ivory II does have a lot more "string twang" however, that you may or may not like. But overall, it is far superior in just about every way to AK.

Well to me it's not bigger than Ivory, it's muddier, that's what I meant by full. The low end actually sounds more like an acoustic bass to my ears at times. The Ivory is definitely more articulate in the low end and very woody, which is great.

Ivory has one flaw to my ears and it is around G3 to D4 (I'm referring to middle C as C3). There's a range of notes in that span there that feel very cold. No pop, no wood, no punch. Perhaps that's how the real Steinway sounded I dunno. I hope it's an issue that can be fixed.

Repedalling is what happens naturally on an acoustic piano when you depress the damper pedal again as previous notes are still dying out after the damper pedal had been lifted. (Or as the damper pedal is pressed just after the keys are struck and they have already started to decay.) The sound of those notes at that point in their decay are then sustained because the dampers have been lifted off the strings again. This happens normally all the time as you play an acoustic piano and use the damper pedal, or purposely if you pedal just after playing chords for instance. So digital pianos without this ability don't sound correct. They lack the additional sustain resonance and fullness of an acoustic piano.

The American D sounds a little cold to my ears as well. That is one reason I like the Vintage D better. The Vintage D has a much larger range of timbre for non-classical music, and can be convincingly voiced over an even larger range, although I seldom find that necessary.

Macy, If there is a C5 out there somewhere, you might like that better than the C7. The C5 has a full sound on a well balanced scaling that pops.

Fscotte, while you still have GAS, have you considered Galaxy GIANT?
It's a great piano, with a powerful and disctinctly sounding bass and extraordinary dynamics. I play pop stuff too, and I often prefer it to my Galaxy Vintage D (for example, in Jarrod Radnich's arangement of Pirates it sounds really superb). It doesn't have such warm sound as my Vintage D, but it has other qualities to its sound that I learned to really appreciate over time. It has two advantages over other pianos that I find most important for me:

- It has awesome expessivity, reacts to even small changes in the strength of strokes, in the whole range from pp to fff. I find it very important for improving my playing, because the better I hear what I do, the better I can improve.

- It differs a lot from other (more standard) pianos. When I play a lot, my ears would get tired of the sound of the piano I use. The remedy is to switch to a different sound, as much different as possible.

On the dead C in AK: In some pianos that run in Kontakt (certainly in Galaxy pianos), you can remap keys you don't like from neighbour keys or change many of their properties, if you have full Kontakt. It's even possible for someone, who has both that piano and Kontakt, to post modified .nki for other owners of that piano who don't have the full Kontakt. I don't have AK, so I don't know if it works in AK too.

I have asked here a couple times if the same can be done with other pianos (Synthogy), but no one has ever answered.

XLN Steinway looks nice, specially considering 50$ price tag. Strange it is never mentioned here. Going to check free demo today.

There is no key remapping capability in the (Synthogy) Ivory II software.

I have also asked if AK can be remapped in the full version of Kontakt (like the Galaxy pianos). I would buy the full Kontakt version if that worked. But I believe that the AK samples are locked and it can't be done. If anyone knows differently please respond.

Macy, thanks for the information. I guess I'll stick with Galaxy (or Pianoteq)...