Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Ravenscroft by VI Labs… First Look and Sound

You may well be right. I wonder how much more solid it would be if Ravenscroft was running in its own dedicated standalone app. I know nothing about these things, but can only go on my experience with other software, such as PT.

Installed it this morning.

No problems. Smooth as silk.

I have been playing with it for about an hour.

Initial impression ...

It is my best stand-alone software piano sound.

The most appreciated quality that I have found is that it has a gentleness to it.

I play a lot of that type of music so it appeals to me.

I did turn the TONE button to -4 to take a little of the "edge" off of the key strike.

No other modifications were made, or needed in my opinion.

Having said all of the above ...

It still can sound like someone else is playing the piano somewhere other than where I am sitting. My solution is the same as all my other software piano sounds ... I blend in my ES7 concert grand via my mixer.

In my opinion, all of these software piano sounds suffer from that same issue.

It is difficult to describe that phenomenon.

Here is how I describe it ...

The sound that comes from the software sounds great if you are just listening to it from your couch with your eyes closed. However, if you are pushing keys on a piano keyboard you expect a different sound than the one that you hear when sitting on your couch.

I can bring that sound into the mix by adding my ES7 concert grand to the Ravenscroft275 sound.

The two together ... perfect.

The Ravenscroft275 by itself and me sitting on the couch with my eyes closed ... great.

The Ravenscroft275 by itself with me pushing keys on my ES7 keyboard ... less than authentic.

At this point, however, it is my best software sound.

First impressions here – very favourable.

Definitely some odd behaviour going on between the stand-alone UVI and ASIO4all but using a host could be a happy workaround. Cubase, for example, will run UVI at the best latency without a problem – although loading all of Ravenscroft’s sample sets will require a bigger buffer. Without a host, UVI is probably buffering 512 samples using A4all - not bad latency but not great. What's weird is that it doesn't appear to be adjustable, no matter what you do in A4all.

AFAICT the piano is smoothly consistent across the chromatic and dynamic range enabling powerful crescendos and sweet pianissimos, smoother I’d say than vintage D. Nicely playable, as is the D of course. I can’t claim to have fully got to grips with the sound but it has a pleasing tone, lively yet sensitive. Running an A/B between the R and the D, it’s clear they’re very different from each other but I like them both. I find the R’s una corda samples to be far more usable than the D’s which always sounded to me as though not quite belonging to the same piano and presenting somehow on a different sound-stage. R’s are well integrated. There’s something a tad more rounded about the D sound but I’ve a hunch that R’s samples will eq into a similar warmth. If persistent immersion is any guide, I’ve been fiddling with it for the last couple of hours trying to sort out a bit of Chopin without any loss of enthusiasm or sense of a mismatch between style and sound. Whichever records better or flatters me most (excuse my language) might determine which gets the greater use but at the moment I’m pleased to have them both and expect to be playing with the R a lot.

disclaimer: it's highly possible that I am completely cloth-eared. Don't buy on my recommendation!

I'm guessing here dmd, you're using a MAC computer?

Sorry, no cigar !

Dell 8300 i7 3.40GHz PC.
8 GB Ram.

dmd…

Any guess why your download, setup, and playing went so smoothly, and several others were problematic?

Thanks!

Which version of Windows are you running?

Windows 7 with Service Pack 1

Anyone with a Surface will be running Windows 8.1 so I'm curious if there will be any compatibility differences.

I have 8.1 on both my Surface Pro and laptop but I could always roll the laptop back to Windows 7 (not likely to happen but a possibility).

my first impression is good, though perhaps I was expecting something better than the Ameican D model. However, it is a great product

On another note I'm still not convinced that the bass has any character or liveliness. I prefer a bit more grit or earthy quality to my bass and when listening to both the Un Sospiro and Chopin Nocturne the bass seemed completely lacking. Can anyone confirm? When I listened to the TK Italian sample of the Hungarian Rhapsody it sounded much better in this regard. Is it just the samples that are throwing me off? The Nocturne did have somewhat of an electronic sound to it. It did sound quite lovely at the end, both the quality of the tone and the sustain. At the same time I would bet it would be interesting to hear the same music on the real acoustic version as a point of reference.

I'm warming to it but I wish I had more time for the $150 price point or a trial period (to justify the $200).

I have to admit, the samples sound better and better the more I hear them (they are playing in the background as I'm posting). The occasional moments I don't like are somewhat overshadowed by the overall impression. More often than not it sounds really impressive.

My impressions so far. This piano responds beautifully. The difference in articulation between staccato and legato is clearly rendered. The key response is even. The gradations between ppp and fff are smooth, along with a realistic/natural change in timbre. I would describe the sound as veering toward the "metallic" rather than the "woody" end of the spectrum - but not overly so. There is a wide degree of control over the sound, although I found that judicious and minimal adjustments are best, so as to prevent a loss in authenticity. The room mics are nice to have, but I found the close mic'd sound to be the most natural for live (non-recorded) playing.

Do I like it? I think so. At the moment I'm adjusting to the sound. It's very different from Steinway, and even Yamaha. Surprisingly, it's not a huge sound - doesn't shout "9-foot grand" when you play it. It has both delicacy and power, but not so much of the supercharged rumble you might expect.

All issues that I have had have been related to the UVI/ASIO implementation. A couple of freezes/crashes have occurred, and I have also completely ruled out ASIO4ALL with it. I have been successful using an Alesis Multimix 8 USB 2.0 interface. The only issue I have encountered with this has been occasional saturation/stuttering, which can probably be remedied with a couple of tweaks, and may be more to do with the specs of the Surface Pro I'm running on. However, when I tried using it with an earlier model of the Multimix that uses USB 1.1, it saw the Alesis mixer, but failed to recognize the PX-5S I was using as a controller, and emitted no sound, even from the software's own virtual keyboard. As a reference, Pianoteq has no problems with ASIO4ALL, nor with either of the Alesis units. As a result, I doubt whether I'll be using it live, unfortunately. As mentioned above in one of the posts, I think the UVI part of this could use a little more ASIO development.

Conclusion? For a sampled VST, it performs remarkably well. I think it needs plenty of horsepower and a compatible ASIO device. Some people obviously have no problem with the implementation, and so it would be useful if VI Labs could publish a compatibility list, showing devices/apps that are known to perform well, and those that have issues.

No, the bass is not huge. This is a little surprising, given the length of the original's bass strings. In one sense, this is a plus, in that the bottom end won't overpower the treble. It is a well defined bass that is not at all muddy.

That makes a lot of sense and it's really encouraging. "Well defined" is what I'm hoping for. I've also bothered to listen to the rest of the samples. Not sure why I hadn't bothered to do that as there's some wonderful performances there. And I've effectively increased the sample size so that I have a much better idea of the software's capabilities.

At the risk of sounding needy, can someone help me understand the difference between the mechanics of this type of modelled (?) software piano and a normal digital piano such as the Roland RP301. Are both using samples as the source of the sound? Would a software piano such as this be a no-brainer upgrade or are there some serious drawbacks to go with it? (besides the apparent time needed for tweaking)

Joke of the day;
I cancelled my order on Feb 17th., got a FULL refund a day or two later.
I checked my account on their web site, it showed the order, the payment, the cancellation, all seemed FINE and settled.
I have been a bit on the fence about it since and I think I have until the end of today to jump back in at the discount price.

Yesterday they sent me a mail message with the subject; "The Ravenscroft 275 is in your account!"
OK, that must be a mistake, but I read the message anyway.
Sure enough,
"Thank you all for ordering the Ravenscroft 275 and for your patience.
We have some great news for you, the Ravenscroft 275 library is available in your account.
You can find all of the necessary information to install the Ravenscroft 275 on this page: http://www.vilabsaudio.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=13"

Just in case, I checked, there are no outstanding downloads there

Some mailing lists you just CAN'T get off of.

I'd like to hear comparisons from someone that has been using the Vintage D or the Ivory II American D (or German D) as their primary piano.

THIS isn't "modeled", it is a "sample library".
In principle it is very similar to current "digital pianos", in implementation the main difference is;

It is run by a program that is loaded into a general purpose "home" scale computer.
That program receives midi messages that signal which samples to "play" at what volume and when to turn them off, which it does.
In contrast a DP is more likely to have a smaller imbedded single purpose computer and plays from a usually smaller RAM.

They both play "recordings" of piano sounds.


"Modeled" players, e.g. V-piano, physis, pianoteq, etc "compute" the waveform that is to be played in "real time", although it is likely that some pre-processing is done.

Not done yet
There are hybrid implementations as well, some think those will "win out" in the mid/long term.

Not clear that there are any sampled pianos that are 100 percent samples only, or that the modeled pianos have NO sampling included, e.g. for "noises" (simulated bumps and thumps of the mechanical bits flying around and hitting each other).

Guys, I'm posting here my first demo of Ravenscroft Piano. Not perfect, but it's the best piano sampler available so far, I believe.
The recording was made in a Kawai VPC1, and the piano has no Reverb, no effect. It is more natural than others piano samplers.
Ravenscroft PIano Demo
The Vintage D seemed to be good, but it is totally unnatural, compared to Ravenscroft.
Vintage D Demo

Speaking of that James, I have a question regarding the VPC1 that was in the Ravenscroft booth vs what was in the Kawai booth. The action on the VPC1 that Ravenscroft had was like butter! It was MUCH lighter, faster, and overall extremely responsive when compared with the one in the company booth. Did Kawai do a custom action job for the unit that Ravenscroft/VI Lab's were using to demo the Ravenscroft VI?

I remember reading that it was modified for the ravenscroft sw, for namm.
Maybe by the ravenscroft dude?