Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Any Black Friday/Holiday sales of virtual piano software?

Pianoteq Pro is 30% off, including upgrade from Stage and Standard.
I don't have a reason to upgrade though.

AAS deals are interesting. I think I will get Lounge Lizard.

Thank you Alexander for adding your opinion on The Gentleman. Yes, I would like to have one upright in my arsenal, that's at least one of the reasons why the Definitive Piano Collection (DPC, from now on) appeals to me.

I agree with what you said earlier, that Galaxy must have learned a lot since the release of the Vintage D, and improved something in the making of the DPC. It just makes sense, that a newer product must offer some improvements over older ones, though I'm sure the Vintage D is still a great product, and possibly the safest all-around option for most users of digital pianos.

Thank you Alexander. I have been looking at the demos on NI's site too - tallies in with what you say really. Which boils down to the fact that, like you, I'm quite fascinated with the Maverick's mature, lived-in sound. And it has a pretty transient as the felt hammer hits the string. On the other hand, the Grandeur sounds like oit would be more usable as a good approximation of a German Steinway.

NI's demo tracks are a bit daft, really - far too mixed and elaborately arranged to be much use as a critical comparison.

Now I don't know what to do......maybe get all three for €100 - but then, why not wait for when the whole bundle is offered at a cut down price. Hmph.

The Vintage D is a better piano, but the Grandeur is easier to control.

It takes talent to handle the wide dynamics of Vintage D. It's not for the heavy handed. But under the right control it sounds better than the Grandeur.

VD was a top choice when it arrived several years ago, and it still is.
As for the uprights ... if you like uprights there are plenty to choose from. I prefer grands. They have a more refined sound.

That website is mostly in German. Does anyone have a link to an English website?

Thanks.

French, German and British flags at the top of the page - take your pick http://www.bestservice.de/en/galaxy_vintage_d.html

Thanks!

I placed my order for the download, but now the download speed is REALLY S-L-O-W. Must be that their server is being overloaded....

re: The Grandeur


+1 that's what I think too.

Btw, I consider The Maverick to be closer to an upright-ish kind of sound than a large grand.

Greg.

Yes, the Vintage D is their premium piano. That's why it individually costs more than the others, and why it is not bundled with others.

At this point sampled piano software functions, mic'ing, and processing seem to be mature technologies that several companies do well. The exception would be companies like Garritan that can't figure out how to do partial pedaling and repedaling. There are differences however in the degree to which companies choose to use DSP versus sampling technology for resonance effects, which may affect one's preference.

IMO, none of the later released products have surpassed the Vintage D or Ivory II American D in sound quality, function, or playability. Between those two, I believe it is basically a subjective choice of which of the original acoustic piano's qualities one prefers. Amongst the top tier providers, results are a matter of choosing and preparing (tuning, voicing, and regulating) a great piano for sampling, selecting and setting up the right mic's for the job, and then painstaking execution of the recording processes and sample processing.

I purchased the Vintage D yesterday. At this price it is a good deal.
Yes it sounds good.
I made some testing yesterday, it has a nice round sound.
Playability is fine, I can not compare to Pianoteq because I just tested the Vintage D 2 hours, but I did not find something wrong with its playability.
The interface is clear, and I think I will find rapidly a good sound, it is easy to use.
It is the first library for me so I can only compare with the Pianoteq.
I will post more when I will hace the time to compare these 2 virtual pianos.

Thanks for the heads up. Purchased the Galaxy II pianos from Best Service at a discount and also qualified for a free download of UVI Grand Piano Model D. Native Instruments are also tempting at that price.

As a first buyer of a software piano besides the garageband variety would anyone recommend The Grandeur (Native Instruments)? I see that Native instruments are having good deals at the moment. I'm not prepared to pay £100 for Pianoteq or galaxy for the moment.

Any recommendations would be helpful (for anything up to £50)

Greg, I get why you'd say that, it has a little bit that character, though as you say uprigth--ish I would say, to me it sounds still much like a smaller grand in sound. When you play the gentleman straight after that really hammers that home and I think to myself, yeah, this is an upright. Especially when you get sort of in the mid to upper range, the uprights have that character of their own I sense, plinky plonky

@TheodorN I had a good old bash on the Gentlement earlier so to add, loving it more and more, the lower range is slightly out of tune too, but in a nice way, you can hear all the mechanical clicks and knocks when you play it too, and IMHO, because the way it is recorded, with open back headphones with decent soundstage, it really makes you feel you are sitting behind an upright.

I was in the shops on Monday and besides my digital piano testing I played for 5 - 10 minutes a very nice Kawai acoustic upright, so that sound sensation was still very much fresh in my head for comparison.

@Peterws are you reading my friend ? The Gentleman could possibly be for you give what you said in the Roland thread, though it is quite resonant and deep in bass lower down, it is after all a big upright, if I recall you don't like that trait so much, still, perhaps worth checking out for you @49 GBP on black Friday deal.

Thanks again, Alexander, I will probably get the Definitive package, in the beginning of December. The Bestservice offer is only valid till November 30th, and because of that, the Vintage D is not an option for me. I won't get paid until the beginning of December as most people.

Bestservice, if you are reading this, you're losing a customer, because your offer ends too quickly.

TheodorN, Quite frankly I think the piano collection by NI is a bargain at that price out of all the deals out there atm.

If you are used to the Casio PX5-S Privia Casio sound, I know what it sounds like, though I can't update the piano sound like on that model, I expect whatever they do it is still the same engine and will not sound that different with updates.

Any of these deals vintage D, ivory pianos whatever, the rated ones will blow you away once you get to software pianos ... IMHO in comparison to that. Certainly I found when I made that jump I never ever looked back. You can listen to demos and wonder, but there is nothing like experiencing playing any of these instruments and buy a first one to try and feel the connection with sound you make with it.

Personally, I highly doubt you would be disappointed with any of them coming from the Casio sound.

I'm sure the software pianos, we've been discussing, surpass the piano voices of the PX-5S in quality, but then again, they will probably surpass most other digital pianos onboard sounds.

I think I will still play the internal pianos to some extent, then there will be issues like latency to deal with, although I believe the Native samples are not that hungry on computer resources. If they are, the next SSD is a hundred bucks away, or so.

i wish pianoteq had a deal also for stage/standard version and not only for the pro...
or maybe a deal with a free instrument, (the d4 isn't good as the Blüthner)
my feeling is that the minimum stage version isn't good enough compares to the other sampled libraries.

Make sure that, whatever you buy, it will run _without_ the Native Instruments base player -- Kontakt, or something similar. Or, that it will run as a VST (virtual software somthing-or-other) inside a DAW that you already own.

IMHO, Pianoteq Stage + Bluthner is well worth its regular price. Bargains are always nice, but only if you want the product.

Charles, yes they need kontakt but it is not a problem, base kontakt player is freely available anyway, all these pianos on the NI site I mention work in the free player, piano collection grandeur etc. but yes, worth mentioning, some product require full kontakt to work, but this will always be specified in the requirements listing.

Beware on best service where you will find some that do need full kontakt sometimes. Actually kontakt is quite nice for that in that free kontakt like pianoteq is as a standalone app/host, but can also work from within a DAW, but you don't need a DAW to play the instruments.

For the piano collection, there is no extra spending needed like full kontakt, you have everything you need when you pay the price as it is, there is no catch.

I bought the Galaxy Vintage D yesterday and finally got it up and running today.

FWIW - It took FOREVER to download all the files, and the installation was a bit confusing at best. (My assumption when I read "standalone" means that it doesn't need to run within anything else. Pianoteq standalone is exactly that. But Vintage D has to run from within the Kontakt player which also had to be downloaded and installed separately. Even though Vintage D is my only "Kontakt" piano, I need to first open Kontakt, then select Vintage D as my instrument and then load my User Preset -- kind of a convoluted process IMO. Although, overall it still loads faster than Garritan CFX - at least on my system.)

However, in spite of all I've said to knock it, I find that the Vintage D feels and sounds very nice indeed! I'm still getting used to the user interface so still have lots to learn.

I just wish that there was a way to create a shortcut (Windows 7) that would load the specific instrument and preset directly from the desktop with a double-click.