Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards What is your favorite or most functional piano sample for solo recording?

Hello all,
I am ecstatic that after years of tweaking I may have found a solo piano sample that I would use on a cd in a solo setting. Some of my friends are hot on the Ivory samples software. I have the Garritan Jazz Library with the jazz Steinway sample. I use early Elton John eq settings on it, and treat it with Space Designer convolution reverb in Logic Pro. To me it's rich enough at 24 bits and has a real pleasant sound at 16 bits, that rich sound that draws you in to listening.

Thanks,

I'm all over Ivory's Yamaha Ballad Grand setting.

Would you please describe in detail:
1)what soundcard/hardware you're using?

2)what host software are you using (or is the sample software stand-alone capable?)

3) what audio drivers? (ASIO 2.0, ASIO 2.2?)

Thanks.

I run on an Apple iMac G5 using a Digidesign MBox2 as the analog/digital converter so MBox is also the audio driver. The software is Logic Pro 7. The player is the Native Instruments Kontact Player that came with the software jazz library. Some of the Garritan programs I have bought I had to convert them to Logic's format using Translator Mac Garritan by chicken systems, but I don't think I had to for the jazz library that we're talking about.
I don't know if the Garritan Jazz Library can be stand alone. The website is www.garritan.com.

Thanks so much for the response. I', fairly computer savvy as to operating systems and graphics hardware...but music/sound processing is greek to me. I'm takin' it slow...

If you're hooking a keyboard to a computer, you will need a stand alone device or a computer that understands MIDI data. I use a Midisport 4x4. You can send MIDI to the computer from the keyboard for midi date recording and visa versa for playback.
If your computer doesn't have an audio driver or good one, you will need to purchase an A/D converter. Macs come with Core Audio but pro hardware like the MBOX2 is the norm.

Keith, I think Garritan previewed his full Steinway library at NAMM which is on the verge of release. A someway larger library more like Ivory in size than what's in his Jazz and Big Band package.

Another one you might check out is the Art Vista Virtual Grand that's quite good and not very expensive. It also samples a Steinway. And uses the NI engine so I assume it runs on the Mac.

Howard

Thanks so much hv! I will check out both samples as I've waited quite a while to find the right combination sample/reverb that could stand alone.

This is great information as many piano recording artists I'm sure have dealt with this dilemma. I would love if there were more suggestions as this hits on the forefront of sampling technology. It's really been a challenge to get a piano sample that really leaves the listener not even questioning if it's a real sound or not. I'm a pianist's pianist and would like the quality to be such that I am fooled.

Have your tried Truepianos? They have a good video and some audio samples on their website. It only costs £70 and there's a 45-day unlimited demo if you want to give it a try.