Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Rondo Alla Turca - Eighteen Piano Comparison Movie by Propianist

If you\'re in a hurry, click here t...st" on YouTube and you\'ll find it.


A while ago I recorded myself playing “Rondo Alla Turca” by Mozart, with a video camera closeup...



I also simultaneously recorded the MIDI output to make a Standard MIDI File, so I could try rendering that performance with all the many different hardware and software piano sounds I’ve got, for a huge side by side comparison...

Here's my actual live MIDI file...


Rondo Alla Turca_propianist.mid


I then rendered it eighteen times over with eighteen different piano sources, and burned them all to CDR for lots of listening, and then I decided to assemble a side by side comparison, using the Mozart, split naturally into its 29 repetitive eight bar sections (that's the beauty of it!) for instant comparison, without interrupting the musical flow.




You can download complete WAV file ...anos - from page 2 of this forum thread!


After a few sleepless nights of audio and video editing, here’s what I’ve come up with!

Here's the rendered audio track...


Rondo Alla Turca__eighteen pianos__propianist__16bit 44kHz.wav


And here's the full DVD quality video / audio version, with animated graphics to tell you which piano you're hearing. It’s quite a big download, but I promise it’s worth watching – if you like software pianos, you’ll love this !!!


Rondo Alla Turca__eighteen pianos__propianist__movie.mpg

(above webpage download link is most reliable, working via the original host website)
or otherwise these alternate direct download links can be used...
download_mirror1 download_mirror2





Additionally...
In case you can't easily download the big 100MB full resolution DVD quality version (or you're having problems playing it! - some machines have different codecs installed?! It certainly works for me in Windows Media Player, or the excellent Media Player Classic , or VLC or any normal DVD movie playback software, since it's fully UK PAL DVD compatible. (720x576 pixels 25fps MPEG2, so you could author and burn it straight to DVD-Video without re-encoding anything.)

...anyway, if you just want a small low res version (similar to YouTube) and don't mind the very compressed picture quality, then here's a reduced Bink Video version, with embedded player host and codec, that runs as a simple standalone application, and will ALWAYS work okay on any Windows computer without issues - just click to play it!


Rondo Alla Turca__eighteen pianos__propianist__reduced Bink video.exe


...and finally, a similar low res screensaver version of this movie, (which stops if you nudge the mouse or press any key) that also should instantly playback in fullscreen with stereo sound, on any Windows machine.

Rondo Alla Turca__eighteen pianos__propianist__screensaver.scr


FYI, both these small 9.5 MB compressed films are 360 x 288 pixels, and have been reduced from the original 720 x 576 pixels, from 25 frames per second, down to just 9 frames per sec, so the motion looks a little bit choppy and skipping lots of frames, but you get a fair idea of the content.
The big DVD quality version however, plays completely fluidly at 25fps, and with quadruple the number of pixels has far more legible text in the software screenshots, etc. plus you can fully control its playback options, and switch between nineteen different 16 bit linear WAV piano soundtracks, as I'll explain later...!

Can't seem to get your big mpg to work on OSX Leopard (quicktime says it's not a movie).

Just as an FYI, there is no way that I would download an exe or scr and execute it on my windows computer. Not that I don't trust you personally, but it's just a good policy to have.

Sorry, please let me know what format do you want it in? Anyway, I hope you got the WAV file to play okay at least.

If you're trying to open it with QuickTime Movie Player, it won't work because it's not a Quicktime movie. I use Windows XP myself, and have no Mac to test things on...!

The 97.5 MB file is an industry standard MPEG-2, the same thing as everyday DVD video's format, which is the main reason I chose that - popular compatibility! There is a 100MB upload file size limit on the host MediaFire webpage, so I had to make everything (video plus audo) fit that, otherwise the DVD data rate could have been a lot higher.

Video = 720 x 576p pixels progressive (non-interlace) at 25 frames per second, for UK PAL, compressed to 3777kbps bitrate for size (not to be confused with American DVD's at 720 x 480 @ 30fps NTSC)

Audio = Mpeg2 standard 16 bit 48kHz for DVD, compressed to 384kbps bitrate

...or you can use the linear WAV file for audio obviously - it's exactly in sync with the video.

You should be able to open a compatible MPEG2 file with just about any software player that plays DVD movies. If you can watch "Oceans Eleven" DVD on your computer, you can almost certainly play this MPEG-2 file too.

You could even burn my MPEG-2 file straight onto DVD without re-encoding using nearly any universal DVDR authoring software. If you want to make a DVDR with 16 bit WAV soundtrack (replacing the compressed Mpeg2 audio) you'll need to use 48kHz sample rate, as DVD doesn't support 44.1kHz. The software would probably just Sample Rate Convert the 44.1kHz WAV to 48kHz for you, although you'd be hard pushed to hear the differences between them.

For anyone who wants it, here's a 16 bit 48 kHz WAV file, which I've audiophile sample rate converted at 32 bit DSP from the original 32 bit 44.1kHz master, before applying subsequent dither (with 48kHz noise shaping) and final wordlength reduction to 16 bit. This is the best WAV file to use for any DVD soundtrack of this movie.


Rondo Alla Turca__eighteen pianos__propianist__16 bit 48kHz.wav


I already burned a DVD-Video myself (AUDIO TS and VIDEO TS folders with VOBs and IFOs etc.) with linear WAV audio - it's great, but too big to upload! But you can easily do this for yourself using the MPEG2 video and this 48kHz WAV and some basic software like Dazzle DVD Complete or whatever...

Frankly, there's so many different video formats out there, it's hard to choose the best one to suit everybody. I want best possible quality, of course, but I don't like big uploads or downloads any more than anyone else. At home I've got Blu Ray 1080p, but on internet I watch YouTube.


I'd happily try to create and upload alternative video file formats if anyone requests them. Whaddaya want?

I can probably make...

AVI
DV
FLV
MOV
MPEG-1
MPEG-2
MPEG-4
VOB
DVD "Video TS" folder
WMV
DivX
H.264
Bink

(...but nothing works unless you have the correct players and codecs installed, apart from Bink Video with embedded Player and codec into an executable which always works!)

...or I suppose I could just upload five thousand raw frames as .bmp or .jpeg and let you compile it yourself, but there's 5.7GB of BMP files or uncompressed AVI and a 65MB 32 bit master audio WAV.

I can absolutely assure you that my reduced Bink Video is totally safe, and contains no malicious virus or spyware of anything like that! I have Sophos Anti-Virus on my internet computer anyway, but the .exe was compiled on my clean Quad Core machine which has no internet connection and was only built by me in June, so has nothing that I didn't put there, and I'm a very careful chap...
I would take a chance and try running the Bink.exe if you have access to any Windows machine, because it is bound to work straight away, even from a slow USB memory stick.

If you don't like .exe file, but you already have Bink's video application installed, you could just play my original Bink Video file instead. You can download Bink player and the whole video tools bundle free from manufacturer's website . Highly recommended - in my case "it saved the movie" (obvious pun) as they say in Hollywood!

Excellent work! Fantastic!


Peace,

/Richard

You enjoyed it then...?!

I will try and convert this movie and put onto YouTube.

YouTube video = 320 x 240 pixels at 30 frames per second, and typical 200kbps bitrate

YouTube audio = mono 16 bit 22.05kHz converted to MP3 at 64kbps bitrate

YouTube sound quality would be so bad, you couldn't really appreciate the subtle differences in piano timbres, so what's the point? But I'll do it anyway...

There are ways to get higher quality from YouTube. A good website is here , but I still think my reduced Bink Video would look and more importantly, sound far better than YouTube. It's stereo 44.1kHz audio, and 360 x 288 which is a much "neater" resize from the original PAL resolution (exact factor of 50% pixel dimensions.)

Most impressive! Thank you. Wonderful playing and a real techological feat!!

Bob

OK, quicktime for whatever reason just doesn't seem to like the file (under OSX anyway). VLC however is just fine with it.

Great job!

Just watched it through once (and was interrupted a few times in the process) and had a couple of quick observations.

First, I found myself wishing that I could hear the exact same passage side by side. For instance, putting each piano as a separate instrument track in garageband, allowing you to choose whichever one you wanted in linear time. There were times where I'd be thinking "interesting difference in that left hand chord between these two, but I wonder how X sounded". But as a way to sample (no pun intended) a large qty of different samples/software this was great.

Second, it is interesting to note how differently the various apps deal with stereo separation. Maybe this is just me, and I tried closing my eyes to not be manipulated by what I was seeing, but it seemed that some apps created an artificial sounding separation between bass and treble notes (i.e. treble had a bias towards the right and bass to the left). While this may work fine if you're actually playing in front of a keyboard, it's a bit unusual when you're a listener (not the player) and seems very obvious when you're listening through headphones. This affect seemed to differ a reasonable amount with the various packages. Very interesting. I'd be interested to know if A) others also hear this and B) if there is a way to render final output with this turned off or to adjust it?

I'll have to listen more later when I have more time (and fewer interruptions).

Thanks for your efforts.

Excellent work propianist!

I shall have to watch the video several times before offering my impressions of each piano source, however on first viewing/listing I did rather like the Bosendorf.

On a separate note, rather than uploading to YouTube, I would recommend www.vimeo.com as it offers higher resolution video/audio.

Once again, terrific job, many thanks!

James
x

Yes, that's exactly what I wanted too, and is at the very heart of the whole idea, and shows just how big a problem this attempt is!

There are eighteen pianos under serious study...

1. Galaxy II Bosendorfer
2. Galaxy II Steinway
3. Galaxy II Bluthner
4. Ivory Steinway
5. Ivory Bosendorfer
6. Ivory Yamaha
7. Ivory Fazioli Italian Grand
8. Garritan Steinway Under Lid
9. Garritan Steinway Player
10. Garritan Steinway Close
11. Garritan Steinway Classic
12. Garritan Steinway Stage Side
13. Pianoteq Grand C2 Concert
14. Pianoteq Erard add-on
15. Kawai MP8 concertgrand1
16. Kawai MP8 concertgrand2
17. GEM RealPiano Module
18. Kemble Upright Piano sample

For a three minute piece of music, that's 18 x 3 = 54 track minutes if you burn them all to CDR like I did, plus lots of time-consuming work rendering them all consistently in the first place to master 32 bit 44.1kHz files, plus you could easily render more than one variation from each piano library too, with all their tone parameters and options! It's a lot of material to prepare and listen to, and the differences are very subtle in some cases!

Listening carefully to the results is awkward too. It's hard to remember if you thought "track 4" was better than "track 9" and by the time you've got to "track 18" you've forgotten what "track 2" sounded like...!
Whether you're clicking WAV files on your computer, or the transport buttons on your CD player, it's a strenuous effort to really take in and absorb all these instrument characters, and concentrate for 54 minutes on the same aspects for each piano. You end up just flicking back and forth and hearing only the first few seconds of each track over and over - it's musically unsatisfying too. I used to LOVE this Mozart piece(!) but now I've heard it so many times...!

The best trick I came up with was using RANDOM play on CD player - it would pick a random track for me, so I didn't know what I was hearing - just "some piano" - do I like it or not?!
If no - try another track, and if yes - look up and see what it was. More often than not I liked the Galaxy Steinway and the Ivory Steinway and the GEM module, and my own Kemble multisample(!) and would find myself listening to that track all the way through. Some, like the dark, muffled Garritan, I can always spot, and others sound too fierce and I click "next" after a few seconds. After a lot of listening, I've discovered I can now guess which track's playing in a blind test (random track CD mode) and I'm correct 99% of the time. I know them all intimately now, but there's still not an overall winner...
It's like going into an art gallery and saying "which is the BEST painting?" Perhaps the one you look longest at and keep coming back to, but they're all unique.

I agree with you about comparing them side by side, opening all into a WAV editor software. I did this too, but you're still having to manually click your mouse for every track change to mute and un-mute different selections. Ideally, you need it to change for you automatically, without human interaction, so you get that surprise "ooh, that's sounds nice" effect.

It's a LOT of comparison listening to do - comparing every possible pairing in combination, side by side - that's any TWO pianos from a total of eighteen, yields a lot of possibilities!!!

Mathematically, you can work out there's 153 possible combinations to listen to...

Number of combinations = T! / ( N! ( T - N )! )

when N number of items (N=2) are chosen from
a total T number of Pianos (T=18) and "!" is the mathematical symbol for factorial function (eg. 6! = 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 720)

The way I conceived this comparison test was by splitting the Mozart into 29 sections, each eight bars in length, and I quickly realised that would be a LOT of audio editing - top 'n' tailing 29 edit points for 18 stereo tracks in a fast moving piano piece with overlapping bass notes, sustain pedal decay and so on...!
18 x 29 = 522 edited sections (each one top 'n' tailed) and yet I knew I wouldn't be using all of them in the final mixdown anyway, so I hatched a cunning plan.

By painstakingly dissecting the live MIDI file in sequencer step edit mode, I was able to split the Mozart into alternating "Alpha sections" and "Beta sections" and then I could just render each piano playing these two MIDI files - instantly creating the finished "edited" track in alternating 8 bar sections, far better / neater / quicker than I could have done with manual waveform audio editing, preserving all the note decay and continuous sustain pedal travel messages associated with each musical passage, separating it from its neighbours.

Rondo Alla Turca__propianist.mid ( entire Mozart piece, as recorded live )

RONDO__alpha sections.mid ( split into eight bar sections 1, 3, 5, 7, etc.)

RONDO__beta sections.mid ( split into eight bar sections 2, 4, 6, 8, etc.)

Now with these ALPHA and BETA sections rendered (and trimmed exactly in sync!!!!) into 32 bit 44.1kHz audio, I have eighteen Alpha section piano tracks and eighteen Beta section piano tracks, I can open all 36 WAV files into the DAW editor and listen to them.
So now, rather than having to manually click mouse every so often to perform one single switchover comparison, I can select any two pianos (any Alpha vs any Beta) and hear an instant full length comparison mix that "automatically" switches back and forth by magic 29 times while it plays, at musically appropriate points, without me even lifting a finger, and I can sit back and focus on listening...!

eg. choose "Ivory Steinway ALPHA" vs "Galaxy Steinway BETA" and it works brilliantly - they sound similar.

eg. choose "Garritan Player Alpha" vs "Kawai MP8 Beta", instantly perfect mixdown success!

eg. choose "Pianoteq Alpha" vs "Ivory Fazioli Beta" - wow! I couldn't have edited it better than that - all 29 sections are exactly in sync all the way through!

Furthermore, during the 6 seconds or so while ALPHA piano is playing, I could manually mute and un-mute various BETA sections and get an uninterrupted musical flow across many different pianos. You get plenty enough time to switch BETA pianos on the fly, in realtime without any audible glitches or stops and starts! It's fantastic for comparisons and the ultimate "Royal Rumble" between all the products.

BUt I find it best to listen to the comparisons two pianos at a time, and the Mozart's inherent repetions make this an ideal test piece. Obviously, there's still 153 combinations that could be made, so you could't realistically render all those as 24 bit mixdowns and post WAV files uploaded here, but you don't need 153 files at all, because you only need the basic Alpha and Beta set to have all bases covered.

For the internet forum, I decided to make a showcase track with all eighteen pianos included, but arranged in a logical order make as many relevant comparisons within each piano "family", eg. comparing all the Steinways or the Bosendorfers side by side. You need to switch back and forth and back again to get a good feel for it. I could only manage to edit one movie clip together and upload it here, so that's what I chose, but you get the idea. If I can upload all the alphas and betas (ideally as 24 bit WAVS, but more likely smaller files) then I will.

It would be great to add more pianos into this montage - if anybody owns EastWest Quantum Leap and could please render those Alpha and Beta MIDI files and upload 16 bit WAVs and post a link here, or maybe some other rival products like Native Akoustik, or BDMO, or Sampletekk Black Grand or PMI Old Lady. I'd like to have included the Roland RD700GX and Yamaha CP300 but I don't own them. I suppose I could go to my local music shop with my rackmount sequenecer, hard disk recorder, Apogee converters, bag of cables, headphones and ask if they'd mind...?!


I have got this movie uploaded and working on YouTube now, if you want a quick look before downloading the big DVD quality MPEG file above, and the uncompressed WAV file.
(Because obviously the YouTube sound quality isn't good enough to assess the piano timbre seriously.)
You can search YouTube for "propianist" and find it, or just click here...


Rondo Alla Turca__eighteen pianos__propianist__watch video on YouTube

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1aE-x1vcJ2w

...which Bosendorfer?!!! - there were two - Ivory and Galaxy II
(Or three, if you count the GEM that does use some Bosendorfer samples.)

Nice to hear from you, James.

So when's the Kawai MP8 mkIII coming out then?
Please ask them to put AES/EBU digital output on it!!

Best regards,
propianist

propianist, you could potentially mux all of the audio tracks into a video file (avi, mvk, mp4, possibly even a vob), and switch between each piano source.

As for the next MP - sure, I'll let the R&D chaps know about your AES/EBU request.

Cheers,
James
x

Yes, I know I've already been doing this.
Like French/German/Italian/English/Japanese language soundtracks on a DVD.

It would be helpful for time windows being listed next to each instrument.

propianist - Let me congratulate you on your bold initiative. You have done an excellent and at the same time, laborious job. Bravo for that.
I have also read your posts very carefully and I admire your sense of objectivity. Very informative and clear. You seem to possess the reviewer's touch on subjective things as piano libraries are.

On the other hand, you may have engaged on a 'mission impossible' here. Trying to give a taste of piano libraries to non-owners or wanna-be owners. I too believe that unless you buy the damn things and test them for some time, then you cannot have a clear view of whether they are right for you or not. Demos cannot help much or may misguide someone. Everything is covered with generous doses of marketing hype and extremely subjective opinions in fora. At least that's what I have been against for some time now.

In my search for a decent piano library that could be used for practice during the difficult night hours, I started purchasing. I admit that this has been an eye opener as to what can be achieved by a sampled piano and also an interesting experience. I mean you can play on very expensive instruments which you could never imagine that you would be able to lay your hands on, albeit in a heavily compromised way. Nevertheless playing a concert grand or a vintage german baby would not be feasible without these libraries.

So, I would like to help.
I currently have the following piano libraries: TruePianos, PMI Boesendorfer, Akoustik Piano, ArtVista Grand 2, Galaxy II, Vienna Library (VSL) Imperial Boesendorfer, Bluethner Digital Model One, Garritan Steinway and of course the titanic EWQL Pianos. Your tests contain libraries that I do not have and libraries that I do have. But there are important contenders left out. I would be willing to offer assistance in the comparison process with these that you do not own.

I have two strong objections though.
- I never believed that a single midi file can show the virtues or pitfalls of a piano library. The midi file should be different for each one. The same piece maybe, but different performance. That's why tests like the one on purgatorycreek fail to paint a correct image. The pianist plays differently according to the sound he hears. The tone of the piano or its nuances guide and affect the player. For example, if I try a piano with prominent low end, then my bass touch will likely be lighter that when playing on a piano with less low content. If I play on a bright instrument, then my playing will essentially be different from that on a dark one.
My point is yes, play the same piece but doing a different performance of it with each library.

- My second objection is on sound. Some libraries are clearly laid out for production work. They are recorded unnaturally dry for this purpose. BDMO for example, is useless without convolution. Other libraries offer a pret-a-porte sound (if I am allowed to use the term). Ready to go. Like the Garritan Steinway. It has ready recorded perspectives with very natural ambience. A classical pianist would definitely be attracted to this one, even though he may later find that this perspective is easier to listen to than play.

If you think that I could be of some help, then we should discuss ways of conducting tests. As I said, this can be very informative to potential users. I wish something like this existed when I was buying. I would have avoided certain bad decisions I most regretfully acknowledge now.

Keep up your helpful spirit.

Thanks, propianist for this ambitious project. This must have taken a great deal of time and effort. The mpeg 2 version plays fine on my MacBook Pro. What strikes me is that what I like to listen to and what I like to play, may not be the same thing.

Thank you for recommending VIMEO, it would help solve problems with uploading big video files (up to 500MB) free, but you have to pay $59 to use the premium HD service with 2GB upload limit.

Anyway, I think VIMEO is only for hosting video files, whereas I need general purpose file storage really, for WAVs / images / or even whole folder directories so I can upload a DVD title set. I already encoded my video to fit the 100MB upload limit of MediaFire, knowing they won't delete it, and it's complete free. Being such a miser, I like everything to be free!

I found this web page with a good summary of what's available, but a lot of these "free upload" sites will delete your files after 90 days if nobody has downloaded it, or they're only limited offers for free trial, then you have to pay.

The best geniunely free solution I've found, and started using myself, is www.ADrive.com which gives me 50GB online storage space, with a 2GB per file upload limit, and they say they'll never delete your files, and this "Basic" package is entirely free - with an easy online sign-in that's fairly anonymous if you have any working email account to activate it.

That's what I made the video for!
It always shows you which piano you're hearing and you can easily tell when the sound changes at each 8 bar musical section, even if you're listening to the WAV file "blind" by just following the listed running order and looking where you're up to in the music.

I never made any note of the actual timings, because I didn't actually need to edit or splice any piano WAV sections together, as such, because the plug-in's audio output was rendered "automatically edited into 29 sections" by my clever use of ALPHA and BETA midi files, as described above. But if you need to have the accurate track timings, I'm happy to calculate them for you, from the video frame numbers.
Is this a bit more useful...?

I'm guessing that he wants to do the same thing I had wanted, to look at your list and quickly go to a specific instrument without having to "hunt" for it. In this way I could find all the A minor trills in your list and quickly go to each instance.

How'd you get the Kemble upright sampled? If I can ever find a piano I would like sometime, I'd like to make it into an Ivory-like digital instrument database or something like that. One candidate would be (when I can get one for a reasonable price, that is - under $500) a 1960s or earlier Baldwin Hamilton studio upright.

I multi-sample recorded it myself, at home, playing the keys individually. That's the only way to do it!

Recorded via my Sennheiser MKH80 microphone and DACS MicAmp into Apogee PSX100 A/D converter at 24 bit 44.1kHz. (I had a Alesis ADAT at the time (yuk!) and so had to use the bit-splitting facility of the Apogee to capture full 24 bit data signal divided across multiple 16 bit tracks.) I manually edited and trimmed all the WAV files, and selected the best sounding velocity groups of notes by comparing their playability on keyboard by loading test samples and playing, to arrive at the final samples for the five velocity layers (pp, mp, m, mf, ff) using trial and error plus careful judgment and critical listening. It was recorded in 1998 and took me a lot of editing time. I made the finished 16 bit 44.1kHz version to fit the 64MB RAM of my hardware rack sampler Yamaha EX5R that I had at the time, modded with an Iomega Zip disk in the front bay, which took about 45 minutes to load it every time! Here's a very old recording of me playing some Fats Waller using this original Kemble Upright sample loaded into the Yamaha EX5R, made back in about 1998.

Kemble Upright Piano_ multisample created ten years ago.mp3

There is no midi file for this original "live to Alesis ADAT" recording, but if you want to test this same piece (for comparison) against various other commercial upright piano libraries like Native Akoustik Steingraeber upright or the brand new Synthogy Ivory Upright Pianos , then you might like to use this MIDI file of me playing that piece again sometime later.

Since then I've re-assembled the raw 16 bit note samples into a handy SF2 SoundFont using Creative Vienna software so I can run it on computer more conveniently, which loads instantly. I've also multisampled a Steinway D concert grand at 24 bit 96kHz, but I didn't include that in this movie comparison.

I've also corrected the L-R pan of my Kemble's original mono key samples (RAM size limitation), which were previously Left-to-Right panned for stereo effect by the EX5R synth parameter according to keyboard scaling, where I could crudely adjust the overall width to taste - resulting in equal effect both left and right. I think the top C should sound further to the right than bottom A which as a bass note is more omnidirectional and comes from the central belly of the instrument, although slightly to the left. With Vienna software, it can individually pan each sample and therefore each keyboard note, so I went and measured the distance from my ears (seated normally at the piano) to the piano hammer / string striking point in front of me. Using high school trigonometry, the tape measure distance to middle C is the adjacent side of a right-angle triangle, while the distance from right ear to top C hammer is the hypotenuse, and the straight line from Top C to middle C along the strings is the opposite side of triangle, assuming each semitone is roughly equal distance along that line. Bottom A the other side is a slightly different triangle dimension, but very similar. If you pan the top C (and bottom A) sampled notes (in headphones) until it sounds exactly in the right place and look at their numeric panpot value (assuming you have measured the relative L/R difference in dB that this produces) you can derive the pan law of this control parameter and then calculate the exact setting to match the calculated angle (based on trigonometry) from which you expect the stereo direction of all the other piano notes inbetween to emanate from, and pan the appropriate sample to that exact angle, resulting in an accurate stereo pan perspective to recreate the sense of the real instrument in front of you. Simple, huh?

Hi Wiser Guy,

YES! All of us here, especially me, would surely be extremely grateful if you can kindly help contribute some other piano tracks into this comparison. Obviously I can’t afford to buy them all myself either. (I have read your objections / comments also, and will post my response to them in a following post) but notwithstanding, any additional rendered piano tracks you can contribute to this comparison round-up would be fantastic!

So far I have rendered...

1. Galaxy II Bosendorfer
2. Galaxy II Steinway
3. Galaxy II Bluthner
4. Ivory Steinway
5. Ivory Bosendorfer
6. Ivory Yamaha
7. Ivory Fazioli Italian Grand
8. Garritan Steinway Under Lid
9. Garritan Steinway Player
10. Garritan Steinway Close
11. Garritan Steinway Classic
12. Garritan Steinway Stage Side
13. Pianoteq Grand C2 Concert
14. Pianoteq Erard add-on
15. Kawai MP8 concertgrand1
16. Kawai MP8 concertgrand2
17. GEM RealPiano Module
18. Kemble Upright Piano sample

I’ve counted 13 pianos from your personal list, which I do not own myself, and I’d certainly be interested in hearing them! It seems we both have Galaxy II and Garritan Steinway in common. Great minds think alike, eh...? (Obviously, I’ve recorded those two already, so they’re done.)

1. EastWest Quantum Leap Steinway
2. EastWest Quantum Leap Bechstein
3. EastWest Quantum Leap Yamaha
4. EastWest Quantum Leap Bosendorfer
5. VSL Bosendorfer Imperial
6. PMI Bosendorfer 290
7. Native Akoustik Bosendorfer
8. Native Akoustik Steinway
9. Native Akoustik Bechstein
10. Native Akoustik Steingraeber
11. ArtVista Grand 2 Steinway B
12. Bluthner Digital Model One
13. 4Front TruePianos

Between us, we have most of today’s top products covered! This could turn out to be the ultimate software piano comparison with WAV audio and an annotated movie running in sync. There are others, but often have major shortcomings.
I’m know you’re familiar with the famous PurgatoryCreek demos – they have about 300 tracks (both hardware digital pianos and software plug-ins) on their website all rendered with the same MIDI file. The problem with PurgatoryCreek is that they are only MP3 quality audio, and you can only compare pianos by listening one at a time.

I’m not saying “Rondo Alla Turca” is the definitive piece for comparison purposes (it doesn’t include the extreme high and low notes) but the format of ALPHA and BETA section renders in sync, allows any possible combinations to be made with the playback “automatically” switching 29 times between the two pianos. (Please read my long post higher up this page, all about this.) Also all the audio tracks are full linear uncompressed WAV files at 16 bit 44.1kHz which can be burned to CDR straight away for serious hi-fi listening away from the computer desktop. I admit, at the current time of writing, I haven’t uploaded these WAV files yet(!) but they’re due here very soon. There’s over 1GB to upload and it’s very slow!
Hopefully, you’ll agree that this “Rondo Alla Turca” project has more potential than Purgatory Creek for instant meaningful side-by-side comparisons, eventually with all of today’s newest, most exciting piano plug-ins.

If you want to help, follow these steps...

STEP ONE - Download these MIDI files.

Rondo Alla Turca__propianist.mid ( entire piece as recorded live )

RONDO__alpha sections.mid ( split into eight bar sections 1, 3, 5, 7, etc.)

RONDO__beta sections.mid ( split into eight bar sections 2, 4, 6, 8, etc.)

STEP TWO – highest quality Piano settings!

Choose a piano to work on – get full factory default preset (not any “lite” version) and make sure everything is set to full quality, 24 bit samples, 32 bit output, sympathetic string resonance turned ON, reverb turned OFF, any EQ turned off / flat, etc, velocity curve default linear (I didn’t need to change it on any of my renders, as my Kawai’s custom user touch curve is very close to the mark for natural piano playing) but if you want to modify velocity curve because of weird responses make notes of your settings and include info in post, similarly, any tone parameters that you change from defaults to improve the sound, write down what you did for consistent repeatability.

STEP THREE - render two midi files into WAV

Render both the “Alpha Section” midi file, and the “Beta Section” midi file (both default 120bpm), with these same identical optimum settings at max quality and save each WAV file at 32 bit 44.1kHz resolution if possible. Check if audio has internally clipped on the last chords, and if necessary re-render again with different gain to solve the problem, or better still, rendering using 32 bit floating point capture, which preserves 24 bit integer and 8 bits for “overshoot” and then you can recover the waveform in DAW audio editor. (I’m happy to explain this further…?)

STEP FOUR – match exact sync with propianist’s WAVs (optional but handy)
If the file was rendered in offline mode automatically it should be dead in sync already, with first note (of Alpha) starting at about 3.2 seconds into track. Alpha and Beta should also be in sync. If you’ve manually recorded them in realtime, they’ll be out of sync. I used Pianoteq render as the timing reference since it generated a nice 32 bit floating point WAV export from it’s built in MIDI file player. (My other software pianos don’t have any MIDI file to WAV export facility (except Garritan Steinway Professional 24 bit library, which has a 16 bit only WAV export function – yeah thanks, that’s really helpful..!), so I recorded them from VST-Host at 32 bit and had to manually re-sync the files afterwards. I’m quick at doing this myself, but if you don’t want to bother to save your time, I quite understand, I can sync them anyway.


STEP FIVE – upload to the internet
If you can upload the full 32 bit – wow!
If you can upload at 24 bit integer (24 bit float would be a waste because it’s the same file size as 32 bit integer!) that’s brilliant too.
If you can upload at 16 bit 44.1kHz WAV (nicely dithered from the 32 bit master) that’s great – because it will be the same as the others – this is the best choice!!!!
If you upload MP3 or anything else – thank you, but please make it at least 320kbps stereo (discrete channels not intensity stereo) and native 44.1kHz sample rate.
Ideally, I would render an MP3 from the 32 bit master, not from a 16 bit dithered file.
Post weblinks to your WAV files on this PianoWorld forum thread or email me the weblink directly.

STEP SIX – wait for comments and feedback to appear on forum!
I will try and compile some new versions of the movie with these extra pianos edited in as well. If there’s a particular running order you would like, eg. Just Ivory vs EWQL and nothing else, or all the Steinways together only, or “Battle of the Bosendorfers” then let me know. (I’m only making custom movies for people who contribute high quality piano tracks, though…!)

Wiser Guy, if you are willing to render any of these pianos with the ALPHA and BETA files, it would be great. You could render the whole piece too, but it isn’t strictly necessary, as Alpha + Beta equals the whole thing anyway. It will take a long time (trust me) to render all the pianos on your impressive list(!), so I'm not expecting 26 WAV files uploaded by tomorrow or anything... unless you are Superman! Perhaps have a go with a “single piano” product, like VSL Bosendorfer, rather than a “multi piano” product like EWQL or Akoustik which is quadruple the amount of work.

If anyone else wants to help render some more pianos tracks, please do!
It would be helpful and very considerate to post a quick comment here telling everybody which piano track(s) you’re going to produce, to save people wasting their time if someone else has already done the work, but hasn’t posted their WAV uploads here yet. If anyone owns SampleTekk Black Grand, or Milan Digital Audio Hamburg Steinway D, or Steinberg The Grand 2 (same samples as Kawai MP8 in fact), or Pianoid, or Xsample Steinway B, or PMI Old Lady, or professional hardware instruments like Yamaha CP300 or Roland RD700GX, or GEM RP-X module, these would be valuable contributions too. (…or if anyone owns a Steinway D with PianoDisc MIDI playback retrofit, or a Bosendorfer CEUS automation system that can play MIDI files, plus the means to acoustically record the instrument in stereo, then, er... you probably don’t need to buy any software pianos, so this won’t interest you and you’re very lucky!)

Kindest regards,

propianist

Yes, I completely agree with you on this true observation. In fact, there’s even more reason for it, which I think is to do with musical emotional value. If I hear the same piece of piano music played twice, but slightly differently, I will naturally warm to the human performance that has most depth of emotional feeling, even if that piano was the worse sound, whereas another piece with sterile harsh feeling (maybe a MIDI sequence) will never draw me in, even if the piano sample is excellent.
That actually means it’s not a fair comparison if you use two different human performances, because appreciating musical intentions and emotion always carrys more influence in your reaction to music than judging the tone.
I think to properly judge and distinguish between piano tones, it helps to remove other variables from the equation and use the same passage or a continuous flow of the same performance (as I’ve used here.)

Technically of course getting many files (of the same exact MIDI recording) edited together in sync is fairly easy, but you would have a lot of problems doing this switching comparison tests between several different asynchronous live pianist interpretations. For this engineering purpose, one master MIDI file source is very sensible. From the pianist’s point of view also I wouldn’t want to have to record Rondo Alla Turca like that (and edit and render the audio and video) 18 times over (quite frankly once was enough!) It took me a few initial embarrassing attempts, and false starts before I was happy with my playing – it’s always seems much harder when the red recording lights go on and there’s a closeup video camera focused on your hands, and you know a lot of other serious pianists around the world mightl be watching the film! It would take a long time to get things perfect 18 times over.

There’s also the case when you have one existing (irreplaceable) MIDI file of you or somebody else playing a piece and you want to render it. What’s the best piano sound to use. You can’t always get the original artist to re-record it for you. I would say, quite frankly the best piano sound is often the one the pianist was using when they originally recorded it. I was listening to my edited preset version of ConcertGrand1 from the Kawai MP8 when I played that Mozart, and it’s a good place to begin the video anyway since that’s the instrument you’re seeing.
Any subtle playing variations between piano patches are really compensating for the velocity curve (which is adjustable per plug-in) and the note decay rate / release time that affects the way you play something the most, I think, and perhaps the overall bite of the sound, and how responsive it’s velocity multisample layers are, but I think you can play more consistently if you try harder, and listen at the “correct” piano volume.
If you record different performances with each piano library, you’ll probably find the difference are quite negligible if your 88 note keyboard’s output MIDI velocity curve is correctly self-calibrated to the physical weight of its own keys. As a pianist, you play with certain force (as do all pianists round the world) based on your familiarity with normal acoustic pianos you learned on and live with, as with the product’s designers who setup the plug-in. They might also play piano and know if something’s not right – all humans are sensitive enough detect these subtleties, and as a result most plug-ins (made by sensitive human beings who can play piano) are quite well setup in most cases to suit a natural keyboard response curve, otherwise it would bother them as much as it bothers you and me. If something’s always wrong it’s usually your own keyboard!

Maybe you could record the main MIDI track, then find the worst case scenario at each extreme of the spectrum and re-record again for those (lighter touch version and heavier touch version.) You can swap MIDI files maybe only when fiddling with the velocity curve isn’t enough, but probably 80% of the time the main recording will sound okay, if you have a good keyboard action and calibrated touch curve in the first place. The Kawai MP8 can be great with its wooden keys, and my old plastic key Fatar wasn’t too bad. I don’t like the plastic Yamaha CP300 / P250 with its too few touch options, whilst the Roland RD700GX has plastic keys but a good continuous control for velocity curve.

Yes, some libraries are dry and up-close (Akoustik / BDMO / VSL Bosendorfer), some are mellow and distant (Garritan Steinway / Sampletekk ), some are very bright (Ivory / William Coakley) and some sound in-yer-face loud, and some have a prêt-a-porter, mass-produced, off-the-peg, ready-to-wear, generic sound (like TruePianos and Ivory) that suits many people fine. Some are a blank canvas to work from, with lots of bewildering controls (Galaxy II / Pianoteq.) You say this is your "objection"? What – that it's only fair to be comparing like with like? Or are you objecting to manufacturer's inconsistencies from your ideal desire? I say (if we’re speaking French) that demonstrating these very differences is the raison d'être for the existance of a comparison study like this – to expose all inherent character strengths and flaws – buyer beware – and help us all audition pianos on a level playing field and find the right instruments to our taste. I wish better demos existed before I bought things too. But I’ve recorded all the pianos I can here, and I can’t add anything else unless I go and buy something new. And of course, how can I decide, when there aren’t any similar comparison demos for other products I’m interested in…? That’s where we might come to the rescue!

Than you for your work and time, Propianist. Great job, great playing.

This is great stuff! Thanks for providing this to us.

I'd be happy to help "expand" on this. Of the missing libraries you've mentioned, I've got NI Akoustik, 4Front True Pianos, and the Yamaha CP300.

How about I start with the CP300's Grand Piano 1 and Mellow Piano 1, which I think are the ones most often used by CP300 owners?

I'll send you a PM with the URL once done.

@propianist
Well, you are a cascading waterfall when posting here. I can't catch up with you. This means that you are quite passionate with this project though, which is good.
I still believe that a single piece with constant changes between various libraries is hard to the listener. Too many changes with too little time and content for assessments. I am under the impression that such a test equates nice and useful libraries with the inferior ones. If I listened to such a piece, maybe I wouldn' t buy anything.
But you seem certain that this scheme works or it's a good start. I'll go along.

So, I have uploaded 3 renders (6 files labelled 'A' and 'B' corresponding to your midi files). Please check these and see if they are as expected. If you give the green light, I can upload the rest of the stuff.
The files are 32-bit .wav bounced directly from your midi files in Logic, all flat. They are in sync ok.
I have uploaded them on my iDisk. If you have a mac, you can directly browse my public iDisk folder from the Finder (username = "wiser_guy"). If you have a PC, then you can browse the iDisk from the web:

http://idisk.mac.com/wiser_guy-Public

There is a folder there, 'Propianist comparisons', with the files in it.
I know that there are ways to mount the iDisk on a windows PC, but since I have no clue about PCs, I am afraid you must look it up yourself and see how it's done.

The rendered libraries are:
PMIBoesendorfer
VSL Close mic
VSL Distant mic

To be fair, when a library offers more than one perspective (recorded that is, not programmed), I will render each perspective. I see you have done the same with Garritan.

BTW, can you handle 32-bit .aif instead of .wav? You will save me an additional Open-Save if you can.

And lastly, I happen to have a real Boesendorfer in my private home studio. It's not fitted with the CEUS system (if I could afford it, the CEUS would cost me almost another Boesendorfer and I would prefer another Boesendorfer instead) but I do recordings with it and I can mike it close enough if needed. You think that a comparison of a real piano with the virtual libraries would worth the while?

I agree this is hard if you switch between all eighteen pianos in just three minutes as you only get a small chance to really compare any two. However, this was really a "showreel" for the whole project, which is being able to compare any pianos side by side at your leisure, using the full WAV files of each piano, or the Alpha and Beta files for 29 "automatically switching" comparison sections. I must hurry up and get all my 54 WAV files posted here soon!
You should definitely see the advantages of this Alpha vs Beta comparison method (rather than just one track at a time like Purgatory Creek.)

Thank you for doing this, Wiser Guy, that's fantastic! It's very handy doing the MIDI file renders directly like this because then they're all in sync with the other WAV files and in sync with the video too.

I have downloaded your six WAV files and they all work fine. If other people want to find them, they can go to your link...

http://idisk.mac.com/wiser_guy-Public

...and download your original floating point 32 bit versions (which include all the data beyond where the signal clips!) I will also probably re-convert them to CD compatible 16 bit WAVs (for popular convenience and faster downloading times) and include them with all the rest of the WAVs in a subsequent post here.

Yes, I can handle AIFF format if you prefer that.

Mmm... But that would just be "another recording of a Bosendorfer played live" then, unless you plan to play "Rondo Alla Turca" to make a fair side-by-side comparison with these tracks. Everybody here already knows that a "real life" Bosendorfer sounds wonderful(!) - the question is, what commercial product or sample library can be heard to recreate that feeling? What "ideal" product should we buy?
Maybe recording your real Bosendorfer would show something of an idea what target we're all aiming for, but the sound depends very much on the acoustics of your building and your personal choice of mics / mic positions, recording technique, etc. which is all subjective, and even if your piano recording sounds utterly amazing, how does that help other interested forum members, if there exists no distributable multi-sampled version of your instrument for them to buy and use themselves...? Maybe you should multisample it instead, if you have the time - it only takes about six months to finish editing afterwards!!!!

So, it's a go then. Right.
I will start uploading the rest of the files soon. Please be patient as the assymetric type of DSL limits my upload speed. It may take some time to upload everything.
Not wanting to waste this forum's space, I will just PM you whenever a bunch of new files have been uploaded. So please keep an eye on your private messages once a day. Or just go to my iDisk once a day.

Would you prefer 16-bit files instead? Because this would save upload time mostly. I bounced 32-bit since you said they were the best option.

In the high risk of openly taking sides in this essentially subjective case, I would say Galaxy II. It's got terrific tone, exceptional resonance and it's the most malleable. VSL is nice also (maybe a winner for orchestral production). EWQL Boesendorfer has a mind-blowing sound but still coloured and surely much less malleable than Galaxy. So, for me the closest to a neutral yet full-bodied Boesendorfer as I know it, is Galaxy II.

..."What 'ideal' product should we buy?"

It was a rhetorical question(!) - but Galaxy II is a good place to start, I agree.

I think 16 bit WAV is a reasonable trade off between download speed vs sound quality. Most serious listeners really hate MP3 (myself included) and while I prefer 24 bit or 32 bit WAV files (where I can download them), I agree they take ages to upload in the first place! 32 bit and 24 bit do have the advantage of not needing extra dither applied, and are much better if post-processing / editing work is needed. (eg. all of these pianos are recorded dry / no reverb, so somebody might want to add their own reverb to the tracks at some point, if they don't like the dry sound.)

WAV format is also a lot more popular than AIFF generally speaking, and the ability to burn 16 bit 44.1kHz straight onto audio CDR without re-encoding anything is a big benefit too.

Be careful each 16 bit version isn't clipped though - your 32 bit floating point WAVs did exceed 0dBFS in several places (although in floating point the audio is still easily recoverable) but if this was saved as a 16 bit copy, it would be badly clipped. I have also tweaked the master gain of each file (relative to the others) in 32 bit to maintain consistent volume between the different pianos, before producing the final 16 bit dithered version, because the different plug-ins each produce slightly different "volume" piano renders, and it isn't fair to compare one piano against another that's 3dB louder or quieter, so I corrected this. (As a mastering engineer would when compiling numerous different tracks into a CD album.)

Thankyou for your kind efforts, Wiser Guy. Everybody here benefits from your extra contributions.

@propianist
Never mind then, I am already uploading more 32-bit files. It'll just take some time.

In the meantime, I have uploaded a quick production test, Steinways only, I am afraid. You can find it on my iDisk at:

http://idisk.mac.com/wiser_guy-Public

Inside the folder "Propianist comparisons", there is another folder, "Steinway Test". In there you will find four .mp3s labelled Steinway 1,2,3,4. Each of these contains the same 1.5 minute solo piano excerpt played with a top current virtual Steinway.

Since we test Steinway sounds, then the most relevant material IMO would be the widely known and recognisable Steinway solo pianist, Keith Jarrett.
I chose and transcribed the piece "True Blues" from Jarrett's solo recording at Carnegie Hall (2005). The midi file has been beat-mapped to the actual performance to keep as much of the original groove as possible. The same with velocities. Of course I am not Keith Jarrett, so the performance is nowhere near the actual one, but let's not mind about this now.
I obviously cannot include the actual excerpt from the original CD. Those who don't have it can always peek 30 seconds in the iTunes store or Amazon to get the idea.

I tried to closely match the sound of the real piece, so these excerpts are to be considered production sound (EQ, reverb, limiter etc.). I know that I cannot compete with the ECM people but I have come close enough. Mind also that some of the pianos have been heavily EQed because their out-of-the-box sound was way far. This revealed various noises in the sample sets and it worries me a lot!

On to our listening test then.
We have 4 of the top virtual Steinway D libraries. First of all, can you tell which is which?
Do you think that any of them is close to the original? This is important since it would mean that the library is neutral enough to be manipulated and its sound be adapted to different production needs.
I would be interested to see whether this test results in consistency with the 'Alla Turca' demo. I mean, if you heard the 'Alla Turca' and have decided on what piano library you prefer, then would this be the same after listening to this test?

These audio tracks are all exactly in sync with the video playback, and in sync with the MIDI file playback, and therefore also in sync with each other too. This means you can easily open many tracks into your multitrack DAW and switch between them easily while listening, etc., although the forthcoming Alpha and Beta wav files will offer back 'n' forth switching for you "automatically" throughout all 29 sections of music, making great instant comparison tracks!
(Some very tiny synchro drift (a millisecond or two) is inherent to the various external sources, and has been divided / averaged over the entire file length, by manual best-fit sync alignment. Also, please note there is exactly 3.2 seconds of digital silence before the synchronized audio begins, so if you want to burn an audio CD directly from these WAV files, you might find it nice to trim 2 seconds off the start of every track, to avoid annoyingly long pauses on a music CD.) The WAVs have also been carefully re-mastered for matching total RMS volume levels (for fair equal comparison) and converted to 16 bit with dither applied (except during digital silent areas) from the original 32 bit 44.1kHz masters.


The eighteen pianos in the original movie, all rendered by propianist...

Rondo Alla Turca__ Galaxy II Bluthner .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Galaxy II Bosendorfer .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Galaxy II Steinway .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Garritan Steinway Classic .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Garritan Steinway Close .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Garritan Steinway Player .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Garritan Steinway Stage Side .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Garritan Steinway Under Lid .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Ivory Bosendorfer .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Ivory Steinway .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Ivory Yamaha .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Ivory Italian Grand Fazioli .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Kawai MP8 concertgrand1 .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Kawai MP8 concertgrand2 .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Kemble Upright - propianist multisample .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ GEM RealPiano Expander .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Pianoteq Grand C2 Concert .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Pianoteq Erard .wav


Additional piano tracks, very kindly contributed by Wiser_guy...

Rondo Alla Turca__ Native Akoustik Bechstein .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Native Akoustik Bosendorfer .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Native Akoustik Steinway .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Native Akoustik Steingraeber Upright .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ EastWest Quantum Leap Pianos - Bechstein - close .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ EastWest Quantum Leap Pianos - Bechstein - player .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ EastWest Quantum Leap Pianos - Bosendorfer - close .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ EastWest Quantum Leap Pianos - Bosendorfer - player .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ EastWest Quantum Leap Pianos - Steinway - close .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ EastWest Quantum Leap Pianos - Steinway - player .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ EastWest Quantum Leap Pianos - Yamaha - close .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ EastWest Quantum Leap Pianos - Yamaha - player .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ ArtVista Virtual Grand Piano 2 - Steinway B .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Bluthner Digital Model One .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ PMI Bosendorfer 290 .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ 4Front TruePianos Diamond .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ 4Front TruePianos Emerald .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ 4Front TruePianos Sapphire .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Vienna Symphonic Library Bosendorfer Imperial - close .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Vienna Symphonic Library Bosendorfer Imperial - distant .wav


Additional piano tracks, very kindly contributed by Rented...

Rondo Alla Turca__ Yamaha CP300 GrandPiano1 .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ Yamaha CP300 MellowPiano1 .wav


Additional piano tracks, very kindly contributed by AcousticSamples...

Rondo Alla Turca__ AcousticSamples A-Pian .wav


Additional piano tracks and alternative variatons, rendered by propianist...

Rondo Alla Turca__ Galaxy II Bosendorfer - mellow soft settings .wav
Rondo Alla Turca__ eighteen pianos__original movie soundtrack .wav


<hr></hr>




WORK IN PROGRESS HERE - wav file downloads coming soon !

<font size=6 color="red">ALPHA section wav files</font><font color="white"> . . . .</font><font size=6 color="blue">BETA section wav files</font>


<font color="red">ALPHA__ Akoustik Bechstein .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ Akoustik Bechstein .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Akoustik Bosendorfer .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ Akoustik Bosendorfer .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Akoustik Steinway .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ Akoustik Steinway .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Akoustik Steingraeber Upright .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ Akoustik Steingraeber Upright .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ ArtVista Virtual Grand Steinway B .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ ArtVista Virtual Grand Steinway B .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Bluthner Digital Model One .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ Bluthner Digital Model One .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ EWQL Bechstein - close .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ EWQL Bechstein - close .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ EWQL Bechstein - player .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ EWQL Bechstein - player .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ EWQL Bosendorfer - close .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ EWQL Bosendorfer - close .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ EWQL Bosendorfer - player .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ EWQL Bosendorfer - player .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ EWQL Steinway - close .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ EWQL Steinway - close .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ EWQL Steinway - player .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ EWQL Steinway - player .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ EWQL Yamaha - close .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ EWQL Yamaha - close .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ EWQL Yamaha - player .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ EWQL Yamaha - player .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Galaxy II Bluthner .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ Galaxy II Bluthner .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Galaxy II Bosendorfer .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ Galaxy II Bosendorfer .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Galaxy II Steinway .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ Galaxy II Steinway .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Garritan Steinway - classic .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ Garritan Steinway - classic .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Garritan Steinway - close .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ Garritan Steinway - close .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Garritan Steinway - player .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ Garritan Steinway - player .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Garritan Steinway - stage side .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ Garritan Steinway - stage side .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Garritan Steinway - under lid .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ Garritan Steinway - under lid .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ GEM RealPiano .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ GEM RealPiano .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Ivory Bosendorfer .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ Ivory Bosendorfer .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Ivory Steinway .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ Ivory Steinway .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Ivory Yamaha .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ Ivory Yamaha .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Ivory Fazioli .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ Ivory Fazioli .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Kawai MP8 cg1 .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ Kawai MP8 cg1 .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Kawai MP8 cg2 .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ Kawai MP8 cg2 .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Kemble Upright .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ Kemble Upright .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Pianoteq Concert .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ Pianoteq Concert .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ Pianoteq Erard .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ Pianoteq Erard .wav</font>
<font color="red">ALPHA__ PMI Bosendorfer 290 .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ PMI Bosendorfer 290 .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ TruePianos Diamond .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ TruePianos Diamond .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ TruePianos Emerald .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<font color="blue">BETA___ TruePianos Emerald .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ TruePianos Sapphire .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ TruePianos Sapphire .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ VSL Bosendorfer - close .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. <font color="blue">BETA___ VSL Bosendorfer - close .wav
<font color="red">ALPHA__ VSL Bosendorfer - distant .wav<font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <font color="blue">BETA___ VSL Bosendorfer - distant .wav</font>
ALPHA__ Yamaha CP300 - grand1 .wav <font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . </font> BETA___ Yamaha CP300 - grand1 .wav
ALPHA__ Yamaha CP300 - mellow1 .wav <font color="white"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . </font> BETA___ Yamaha CP300 - mellow1 .wav

<font color="black">
Warning! It will obviously take a long time, if you wanted to download every single wav file here! Hopefully this project will serve as an online reference library for high quality comparisons between pianos, and the lists are growing!
If you need some basic quick demos, with low quality MP3 audio, you could try Purgatory Creek piano comparison website , but there's a lot more jumping in and out of different screens to find the MP3 files, and a lot of the instruments are old and now discontinued - in fact, some of the most important current software pianos aren't there yet. To help with that, I actually rendered some myself, on this forum thread , but again, you can only listen to one piano at a time, not two side by side, like here! I have a lot of respect for Purgatory Creek, and it kinda gave me the idea for this, which I actually think this is a better method for audiophile quality "comparison" rather than mere one-by-one "audition". (I suppose you could get lots of Purgatory Creek MP3s and edit them all into sync and then chop them up into sections via batch audio editing, to achieve similar thing, but it would be tedious(!), and still only compressed MP3 quality.)

This collection includes many of today's state-of-the-art software pianos, and the ALPHA vs BETA files provide amazing instant comparisons!
Choose any "ALPHA" piano from red coloumn and any "BETA piano from blue column, and play them both simultaneously. Plus you can watch in perfect sync with the video too, or render your own in sync, with the MIDI files.
If you combine ALPHA plus BETA tracks of the same piano, you essentially hear the entire piece as if it were one solo piano recording using that piano - this might save you downloading the solo "Rondo Alla Turca" tracks at the top, which are equivalent, however they are nicer to burn to CDR for "proper" hi-fi listening.

Also, you don't necessarily need to download both ALPHA and BETA tracks for every piano - as long as you have just one, you can compare that piano successfully against something else. eg. It only requires one "alpha" piano track to compare with any other one piano's "beta" track, so you could economise by downloading just one of either type for those instruments you fancy, but your combinations would be more restricted - whereas having both ALPHA and BETA gives you more alternative mix-and-match options.
In fact, with 40 different piano examples here, there are 780 possible pairings!! Clearly it would be crazy to try and upload 780 different A/B comparison tracks, but by downloading these ALPHA and BETA test tracks for each piano, you would atually get every single one of them - yes all 780 possibilities, in (only!) about 2.5GB of files.

If you were to own all these products, you would surely keep facing this bewildering decision - choosing which piano might be best to render some music you've recorded! It's far too time-consuming to always render everything 40 ways and listen to each one - this a pain in the neck! But if you own numerous software pianos, you will probably want and need to compare them all somehow. It can take months or years to really come to know their sounds by playing, and you often just stick to a few favourites after a while, missing out on other options.
We've done the hard work for you!
This comparison project really helps put all these pianos side-by-side on a level playing field, with carefully matched dB volume levels (not to be taken for granted otherwise!) so the only meaningful variable for auditioning is the raw piano timbre, thus you can quickly compare a lot of choices directly and reliably, using an extremely famous well-known Mozart piano piece, to pick the most agreeable piano sound for your musical tastes, and find the best choices to use for rendering, or pick products you might like (or not like) to buy, from among so many very similar sounding options. And best of luck!

If you've enjoyed these free WAV downloads or they've helped you choose what to buy, etc., please consider posting a little comment here, because it's always nice to know how many people are interested in this work. I've got no actual download / webpage visitor counter, or feedback otherwise. If I know lots of people appreciate seeing this stuff, I'll know its worthwhile uploading some new material here, but if there's only a few people in the audience (worldwide!) maybe it's too intensive, and I should use MP3 rather than big WAV files, etc. I'm open to any questions and suggestions, folks...
To me personally, this type of comparison is what I've wanted to see for ages, and I wish it had existed when I was choosing to buy things...

Hi Wiser_guy,
I just downloaded your four Steinway MP3 tests and listened to all of them. Your closely matched "production sound" with unknown added EQ / reverb / compression etc. makes it harder to hear the characteristic differences between the various sample libraries, as you're obviously aiming for a similar result from each one. If others want to play this interesting guessing game / listening test, I won't spoil it for everyone by revealing the answers here.

Steinway_01.mp3
Steinway_02.mp3
Steinway_03.mp3
Steinway_04.mp3

For my ears the Gem (first) and Garritan (second) "sound" the very best. The others all have that "tin" sound that pervades digital pianos.
WELL DONE PROPIANIST

I have updated this thread with some more WAV files above, but there are still many more files to post-process and upload, and I'm also working on a new video with these additional pianos too. I want to explain further about the Alpha and Beta files - there's some more clever tricks you can do...!





And now for something slightly different, here's a few interesting MIDI files (provided by Wiser_guy) which I've rendered with Synthogy Ivory Italian Grand "Fazioli", to allow further specific comparisons to be made...


C major big chord__Ivory Fazioli__32 bit.wav

quick demo__Ivory Fazioli__24 bit.wav <font color="lightgrey"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . </font> quick demo.mid
quick demo__Ivory Bosendorfer__24 bit.wav
quick demo__Ivory Steinway__24 bit.wav
quick demo__Ivory Yamaha__24 bit.wav

Arietta__Ivory Fazioli.wav <font color="lightgrey"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . </font> Arietta.mid
Arietta__Kemble Upright.wav

Andante545__Ivory Fazioli.wav <font color="lightgrey"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . </font> Andante545.mid

Allegro545__Ivory Fazioli.wav <font color="lightgrey"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . </font> Allegro545.mid

Valse70_3__Ivory Fazioli.wav <font color="lightgrey"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . </font> Valse70_3.mid

Gymnopaedie_1__Ivory Fazioli.wav <font color="lightgrey"> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .</font> Gymnopaedie_1.mid



Synthogy 's 19GB Fazioli library is commercially entitled "Italian Grand" because the Fazioli company (which does not even produce any upright pianos, only fine rare hand-built grands!) is based in town of Sacile, in Pordenone, Northern Italy, and Fazioli may have objected to any digital sampled piano product (which could never compare to a beautiful real acoustic instrument) being sold worldwide under their legal trademark name "Fazioli." Needless to say, Borgato , the other very famous Italian grand piano manufacturer haven't objected to the vagueness of the title!

The Fazioli F308 is a 308cm (10 foot 1 inch) long, 690kg concert grand. (Huge indeed, but not quite the longest grand piano in the world - that's a Rubenstein R-371 at 12 foot 2 inches!) Fazioli tone has a very resonant bass, and superb rich midrange, and sounds a bit more dark and mellow than a Steinway or Yamaha, and also provides a fourth pedal which moves the hammers closer to the strings (like soft pedal on an upright) as well as having a traditional soft pedal (una corda shifting keys to the right) so you can get a very soft tone if needed, by pressing both pedals together - if your left foot will stretch! (The biggest stretch, of course, is the one for your wallet, as this exquisite instrument will cost you £200,000 these days!)

Propianist,

Thank you for the movie. It's both fascinating and informative. I have been watching and listening to it through headphones over several days. One thing I notice is that at different times I have different favorites. I already knew I liked Ivory samples. I had heard plenty of them, but I had never heard any Galaxy II samples before. I was surprised and impressed with them. I found them a little more forward and immediate (not better) than the Ivory (if that makes any sense). I did not care for the Garritan samples myself...found the tone thin. The Modartt samples seemed clearly different to me from all the others. When I was only listening and not watching, the onset of the Modartts always seemed a little jarring. I may be reading too much into a short sample from one test, but to me there is something liquid in the Modarrt sound that takes away from the definition of individual notes. Can you relate to that?

Hi Turandot,

Yes, playing the Modartt Pianoteq, you do get some sense of "realism" from the way it behaves with natural resonances and interaction between the notes, but I totally agree that the sound is a bit "jarring" and shrill in the midrange and treble. I found the Erard add-on preset very clangy and harsh, although I know others love it.
Galaxy II is indeed very good and does include Sympathetic String Resonance, so perhaps sounds richer than Ivory because of this too.

The Garritan Steinways are all noticeably more "off mic" / "distant" / "ambient" sounding than other samples like Ivory, but that sound can work really well for certain softer classical music pieces like "Clair De Lune" which sounds fantastic on Garritan Steinway. I must post a demo of this...

Obviously, the eighteen piano movie is more of a demonstration "showreel" for this whole piano comparison project, and to really appreciate the subtle qualities, you need to compare each piano by listening to them individually for the entire piece, not just their brief 8 bar highlight in the movie, and for this reason, I've been uploading the complete WAV files above.
You should listen to these to get a much better idea...
(I have to admit I do like my own Kemble Upright sample the best - isn't that weird?!)

Compare the Bluthner Digital Model One with Galaxy II's Bluthner, for instance, and it's surprising how similar they are in tone - obviously both Bluthner instruments. I feel the BDMO needs a bit more bass for a big concert grand, but it certainly has much wider dynamic range, and if you love Bluthner, is an obvious choice being officially endorsed by Bluthner, but just listen to how close Galaxy II comes to achieving exactly the same sound(!) - plus it includes the additional Sympathetic String Resonance - in a product which, after all, also includes a fantastic Bosendorfer and Steinway and 5.1 surround sampled Steinway as well(!), and is yet lower in total price than buying just the BDMO Bluthner alone!
You certainly can measure these piano's relative qualities more easily in an equal side-by-side comparison test like this, rather than separate manufacturer's demos.

The only anomaly to watch out for is Pianoteq which is only the trial version downloadable demo, and has 8 notes disabled – sorry folks! (One of these is high C# which sounds terrible when missing from Rondo Alla Turca.) I haven't been persuaded to buy Pianoteq myself yet (waiting for them to release some better sounding preset models), but I carefully chose musical sections for Pianoteq in the movie which didn't require those missing notes, so that worked okay at least.

propianist

PS. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep adding more pianos into this roundup, if anyone out there is willing to render and upload some new piano WAV files, and meanwhile, I’m currently working on some different test pieces and new movies too – coming soon!

Hi folks, me again!

Okay, I know what some of you are thinking – listening to Mozart is all very nice, but classical music is not everybody’s cup of tea, and is certainly not the type of music you’ll be playing at your next gig. You need to hear something that is, y’know, a bit more <font size=3 color="red">ROCK ‘N’ ROLL</font> dude!!!!

This makes a lot of sense. Many keyboard players are in a band, or are producing commercial music and need to know how these pianos work in that context. Any piano will sound optimum with solo performances of polite classical music in a carefully mastered audiophile demo where all the dynamic range has been kept intact, and the instrument has as much room to breathe as it requires.

But real life isn’t like that – piano tracks for commercial pop are made to fit with the vocals and drums and other instruments, etc. They are compressed and EQ’d, and suffer all kinds of sonic deterioration, whereupon the final end result leaves your piano track sounding nothing like the timbre you heard while playing, so we need to know how these plug-ins will perform under those tough circumstances? Which piano best survives to convey our musical expression?
Our professional workmanship is often judged from the final CD mix, not our 24 bit multi-track source. We might not like it, but we’ve all been there. Survival of the fittest.

It’s a bit like American wrestling – all the tough guys walk down the entrance ramp with their theme tune playing, all pumped up, full of confidence, boasting about how great they are. Just like all these big software pianos and their marketing hype – “Look at me, I’m the official authorised Steinway!!!” or “I’m an Italian Fazioli and I’m 10 foot long!!!” or “I’m a Bosendorfer Imperial, I’ve got 97 keys!!!”, but just like the phoney wrestlers, some of them can’t last thirty seconds in the ring, and they get carried out on a stretcher! Most of these pianos too, once you beat the heck out of them, with two-handed glissandos, pounding chords, and then compress their audio really hard into a super-loud, narrow dynamic range for commercial pop and rock production (let alone hip-hop tracks - hyper compressed well past the point of distortion and clipping in the final master!) these pianos just crumble! Unlike Gloria Gaynor, they won’t survive. The overpowering right hand chords totally drown everything out. The low bass notes (which rely on a high transient peak envelope for their energy) get squashed and can’t be heard, the tone gets really thin and brassy. The stereo image (L/R level balance) gets pushed out of shape by compression and limiting, and the dynamics of the instrument get steamrollered.

So you have been warned! This is not a pretty sight – it’s rock ‘n’ roll, man!
I’m not talking Dion And The Belmonts, I’m talking Little Richard screaming and playing with his feet, and Jerry Lee Lewis setting fire to the Steinway!

So, here’s how they fare in a rock ‘n’ roll track – a heavyweight audio torture test - not just with the style of music, but in context with brutal audio post-production afterwards, if you want to really know what sound you’re gonna get after you bend the VU meter needles.
The one that performs the best here is clearly Synthogy Ivory Yamaha – top choice for rock ’n’ roll piano – it’s the sonic equivalent of a 1957 Cadillac and some blue suede shoes!
Some of the other pianos don’t fare as well, and sound about as authentic “rock ‘n’ roll” as this Chinese Elvis impersonator ! (Whereas, just for the record, this one\'s much better!)

So anyway, throw a dime in the jukebox, and have a listen...


<a href=http://dz3jeg.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pJzg7dSYiEiO4WYyB2p34gQw4eKbhMyhui2X8-1vwwMvlmgt3YOBbUwVS_WqvwazuStHyDuL5AeU/RockNRoll__Galaxy%20II%20Bosendorfer.wav?download>Rock'N'Roll__Galaxy II Bosendorfer.wav</a>

<a href=http://dz3jeg.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pjJaBhx_OH7RD4sWTPyE_JdbE9ne6qiIXn7ZNxxEXlB7veATVmJd6PsuIpid9FCVzntsEMUCmYWwTtUNdc5NgSg/RockNRoll__Galaxy%20II%20Bluthner.wav?download>Rock'N'Roll__Galaxy II Bluthner.wav</a>

<a href=http://dz3jeg.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pmxx2dl3BOEYLgI7sc4fqoPJyYbCVdOP2HP2_jTV0Rsr4-djXZSRtsFdtpU988xsYOXcJbVD6LEA/RockNRoll__Galaxy%20II%20Steinway.wav?download>Rock'N'Roll__Galaxy II Steinway.wav</a>

<a href=http://dz3jeg.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pnPGBWyWs5hd2FCJ45LQXfD3NRe1YQM5ztwh4R2Kamj_lmUqSJkGwbb4XDYmfLxj3V9JE4JYQdDo/RockNRoll__Kemble%20Upright%20propianist%20multisample.wav?download>Rock'N'Roll__Kemble Upright propianist multisample.wav</a>

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<a href=http://dz3jeg.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pSWgPHVF5YIjbYf934lvlILMmM99JgkXYeWSyFbrtGbmcsQj8UHqAENTmK5BLdznZ6p7EzBhCChA/RockNRoll__Synthogy%20Ivory%20Steinway.wav?download>Rock'N'Roll__Synthogy Ivory Steinway.wav</a>

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Great Fun propianist! (Great playing too!)

Interesting how the raw edge of emotion in your rock piece makes certain of these pianos cry out for attention. I don't want to imply any ranking, but I thought that two of them cried out with that raw edge and one of those two had more immediacy. A third one didn't have the edge (to me) but had enough punch to make it work and was so well-balanced that all its voices were distinct and easily heard. A fourth one sounded imperfect and that made it realistic in a quirky fun kind of way. The others were........let's just say pleasant.

Have any of these been tweaked or are they all default settings?

A very interesting comparison there propianist.
I won't agree with you though on the best performer being the Ivory Yamaha. It sounds like it's struggling to provide and it is constantly behind you. You drag it forward but it does not seem to follow. Too stringy its sound.
To me, the clear winner is the Galaxy Bluethner. If it is the same midi file it's playing, then it is clearly ahead of all the others. Fantastic colour and performance, consistent and musical.

Propianist - this is something of a tour-de-force and you are to be commended for the results achieved.

But why Mozart of all people? And a piece representing the boy at his most irrelevant? I put it to you that this material is not worthy of your efforts.

Mozart was a "man" of 22 years old when he wrote Rondo Alla Turca.
I was thinking about playing Wumpletoad's 5th piano concerto Opus 99, but my local shop didn't have the sheet music.


Hi Wiser_Guy,

You actually like the dark, mellow, almost "muffled" tone of Galaxy Bluthner 1929 Baby Grand the best on this aggressive rock 'n' roll track?! I'm very surprised! Maybe that just sounds more like a vintage 1950's rock 'n' roll recording? Is that why you prefer it? What about for live playing? I know you're not a Yamaha fan, but the bright, lively tone and growling bass of the Yamaha, or perhaps the Ivory or Galaxy Steinway, I thought most suits this style, at least it feels more energetic to me.
(Yes, it was all rendered from the same MIDI file.)


Hi Turandot,

"Have any of these been tweaked or are they all default settings?"

Yes, because the tracks have all been deliberately "tweaked" in audio post-production (heavy volume boost and peak limiting) to show how they cope with real-world mix production conditions. For the actual plug-ins, I used their optimal settings, as always, and where I could fine-tune the tone parameters (Galaxy and Ivory) I tried to suit this style better, but mostly my user preset settings. Garritan is basically "default" just with string resonance / sustain resonance turned on, and dry volume up to max. The Kemble Upright piano has no editable parameters within the SF2 Soundfont player I used, (unless I go back into Creative Vienna and re-organise the multisample elements differently and save a new SF2 file) so that's ALWAYS the same setting whatever music I render with it.

Hello Propianist,

My comments should have two caveats attached. 1).I've been listening to the rock samples through cheap M Audio earbuds. I can't seem to find the jack adaptor for my good headphones. 2.) I'm not blessed with the most discriminating ears.

Nonetheless, I think there is a pronounced difference between the two Bosendorfer samples, the Galaxy coming through at much higher volume. The two Bosendorfers were actually the ones that had the raw edge that I would look for in that kind of piece, so they both appealed to me. Of the two, the Galaxy grabbed me a bit harder, but it may be the higher volume level gives it more immediacy. I've been trying to shuttle back and forth between the two adjusting the volume level to match on the fly, but that's a pain.

I thought the Ivory Fazioli had less of an edge, but let all the voices be heard with better definition of individual notes. I could actually detect the pitch of the highest treble notes on the Faz. I couldn't with any of the others. Again, my hearing may be deficient.

Just for the record...
Galaxy Bosendorfer = average RMS level -11.503 dBFS / peak -0.29 dBFS
Ivory Bosendorfer = average RMS level -11.867 dBFS / peak -0.29 dBFS

So in fact, they are both extremely closely matched in average volume level, peak levels and therefore also subjective dynamic headroom (crest factor).
I think the negligable difference of 0.36dB cannot be decribed as "much higher volume", and what you are probably experiencing is the difference in spectral content, note attack clarity and ultimately "timbre" between these two piano libraries, and that is, of course, the whole reason I'm making these comparison tests!
Even though both offer a multisampled Bosendorfer 290 Imperial, the Galaxy II version contains more low bass energy in the sample and also more sparkling high treble than Ivory, which is perhaps a more hard midrange dominant tone. I know Galaxy II pianos were recorded using DPA microphones, famous for their accuracy and excellent fidelity. Sonic differences are bound to exist between Ivory and Galaxy due to differing mics, mic positions, preamps, signal chain, engineering techniques, production sample editing decisions, and obviously, the different hall acoustics in each case, and the actual pianoforte in use, since no two are identical.
Ivory and Galaxy offer two of the best examples. PMI Bosendorfer 290 also sounds very good. The Native Akoustik Bosendorfer on the other hand, sounds much less realistic. In real life, the Bosendorfer Imperial is famous for it's big, bold, stately sound, with strong attack across the whole range of keyboard (brighter than a mellow Fazioli certainly, but not as bright as a Yamaha.) It also has 97 keys, with low sub-bass keys below bottom A that add extra mass, via sympathetic string resonances with normal played notes. Galaxy II includes dedicated SSR action which allows it to fully demonstrate the behaviour of this phenomenon to great effect with the 97 key Bosendorfer. On Ivory you can play these extra low keys but they won't sympathetically resonate with your normal 88 keys playing, other than what you hear from the overall "sustain resonance" soundboard effect setting, which is artificial anyway.

Hi, I just downloaded some of your piano tests, man this is really an intensive test

I just downloaded your midi files and made my new piano (i did not do the b-pian as it looks like you're looking for grand pianos, not bad out of tune ones ) play it.

here is the result: they are all in a folder stored at steekr, it's uploading right now, but should be ready in half an hour:

http://www.steekr.com/n/50-17/share/LNK55794911945a85276/


Remember that they are not the same size (and number of velocities, samples and everything) as the ones you reviewed and also not the same prices

Hi AcousticSamples,

Thank you for contributing some more piano tracks into this comparison test roundup. I'm sure everybody who follows these threads appreciates the more pianos we can hear the better! I will be adding your renders into the lists above.

Kindest regards,
propianist

AcousticSamples A-Pian and B-Pian are two brand new software pianos that have just been released, for those who haven't heard yet. I only found out about these myself yesterday, and immediately posted a new forum thread here to let others know! (Obviously to me, a new software piano on the market is even more exciting front-page news than a new American president!)

Yes folks, this is true - for instance, Ivory Fazioli is 19GB, and each different EWQL mic perspectives are over 20GB in size! There are some <font size=4>very big</font> commercial pianos on test here - and that's an understatement!
In contrast, A-Pian is an 820 MB multisample, which appears small by comparison - and the price is also much lower than the rest too! However, 820MB is not even that small...

Just consider this - a certain very humble guy called propianist was brave enough to upload his own very humble domestic Kemble Upright Piano multisample tracks, to be included in every single one of these unforgiving, harsh-but-fair comparison tests - going up, side by side against all of the biggest commercial industry giants here, like David against Goliath.
FYI: Kemble Upright soundfont SF2 - file size 61 MB total. Yes, 61 MB, which is orders of magnitude less than everything else here!
Recorded over ten years ago to fit a 64MB RAM rack sampler so only enough space for 16 bit, mono note samples, (even though I originally captured 24 bit samples.)
Yet I feel confident to include it without any "big size" envy, or fear of it being laughed at, because I know at the end of the day, realistic piano quality is the final arbiter of merit, not disk drive space. It is engineering skill and audiophile editing wisdom that makes any sample succeed or fail. It's not how "big" it is, but what you can do with it and where you stick it (your microphone, that is) that really counts!
With every possible disadvantage on paper, if the Kemble Upright sounds good or bad, it will be 100% because of the WAY it was sampled (using moving-mic techniques and manual editing) and the same litmus test holds true for everything else like A-Pian, Ivory, Galaxy II, Garritan, EWQL, and so on. It's purely the WAY the recordings were made that 99% determines the realistic piano sound quality (or defecit thereof) more than all other influential factors combined.
"Size matters not, judge me by my size do you?" as a little character (but with big ears!) once famously said.<font color=#FDFDFD>

PP-

You should be congratulated on your exhaustive contribution...it's quite amazing!

I enjoyed both the Mozart and the Jerry Lee stuff.
Great pro playing all around.

If I could make a simple request, maybe not of you but to anyone whose interests lie in this area.
It would be nice to hear some musical samples in the jazz genre. Both in a standard trio format and solo playing. I did hear the small fragment on the Garritan website when the Steinway was released a few months back. One studio were I do some jingles uses the Ivory samples so I have had the experience of playing those.

I've found for single note soloing, the Ivory "felt' a little thin when compared to a quality digital piano such has the Roland RD700GX or the Yamaha CP300.

Thanks again for your very valuable contribution.

Hi Dave,

Yes, I love jazz! I am a professional jazz pianist myself. I want to do this as well!
The fundamental reason why I choose Rondo Alla Turca was Mozart's repetitive 8 bar sections - they make perfect logical A/B comparisons if you switch pianos for each musical phrase, to hear it repeated afterwards.
Furthermore, Rondo Alla Turca is such a famous piece, and most pianists out there, who've had traditional (classical) piano lessons (myself included) will have come across this piece at some point and probably learned to play it. Millions of us piano students are therefore very used to hearing this music played on our own real acoustic pianos, so we've got a pretty clear idea of how a real life piano should sound when playing it! Even if you've played different Mozart or other classical piano pieces you can probably directly relate to this composition in a very similar way.
Whereas, when you hear some unfamiliar piece you've never heard or played before, or something so fiendishly difficult you couldn't play it anyway, then you can't really relate to that - the only experience you can have comes through a loudspeaker from a recording - you don't have actual hands-on experience of hearing such things live from your piano.

With jazz pieces, you run into the same dilemma. You could pick some generic relaxed "cocktail piano" style, or go for a very lively uptempo piece, or some old fashioned stride, but what do jazz pianists most relate to? Maybe a famous jazz standard like "Someone To Watch Over Me" or "Misty" or "The Very Thought Of You" which everyone knows, but maybe most jazz pianists play with much improvisation, so no two jazz pianists will agree on how one should perform each song. If you hear someone playing a famous tune "wrong" with hideous chord substitutions, whereas you always play it "right" (!) or at least very differently, it drives you crazy!

The other amusing thing is that people listen to jazz records and vintage recordings from the 1930s and 1940s era where the fidelity is quite bad. If you suddenly heard Art Tatum or Fats Waller original recordings in pristine modern studio quality 24 bit digital with very clean, bright, distinct piano timbre, you might not even like the sound! Maybe the charm of the old jazz records on vinyl is their sonic colouration to some extent. Some modern software pianos that sound great for classical and live playing (at best pristine quality) sound really cold and artificial when you render jazz pieces and hear them back as a listener, because it’s not what you “expect” to hear from that era of piano music. The only exception is listening to live jazz piano when you play a real acoustic, when always sounds so much better than any recording, you know it’s live and don’t have the expectations you have of a jazz recording. It’s a weird conundrum, but there’s a ring of truth in what I’m saying here. It’s hard to explain what I mean without some audio examples! But the choice of piano sound for jazz is very, very, very subjective, depending on musical context and preferences for the elusive sonic coloration which you know you don’t want, but you miss it when it’s not there!

Okay, here’s a little jazz piano piece which is called “Fingerbuster” composed by Willie “The Lion” Smith. I don’t know who the pianist is – I remember finding the original file for free on the internet a long time ago, and I have a feeling it might even be Willie “The Lion” Smith himself, recorded from a 1930’s piano roll, subsequently transferred to digital. Maybe that's why I liked it.

Fingerbuster_Willie The Lion Smith.mp3

What do you think of this modern quality "clean sounding" yet authentically "vintage performance" jazz? Does this juxtaposition work? What do you think of the piano sound in question? Do you think it suits the piece? Do you think it would have sounded more appropriate using a pristine Steinway D concert grand? Do you think this recording is a software sampled piano like Ivory, or is it actually a “live” recording of an acoustic piano? (or obviously a pianola “playing” the piano-roll ?)
I’d be interested to hear any opinions...

@propianist
For a jazz demo I can suggest two options.

1. I have done a real piano recording of the standard "Haunted Heart". Though it is a solo jazz piece and I could never possibly play it the same again, it might be interesting to write a midi file also that we could render with several piano libraries. On the other hand, your point about the performance being very subjective when it comes to jazz improvisation may be valid in such a case.

2. I have transcribed a piece called "Smiley" from a Galaxy II demo. It is a short but very indicative improvisational piece, very clear and it doesn't hold any personal style I think, so it might be more objective as a jazz solo sample. Again we can render it with several libraries to see what happens.

Let me know which option you think might be best, if any.

Hi Wiser_guy,
I have actually started work already using some different live jazz pieces myself, but there's nothing to stop you posting your own demo files here on this thread or a brand new thread. I'm sure the more demos everybody hears, the better. If you'd like me to contribute some additional renders into your demo projects, then I'm quite happy to.

For my jazz comparison tests, I myself, would personally much rather create test renders from my own live playing, rather than any transcription of somebody else's piece which is taken from another commercial website.
I wouldn't "write a midi file" if you mean step-edit programming it note by note, since that doesn't resemble real life playing, but I suspect you mean re-recording the piece again to MIDI.

I still have quite a few more ideas to add to this Rondo Alla Turca project, both in source material and conclusions of study - it just takes a long time to carefully process all the files and create the uploads, etc...!<font color=#FDFDFD>

Following the request for jazz demos, I have uploaded a jazz piece - a standard called "Haunted Heart" - at the following address:

http://idisk.mac.com/wiser_guy-Public?view=web

To access the files, open the folder "Jazz comparisons". In there you will find two folders, one containing high bit rate mp3s and the other one AACs. AAC is far superior to mp3 and is very close to uncompressed audio. If you have a PC then you can listen to AACs via iTunes or QuickTime. If you don't have these then you can just install the free AAC plug-in for Windows Media Player from http://www.orban.com/plugin/

I have included a live version played on a real Boesendorfer grand. Though I cannot ever play a jazz improvisation the same way, I tried to record a consistent midi file and render all samples from it. The midi file is also included (tempo at 60).

One can immediately see that a real piano is far more resonant than any virtual one. Its tone is richer and fuller and though the recording is not the best possible, it is however a point of reference. Don't let your ears get used to the virtual pianos, always refer back to the real one to freshen up the experience and judge thereon.

I don't want to bias the test, that's why I'll just state my view and leave everyone to decide for themselves.

First playability.
To play a jazz improvisation you need an expressive instrument. I made this midi file with Galaxy Bluethner. This was the most suitable (for me) to play the piece. The balance, the touch and feel, the legato and pedal response was the closest to my preference. I could have played it with Galaxy Boesendorfer or ArtVista instead which even though its sustain is exaggerated, its playability is high.

Sound.
You can easily see that Galaxy Boesendorfer is very close to the real one. At least this is what I hear. VSL is also resonant and interesting but more 'concert', for want of a better term.
Pianos which feature sustain resonance and/or sympathetic resonance may make a difference or may not. The Galaxy resonance for example is fantastic while the Garritan sounds all the same to me on or off.
EWQL Bechstein is marvellous with EWQL Steinway coming close.
Ivory Italian Grand (propianist you tempted me into this) holds a very personal tone, one that we are not used to and it's very clear and serious. I have not heard a real Fazioli to say whether it's close or not but I guess Synthogy have done a nice job with this one.

I have not included all piano libraries I own just because some of them (like Akoustik Piano) are not suitable for this music or playing. They just sound toyish and do not complement this piece at all.

It would be great if someone else could render additional pianos with this midi file (it needs a little reverb to add space for the test to be fair).
And once again, I would like to thank propianist for starting and contributing to all these useful and eye-opening test sequences.

Thanks wiser_guy that is very useful to hear them in an exposed jazz ballad style!

I downloaded you jazz ballad demos and one of the software pianos stands out to me, it sings.

Hi, i just wanted to try your midi file (that is really great by the way) with my a-pian. Here is the result:

hauntedheart a-pian mp3

hauntedheart a-pian m4a

Let me know what you think

edit: i just saw that you asked for a little reverb, i'll edit my post as soon as i've done it.

Here they are with the reverb:


hauntedheart a-pian mp3 with reverb

hauntedheart a-pian m4a with reverb

Oh and for the fun, i added the b-pian version maybe some people around here love the sound of bad pianos


hauntedheart b-pian mp3 with reverb

hauntedheart b-pian m4a with reverb

@jazz+
...which is?


@acousticsamples
Thanks for contributing these samples. They add character.

Hi Wiser_guy,
I've downloaded your demos and will give them all a listen. I also might probably render some additional piano tracks for your test, and post the download links here...

If I tempted you into buying Ivory Italian Grand, at least it doesn't cost very much! You're tempting me to go and buy a real Bosendorfer...!

Ha, ha! Fair enough, don't you think?

Italian Grand is nice. Ivory have done a very professional and honest job with it. I would dare to say it possesses a baroque tone. And yes, it's playable all right. If only its resonance was more convincing...

So, wonder how long can you resist temptation before buying Ivory Grand Pianos as well?
(I bought it barely two weeks after getting the Fazioli.)

I prefer the EWQL Steinway. I like its overtones, its clarity, and its presence. It doesn't sound digital to me. I like it's full bass notes, clear and smooth mid range, and its clear and robust bass notes.

More demos:

EWQL Steinway
http://media.soundsonline.com/ip/mp3/EWQL_STE_comp.mp3

Ivory Steinway
http://media.soundsonline.com/ip/mp3/Ivory_STE_comp.mp3

Ivory Bodendorfer
http://media.soundsonline.com/ip/mp3/Ivory_BOS_comp.mp3

Sorry to resurrect a thread...but it's been most helpful for me.

What I've found so far that's been most impressive actually is the Yamaha CP300 stage piano. I've downloaded several of the WAV files along with the MIDI file and put them all in a Logic project so I can switch back and forth between the pieces.

To my ears, the CP300 just sounds better than the Kawai MP8...though it's very very close. I don't own either of these boards, and actually don't own any board at the moment. But these two are contenders along with the Kurzweil PC3x.

I'd like to hear the Kurzweil PC3x put through the test also, would be very interesting.