I've read many reviews about Ivory and Galaxy II, and listened to samples from both, they are both good, but I find myself leaning towards Ivory more often.

However, the iLok Dongle is not included with Ivory purchase, and it's definitely not available locally. This makes me prefer buying Galaxy II since I'm getting everything via international shipping (The DP, etc.), and I can't afford extra costs, especially through the customs.

But.. deep inside I want Ivory!

EDIT: Oh! Maybe the factory default settings are not showing Galaxy II real potential?

I'll be honest and tell you that your demands are a bit on the unrealistic side, IMHO. If anybody can sympathize with being undecided (or at the very least unconvinced) between 2 similar products, it's me. I've been in this position many times. In the end, I went with what I really wanted as buying the 2nd best only tends to remind me of what I am missing out on ; the very best.

That being said, although I seriously doubt you meant it this way, the language used sounded a tad pushy. Secondly, it's unrealistic to expect people to be able to play these pieces. (some of them are quite challenging)

What would be more realistic would be to use a MIDI files of these pieces and record them through Galaxy. However, to be blunt, MIDI files have a tendency of sounding robotic & mechanical. Not all of them of course, but most of them. So now, you not only need to find a MIDI file, but one that doesn't sound like it's being performed by a robot.

As for customs fees, trust me : I know what you're going through as I myself am not living in the US. Nevertheless, the iLok key isn't the most expensive device there is. On eBay, for instance, it costs $40 US for a new one. Not exactly a fortune. Even if you end up with a 50% customs fee, that would be an extra $20 on that price which shouldn't be a big problem.

The iLok dongle does have its advantages. Since the authorization is already done, you can carry it wherever you go & plug it into whatever computer has Ivory installed on it and use it. Moreover, if you ever need to reformat/reinstall your OS, you don't need to re-authorize Ivory once more since it's already done.

Lastly, you already mentioned that deep inside, you want Ivory. The question is : can you afford it? If so, rest assured that you'll be getting a quality product with Ivory. It sounds superb! But in the end, you're making the decision. You can concern yourself with always doubting your purchase or you can spring for one quality product over another and be happy to know that regardless of which one you get, you'll end up with a satisfactory experience.

I'd be more concerned if you'd be debating whether to get, say, Ivory versus Akoustik. Now *there's* a world of a difference. :p

I personally look at an iLok as an advantage. Sure it's extra $40, but you get a convenience of being able to install Ivory on multiple systems, and reformatting the systems at will.

In fact I'm planning on upgrading my current Ivory licence (I bought Ivory before iLok was available), to iLok one.

Will that end up costing you anything extra? And will there be any other extra advantages apart from iLok afterwards?

Thank you for replying.

I find Ivory slightly better than Galaxy II. Both are great, though. I've stretched my budget to the limit. I'm paying $1000 for a DP that worth $500, due to customs and shipping fees.

At the moment, I can afford Galaxy II, not Ivory since it requires the dongle (I can't afford the extra $40 + shipping fees + customs). However, I keep asking myself whether I should save up and buy Ivory, which is slightly better IMO.

I didn't expect people to "play" them at all. A MIDI recorded through the software would do it. I find my request rather silly thinking about it now. I'll edit it out to prevent readers from fulfilling it.

That's right, but I'm afraid of getting Galaxy II, and then later on, I would keep kicking myself for not buying Ivory instead. I honestly think it's Galaxy II factory default settings's fault, that being said, I believe it deserves a chance.

To begin with - I have version 1.61 (last updated in 2007). In order to download the latest version (1.7), I need iLok.

The main advantage is that I will be able to reformat my system at will, and upgrade drives, without running into registration limits. It's pretty important to me, because clean system runs faster.

Also iLok is used with other software, so chances are I'll get some more use out of it in the future.

Diya - what you should really do is post the MIDI file you want sequenced through Ivory/Garritan, with setting you want to use, and I'm sure someone will be kind enough to fulfill the request.

As a PC tech myself, I have to admit that I have never run into a problem running my current PC. It's been running the same installation of XP for the past 6 years. There have been hardware changes, but everything's always been clean and rock-solid performance-wise.

PCs' performances don't degrade over time. It's the users who handicap their own machines by installing all kinds of junk. It also doesn't help that most people don't know how to keep their PCs clean.

But as I previously mentioned, the iLok PC-to-PC functionality is a clear advantage for people who have a single licence of Ivory running on multiple PCs.

There will always be degradation of access time due to slow but sure fragmentation of file system on the hard-drive. I personally don't defragment my drives, because it's a sure way to kill them.

And sometimes you just have to install an app that ends up being useless, and doesn't uninstall cleanly.

I made the whole re-install process fairly easy for myself. Whenever I set up a new system, I install the basic software on it, and then clone the drive. Later on I don't need to sit through windows installation - I simply overwrite the drive with the backed up image.

I've been in the business for 15 years and can definitely tell you that :

1) Hard drives of *today* don't suffer performance-wise from fragmentation. I can guarantee you that I can take a big application like, say, Photoshop that might take 15 secs to load (I'm using an arbitrary number as it changes from PC to PC) on a HD that's been used extensively and the same application on an identical system that's been cleanly formatted and I can guarantee you the performance difference is so negligeable that you'd have a hard time telling the 2 apart. It's one of those old myths that won't go away. HDs of today are so insanely fast that it's not even worth defragging unless we're talking about server HDs.

2) Defragging a HD will *not* kill it. Saying it's a sure way to kill them only spreads misinformation about an already extremely confusing topic for most PC users.

3) There's an even easier/quicker way if you're interested. Created a Restore Point once you're done configuring the PC as you want it to be. When you get to the point where you want to bring the PC's configuration back to how it was originally, you use the System Restore function and within minutes, you're back on.

Of course, I think it's smart to have a media version of this in case your HD actually dies, which will happen eventually as they all die at some point. Hopefully, the new wave of flash drives from OCZ will prevent this from happening as there won't be any moving parts.

I still refuse to put my HD's under a lot of unnecessary stress. Just going by my personal experience. I've seen way too many drives fail just due to downloading torrents.

I view Restore Point more as a gimmick than anything useful. It never helped me once when crap really hit the fan - it's just impossible to take a complete snapshot of entire system including files and configuration, and then restore it reliably. Ghosting is the only option that's 100% sure.

My goal was to relay facts. Nobody's forcing you to do anything. But with all due respect, if you actually think downloading torrents or defragging kills HDs, I'd suggest you educate yourself in the matter before making those 100% false statements to others. You're more than welcome to your opinion no matter how false it is, but spreading it onto others is doing them a disservice.

Let's stick to facts, please.

As for System Restore (not "Restore Point"), it's not a mere gimmick. You possibly never used it in order to have this opinion. Its sole limitation is that you need to be able to have access to Windows in order to use it. Otherwise, it's a fantastic tool that I've used more than once to save me hours upon hours of work on PCs whether they be mine or others.

If you want to start looking at semantics, I could always argue that ghosting's not 100% sure as there's always burn errors and corrupted media that could prevent a ghost from being successful. Stick with what you're comfortable with, by all means. But there's no real point in belittling things you might be inexperienced in simply because you don't agree with them.

Thanks.

Hi Strat,

Did you know that a Google search for "defrag problems" returns over two million results? So there are clearly LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of other experienced people out there, besides Eternal, who feel it's unwise to defrag their hard disk more than necessary. I don't like defragging either, but do it maybe once a year for good housekeeping.

Is it a "sure way to kill them" as Eternal suggested? Obviously not, if only done occasionally (so you are right to admonish that gaffe), but I've read about certain studio producers or engineers who are in the habit of defragging as much as they possibly can, because they believe it prevents audio glitches or jitter. They'll even defrag inbetween recording takes(!) and continually leave their hard disks spinning overnight defragging every day of the week!
We know drives can burn out eventually, and excessive overnight defragging or formatting does wear them out more quickly, thus actually increasing chance of audio glitches (and fooling some people into thinking they should keep defragging - vicious circle!), so the wise policy of avoiding defragging is generally best... As Eternal seems to be taking, and as I take, and as you also take, saying it doesn't really make your Photoshop files open any faster anyway, so not worth doing.

As for System Restore, it won't help if you get a trojan, worm or other virus. In some cases it backs-up the virus! Obviously if you're a PC-Tech, it will be a valuable tool sometimes.

They're not bad, but can easily be improved upon. You'll also discover a huge range of choices for each piano!
I can post some of my favourite settings if you wish, as I've been tweaking ever since I got it...

Hello Diya,

I own both Galaxy II and Synthogy Ivory, so here’s my 2 cents…

First, the sounds. If you really prefer Ivory’s tone after listening to all the available internet MP3 demos, then buy it and be happy. Both products contain excellent quality, well recorded, clean piano note samples without annoying hiss or other sonic defects, and both are capable of rendering very professional sounding piano tracks.
In my opinion, it’s a very close battle which has the nicest piano sample, and depends on the musical context, which I would choose. Ideally, you’d possess them all…

Galaxy II Bosendorfer[/b] – excellent, fat, tons of bass energy, crisp mids and high notes, very rich commercial sound, and it blends very well if you play-along with your favourite CDs. Sounds exactly like the piano on the original CD track in many cases.
Galaxy II Bluthner[/b] – a very true to life 5 foot grand piano sound to play, but I wouldn’t use it for much besides classical or nostalgic jazz. Not really an expensive lush concert grand sound.
Galaxy II Steinway[/b] – quite metallic and zingy, not quite my idea of how a Steinway D should sound, but you can dial down the sparkle and get a very sensitive, serene concert grand that is a safe bet when that Bosendorfer sound is too violent and imposing for your cocktail jazz or lyrical accompaniment.
Ivory Steinway[/b] – sounds more Steinway-esque, but in a haughty classical way. It’s not the big power piano opulence that a real Model D is.
Ivory Bosendorfer[/b] – great for showing off, but I think it’s a bit too much radiance and fireworks to be the ideal musical instrument.
Ivory Yamaha[/b] – this really does sound like a Yamaha with it’s lemon sharp treble notes and gravelly metallic deep bass! They’re great live, when you have to struggle against lots of audience noise in a busy hotel function. As a tone connoisseur, I prefer Steinways, but Yamaha’s certainly work great for rock ‘n’ roll and pop styles.
Ivory Fazioli[/b] – kind of a generic concert grand shaped timbre with deep growling bottom keys, mature speaking voice across the midrange, and glassy polished high treble. It sounds mellow and dreamy, like a diluted Bosendorfer or Steinway that’s half asleep, or Yamaha with the lid closed. It’s got less strong personality and disctintive character traits than the others, and might seem a bit hollow in comparison – however, on its own, it is a sublime grand piano sound. I can't fault the overall recording quality of the samples.

SAMPLE QUALITY CONCLUSIONS![/b]
For raw sample quality, Ivory famously compares well with any other piano library and is hard to beat for sheer audiophile piano tone. If you listen these Bosendorfer sample comparisons here , between EWQL / Ivory / Akoustik / VSL , you'll hear how Ivory sounds very much like the VSL Bosendorfer Imperial version (officially endorsed by Bosendorfer!) whereas EWQL and Akoustik are each rather different. You would be expecting four different timbres anyway, but finding strong consensus of tone quality between both VSL and Ivory suggests they're both quite near to the truth, so it validates Ivory that it sounds so similar to VSL's authorised Bosendorfer, and vice versa. There’s less chance they’re both wrong!
Now VSL does sound more realistic in high treble notes than Ivory, so in this particular case, for just one piano among Ivory's collection of three, you may purchase a rival product that just beats it. I also feel Galaxy II's Bosendorfer Imperial sample is even a fraction better than Ivory's (not to mention it has SSR), but on the other hand Ivory's Steinway is better than Galaxy II's Steinway. Neither Ivory or Galaxy II is the outright winner in all categories. The point is - for individual specific piano brand samples, Ivory doesn't necessarily offer the absolute best samples on the market, but the full Ivory collection is a triple threat and hard to beat overall! Equally well sampled, Galaxy II is also a triple threat of excellent pianos, but different instruments choices - its Bosendorfer and Bluthner are outstanding audiophile quality! I think there is enough overlap to warrant buying all these products! Just buying Ivory alone doesn't give you the best available virtual piano simulation, per se (it lacks SSR for a start!) so I can’t recommend any clear overall winner for sample quality. It depends which instrument brand you really cherish the most. For me it’s Steinway, so I am split between several products, none of which are perfect…!


OPERATION - WORKING WITH THE SAMPLES[/b]

Next, the features and control interface, and this is where Galaxy II wins by a landslide, for me. It includes true sympathetic string resonance (SSR), so the pianos really come alive, and it has tons more piano timbre controls and realistic features.
I should mention also, if you ever want any exotic “non-piano” synth types sounds, (if you‘re into techno electronica trip-hop or whatever!) Galaxy II’s built-in five-mode Warp engine and Pro-Machine synth effects sections go miles beyond anything Ivory offers, but I couldn’t care less about these weird SFX. I only want life-like pianos.

I don’t know anything about you, but let’s assume you’re a serious piano player looking for the best realistic simulation of an acoustic concert grand. Let me describe what it’s really like using Ivory software, assuming the piano samples are all fine.
I own the Ivory Italian Grand edition myself, but all Ivory pianos have the same software engine, and the combined 110 page black & white manual is common to both versions.

At first, it’s fun to browse through Ivory’s three screens and MIDI settings, exploring all the dials and menus to see what they do, but the novelty wears off after about fifteen minutes when you think to yourself, “Why should I ever change it from the optimum settings?” and you then realise 90% of the controls are a bit boring. You leave them set where they are, and that’s it.





Here’s the Velocity screen. I can’t imagine myself not wanting the full 0-127 range, and the linear curve means all 128 steps are equally widely spaced out as much as possible. Any deformation of the curve means some steps are bunched closer together, therefore narrowing some expressive gradations by pianist. If dynamics feel unnatural, it’s most likely the 88 note MIDI keyboard’s velocity curve that needs straightening out. Sometimes this graph is useful for matching Ivory’s playback to a pre-recorded MIDI file, but most of the time you won’t really use this screen at all.





This screen offers a classic Chorus effect which will always be turned off. (No point whatsoever for realistic acoustic piano – why did Synthogy even bother?! Honky-tonk imitation perhaps...?)
Ambience / artificial reverb is there if you want it (Room/Studio/Jazz Club/Live Venue/Recital Hall/Concert Hall/Curved Space) but I frankly prefer to record tracks dry and add audiophile quality reverb later in production, if needed. Furthermore, Ivory’s samples were recorded in studios or concert halls, so contain natural ambience already, especially in the release samples.
Bass / treble EQ is also available – okay, sometimes you need EQ for some reason, but 99% of the time I’d bypass it, and keep Ivory’s samples pure and untainted. I’ve got audiophile phase linear EQ and careful mastering tools, if something needs serious correction later on. So, another screen that stays set to OFF – OFF – OFF.





Now Ivory's main screen looks roughly like this. You can “play” the 88 keys with the mouse, but they’re not animated like they are with TruePianos pretty graphics (or almost every other plug-in!) so they don’t move when you play keyboard or MIDI file (although your VST host may show an animated keyboard display.) You can’t see the pedals at all (continuous sustain half-pedalling doesn’t work either) and the only interaction is a little red LED graphic for MIDI activity, which takes a good second or two to go out, so basically appears always on, while you’re playing music.

You load a program which also loads the relevant “Keyset” or piano multisample you wish to choose, between Bosendorfer (16.5GB / 10 velocities), Steinway (13.5GB / 10 velocities), Yamaha (11GB / 8 velocities) or if you have Ivory Italian Grand, just the Fazioli (19GB / 12 velocities).
You can pick further “Lite” variations that use fewer velocity layers, but I wouldn’t use these, and in each case, either load Ivory’s default Keyset or an alternative Level II version which remaps all the velocity switch points to favour the softer dynamics, which I have to say sound a bit better to me so I often use these – maybe the defaults are a bit aggressive? I would rather Synthogy allowed the user to control each velocity switch point – it would save all this hassle as you could just turn off any layers you didn’t want (eg. Like loading the 6 layer versions) or remap whichever samples you thought worked best . Some of the main ppp samples sound a bit too bright, but the soft pedal samples sound good.

So basically, you always load the best piano, and turn on Soft Pedal and Release samples (and always keep these on) therefore the Release envelope knob is best left alone, (because the natural decay rate of the real note release samples sound far more authentic) so therefore 1.0x default is the optimum setting, unless you like a fake staccato or underwater effect, and clearly adding synth pad layers won’t sound natural either!

On the right of screen, past the vertical line, everything is basically set to optimum. Polyphony – only goes up to 160, wouldn’t want any less! RAM buffer as large as possible (doesn’t affect latency), Gain okay at 0.0dB, no need to transpose or re-tune A=440Hz, and apart from playing the Bosendorfer sub-bass keys for fun with the octave shift (Why can’t someone make a 97 note MIDI keyboard?!), everything else stays where it is. Stretch tuning always sounds most authentic for acoustic piano, and the Performer / Audience switch isn’t any kind of new mic perspective sample, it just flips the left and right channels. (I believe in always sticking to normal Left-Right convention for piano track, same as the convention for recording vocals dry. If you have a DVD soundtrack with pianist facing the camera, and need to pan the opposite way in mix production, that’s easy enough, and at least you know at a glance, without having to remember which piano tracks were rendered back to front!)

Key Noise is another bogus control – instead of actually balancing the sound of hammer mechanism (as Galaxy II’s “Hammer Noise” indeed does), Synthogy’s knob is basically just a bass EQ boost for the high treble notes only that adds a heavy clunking thud to their playback, or takes the bass EQ away leaving a thin tone. The EQ gain is proportionally less further down the keyboard, and below middle C has no effect, so the piano’s left-hand bass notes are unaffected by Key Noise adjustment. Frankly, since I don’t like EQ’d piano, I’ll always keep it on default 0dB.

So folks, that means that Velocity Screen, Effects Screen, and most of the Main Screen controls are irrelevant in everyday use, because you almost never change their settings. So I can literally “grey out” most of this screen, and show you what Ivory really offers to play with – here are Ivory’s REAL piano edit parameters....





Sustain Resonance you will always want ON, and it has such insipid effect you’ll probably keep it on maximum “Extra Resonant 2” setting and just tweak the knob between 0dB and +6dB for effect strength. If you play a key with sustain pedal already down, you hear the full sustain resonance effect, but if you strike a key dry, then push sustain pedal down afterwards, it adds very little effect, because Ivory only fades in a subliminal amount of resonance to thicken the sound a bit. It works on a time envelope with the note decay, and the longer you leave it, the less sustain resonance you get when you do push the pedal. You can push down – up – down –up and hear the effect come and go, but it diminishes quickly. There’s no way to control the envelope decay rate. One could argue this is what happens with real pianos, but it’s much stronger sound in real life. The problem if you’re classically trained, like me, you’re used to playing a chord and simultaneously lift sustain pedal then quickly lower it to sustain the new chord, maintaining legato between chords. If you do this with Ivory, it doesn’t seem to understand re-pedalling and just cuts off the rich sustain resonance, so you only get the weak subliminal sustain resonance after you lifted (cut off full rich effect) and depressed later into the key decay cycle. The only workaround I have found is to use “Extra Resonant 2” turned up to +6dB then it has loud enough subliminal effect to sound like it’s correct when you re-pedal chords, but if you play chord with pedal already down, you then get way too much, so I settle for +3dB as a compromise. I think it sucks really!

Also there is no string resonance, so you can’t play silent keys and hear their harmonics ring from other played keys, or re-excite keys you’re already holding down. Many other plug-ins like Galaxy II, Garritan Steinway, Akoustik, Pianoteq, etc. can do this, and all popular stage pianos like Roland RD700GX, Yamaha CP300, Kawai MP8, etc. GEM were even doing this back in 1997 with their RealPiano series. It’s vital for an authentic piano behaviour, and I think without it Ivory feels pretty sterile and soulless, especially when you’re so used to hearing it everywhere else.

The Stereo Width goes from mono to hard left / right (not psuedo 3D stereo) and I think about 60% sounds nice for headphone listening, but I often tweak this. (Over nearfield monitors or keyboard built-in speakers, 100% would be best choice, and certainly 100% for recording to keep your mix options open. For domestic hi-fi, maybe 75%, but for live PA with L/R speakers over 10 metres apart, even 25% stereo width can enough, otherwise speakers sound too biased locally for audience.)
Dynamic Range goes from 0dB (hyper compressed) to 60dB (very expanded, soft notes almost disappear.) Default is 30dB but I think 40dB is about right. You might need to change master gain if you get too extreme with this knob.

Finally Timbre, is the most interesting control. It’s a sweepable LPF which reacts to keyboard velocity. At 99 is has no effect, but at default 0, it is cutting some treble away from the softest ppp notes, while opening up progressively wider passband for louder mf notes until it’s probably wide open for fff notes. This is a classic synthesizer technique for voicing any dynamic sensitive sound with one simple user-adjustable parameter. This allows Synthogy to offer you a variation in tone brightness with respect to velocity, as well as the obvious variations in loudness level (from velocity curves / dynamic range knobs, etc.) Without this you’d always have the inherent brightness voicing of the original raw samples (just changing in Fletcher-Munson perception if you varied their dynamic scaling too much), but with this Timbre control, you can synthetically re-voice the piano samples to some degree from the maximum / wide-open original recorded sounds (rather bright close-miked studio recordings) to a darker, more mellow instrument. Negative values to –99 muffle everything like crazy. Dynamic LPF is a compromise from an audiophile point of view, but you couldn’t re-voice a piano in real life without re-surfacing 88 felt hammers, so this control is a neat trick for diluting to taste. I like it about +50.

Conclusion – Ivory’s piano samples are very nice, but the interface gives you almost no piano tone metamorphosis once you’ve dialled up the factory presets, beyond basic operational control. If you don’t like what you hear, you’re stuck, and since it lacks lifelike SSR, it may be something you tire of rather quickly.

Galaxy II on the other hand, includes the following sophisticated controls for piano tone metamorphosis, most of which Ivory does not have equivalents for.

Colour[/b] - continuous brightness variation due to sample re-mapping, not filters or EQ.
Sustain Resonance[/b] – much wider dB range than Ivory and all on one knob.
Warmth[/b] – variable bass EQ (- Ivory does have equivalent bass shelf EQ)
Punch[/b] - midrange contour EQ (Ivory would have to cut treble and bass to effectively boost midrange.)
Low Keys[/b] – gradually boosts or attenuates left-hand keys bellow middle C. (not in Ivory)
Loudness[/b] – Fletcher-Munson loudness EQ curve (similar to treble and bass boost EQ)
Lid[/b] – Open / Half-stick / Closed. Every piano should have this, but Ivory doesn’t.
Compressor[/b] – not something you’d want to use for natural piano sound
Stereo Width[/b] – also includes pseudo 3D wide-stereo effects – not very useful
Player / Listener[/b] – a basic Left – Right swap, exactly the same as Ivory
Velocity Editor[/b] – a bit better than Ivory, you can draw your own curves on the graph
Dynamic[/b] – expands or compresses volume difference between ppp - fff notes, Ivory has identical control
Pitch / Tunings[/b] etc. – Galaxy includes temperaments , Ivory has Equal / Stretch
FineTune / Transpose[/b] – Galaxy Transpose knob also can counteract Kontakt 2’s sample tuning knob, to give you a pitch-displaced Mickey Mouse piano, or Darth Vader piano, but the correct keyboard pitch. eg. Playing Middle C key triggers a bass F note sample, pitch-shifted up a fifth to middle C pitch, so it’s the note you wanted, but sounds like it’s on helium! Or you can play scary slowed-down piano music at live keyboard pitch. Some interesting timbre colours up to 2 semitones shift, but beyond that gets silly!
Repedal[/b] On / Off – Ivory badly needs this!
Silent Key[/b] On / Off – for gentle depressions, and SSR effects. Ivory needs this too!
SSR[/b] – Sympathetic String Resonance, variable level knob – Ivory needs this ASAP!
Release Sample Noise[/b] on/off and dB level knob – customise it yourself
Hammer Noise[/b] on/off and dB level knob – hear your wippens and hammer shanks fall back onto your repetition levers, but keep it subtle!
Damper Noise[/b] on/off and dB level knob – felt damper mechanism dropping down or being raised when sustain pedal operates
Pedal Noise[/b] on/off and dB level knob – a creak and low thud from your feet movements
String Noise[/b] on/off and dB level knob - the “tssssssccchh” as the felt dampers disturb all the strings lifting off
Reverb[/b] – not just basic algorithms like Ivory, but 21 convolution impulse responses
Warp[/b] – irrelevant to piano, but almost another soft-synth in its own right
5.1 Surround[/b] – applies to Galaxy II’s Steinway multisamples, and includes 5.1 surround convolution IR reverbs too

Galaxy II’s five-part adjustable Noise menu is outstanding, and you can really nail the authenticity of your instrument with these delicate settings. Like Ivory, the raw samples are a fixed starting point, but Galaxy II's interface makes it easier to chase whatever piano tone you imagine in your mind. Galaxy II's parameters are only controlling how fixed samples will behave when played back, but the variety of tweaks to influence their character is second to none. You can make the same piano hard and edgy or rounded and lyrical, without muffled or EQ’d sound, and best of all the Sympathetic String Resonance really brings the piano alive.
The full 24 bit boxed version has 5 DVDs and the 28 page full colour instruction booklet. I recommend it very highly as the most malleable grand piano sample library I've ever had the pleasure of using.

For more threads about Galaxy II and Ivory , have a look at these webpages - one / two / three / four / five .

propianist

Thank you, propianist. Very informative!

The features Galaxy II has to offer are very interesting, especially the "noises" section, and the Repedal is very important to me as well.

Galaxy II Sounds like an excellent deal! I'm looking forward to buying it. Funny now, deep inside I want Galaxy!

Not to mention that it's easier for me to 'import' it since it doesn't require a dongle. (iLok would have cost me $70).

There is also a download version of Galaxy II. This is a great way to avoid customs and shipping fee, but there are some limitations:
I think I'm going to suck it up and buy the boxed version, though.

Diya,[/b] please be sure to read propianist's tweaks for the Galaxy Steinway. IMO out of the box the Steinway does not show well, but after his tweaks it's a glorious instrument. His tweaks are probably included in his links, but just in case, they're here.

Excellent and informative post, Propianist. Just a couple of variances in my experience w/ Ivory (steinway):

I need to use the "Hard 1" velocity curve with my Yamaha CP300 set to "Hard" Touch or use the "Easy 1" velocity curve when I set my CP300 to "Medium" Touch. The Ivory Curves compensate nicely for the lack of adjustment in the CP300, and plays well doing this.

The Extra Resonant setting on the Steinway sounds fuzzy and a little bit dirty. I stick with the Clean setting.

It has been difficult to tell what is the natural dynamic range Compression setting, since it can either sound too compressed or overly expanded. Of course, the compression is nice for recording and rendering to get average loudness levels up.

For whatever reason, I connect with the Steinway Ivory, and I find that it speaks to me on an emotional level. That is the X factor, I guess.

Thanks for your informative posts. I was going to get the EWQL, but will take a look at the Galaxy now.

Yes obviously, different keyboards will produce different MIDI velocity data values.
Even with identical strike force onto a key, each different mechanism design - weighted plastic keys on your Yamaha CP300, solid spruce wooden keys on my Kawai MP8, oil damped action on some Roland digital pianos, or whatever - each give different nonlinear response curves, plus you may also adjust their onboard velocity response settings, like "Hard" as you say. So it's almost inevitable, you might need to tweak Ivory's velocity curve a little, but if you have to make drastic changes, maybe something's wrong.

I remember trying a Yamaha P250 in a shop and wished it had a touch curve setting halfway between "medium" and "hard". Yamaha's choice of hard/medium/soft/fixed is a bit restrictive. Especially when their three layer multisample is mf / f / fff plus the pedal down layer. I don't think the P250 does soft very well...! Kawai's Harmonic Imaging does 127 different discrete steps, but their user touch curve programming is a bit trial and error! You have no idea until after you've programmed it!

I have aimed to calibrate my Kawai's touch curve (by repeatedly trying new user curves) so it matches the natural effort I would feel with an acoustic piano, and it's output 0-127 velocities cover the available strike forces my fingers expect, from vel=1 being where the key is on the threshold of sounding and vel=127 being as hard as I would ever whack it in a musical context.

Even this, I have found extremely difficult and represents a fundamental problem with the MP8 (and any other keyboards really) that if you switch the sound off and just play the keys, you can FEEL the weight of inertia and momentum of the keys and ultimately set the 0-127 velocity range to match the amount of force your fingers feel is "right" while playing that keyboard. You won't want to use less or more force, because that wouldn't feel right, so the keyboard is calibrated correctly when the 0-127 velocity output balances its physical attributes. However the Kawai MP8's internal piano sounds don't sound correct from this "ideal" velocity scaling. Concert Grand 1 sounds okay, but Concert Grand 2 on the same calibrated touch curve sounds too loud! And this is a fault with the way Kawai's internal sound Concert Grand 2 is actually programmed, and there's nothing you can do about it! To correct for this by changing the velocity curve makes the keyboard feel physically wrong (and also messes up the Concert Grand 1 feel as well), so you can't win. Kawai (and everyone else) need to design instruments with a global touch curve setting (to phyically calibrate the keyboard feel) plus additional individual touch curve settings to store with each internal preset piano sound. Or else they need to make sure all their internal piano sounds respond to dynamic range with identical mannerisms. Otherwise, you can't really find one touch curve that is correct for both piano sounds, let alone all the other 3rd-party sounds you may wish to use like Ivory or whatever. At least the software allows you to independently adjust the incoming velocity response to match its samples. The best compromise is to use that, but separately get your weighted keyboard calibrated for its own physical feel and store this as one setting, then store a different compromise setting for when you play it with its own internal sound (the one you use the most) but it's very tricky to get things exactly right!!!

In an ideal world, once your piano keyboard is calibrated, and it plays consistently like an acoustic piano, you should find you can move between it and a real piano with ease, and that most plug-ins and piano samples work fairly well on their defaults anyway. I found I didn't really need to recalibrate Ivory, but I'm glad the adjustment is available obviously.
Two points to mention - first, I have Ivory Italian Grand edition, as I said earlier, so my typical settings for Fazioli samples may not be appropriate for the Steinway samples, including the Resonance depth. In fact, this applys to any subjective tone edit parameter, but I still think basic "set and forget" parameters that I greyed out in the picture should be identical.

Second point - I was talking in context about Ivory's weakness with classical repedalling technique, and saying I had to use Extra Resonant 2 turned up loud to get enough lifelike effect after repedalling a chord. If I was playing notes continuously with pedal down, it does sound too much, so I'd back level off at least 3dB, or use Medium Resonant 2 instead, but obviously you'll have to experiment with the different Steinway samples. I think Clean is still a bit too clean and sterile for my taste. The best thing is to try it side by side with an acoustic piano and find that life-like balance.
Same goes for dyamic range. I'm often using 37 - 41, but I recommend comparing behaviour next to a real piano, playing them both to calibrate the plug-in.

EDIT - I've also bought Ivory Grand Pianos (Bosendorfer / Steinway / Yamaha) as well, and I feel the same observations still hold. If there were any glaring inconsistancies I would have amended the above review to explain each different case.

Also this recommended forum thread contains my massive software piano comparison tests with WAV file downloads and loads more including some special movie demos. You can also find these (in lower quality!) on YouTube video here .