Steinway library

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Billy Joel and I studied under the same teacher, Morton Estrie, who was a Baldwin artist. He always suggested Baldwin pianos as he got a nice finders fee. Just a note from history...

[musicman691]

Billy Joel and I studied under the same teacher, Morton Estrie, who was a Baldwin artist. He always suggested Baldwin pianos as he got a nice finders fee. Just a note from history...

And to bring it back to this thread Mr. Estrin is apparently now a Steinway artist judging by his listing on the Steinway site.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I see his grandson at a gig every week and his son is a well known piano dealer in Orange County. Mr. Estrin is now going into assisted living and rarely plays at all. He's 93 or so. I actually know more about him than his grandson does.

[musicman691]

I see his grandson at a gig every week and his son is a well known piano dealer in Orange County. Mr. Estrin is now going into assisted living and rarely plays at all. He's 93 or so. I actually know more about him than his grandson does.

Sad to see he's going into assisted living and that he rarely gets to play. That would kill my spirit if I couldn't play my music. As someone once said - don't die with your music inside you.

[towerproductions]

I have both the Ivory 2 Steinway and East West Diamond Steinway in my studio and tend to prefer the sound of EW Steinway for much of what of what I have been recording lately.

[musicman691]

I have both the Ivory 2 Steinway and East West Diamond Steinway in my studio and tend to prefer the sound of EW Steinway for much of what of what I have been recording lately.

Question: from which library did you get the EW Diamond Steinway? I looked through their stuff and can't seem to find it anywheres. The Pianos library doesn't have diamond level and it doesn't appear in the percussion sections of any of the libraries that have a diamond level.

[towerproductions]

I have both the Ivory 2 Steinway and East West Diamond Steinway in my studio and tend to prefer the sound of EW Steinway for much of what of what I have been recording lately.

Question: from which library did you get the EW Diamond Steinway? I looked through their stuff and can't seem to find it anywheres. The Pianos library doesn't have diamond level and it doesn't appear in the percussion sections of any of the libraries that have a diamond level.

Sorry I got my EW terms mixed up , I meant the Steinway D in the EW Pianos Platinum which is 24b and has the 3 mic positions, the Gold edition is 16b and has one mic position .

http://www.soundsonline.com/Pianos

[daniel.sneed]

[...]For those that wonder about moving a grand piano it's relatively easy. The three legs come off as does the pedal lyre so you just have a skinny but longish shape. Only one dolly needed; sometimes on a D we used two dollies. Up and down stairs was a nightmare; one time we had one get loose on us and it slipped down the stairs and through the wall into a guy's apartment. Or the time my boss hired a crane to take one out through a window in a high-rise apartment building that didn't have a working freight elevator.

Gosh! Life is so much fun when it turns into piano sliding...

[mhschmieder]

I am so glad I didn't spend any more money on Ivory! The temptation was there, with the two-for-one deal, but after reading more reviews and listening to more audio samples, I just can't get past the issues that I also notice when using my own Italian II for real (vs. assuming hosting issues).

Instead, I took advantage of the year-end sale at VI Labs to buy True Keys, and between tonight and tomorrow will see whether my near-final jazz album mixes benefit from it vs. Pianoteq. I have a lot of fast repeated notes and chords on these songs, but the latest Pianoteq update addressed earlier issues so I may find that I am done with this album (finally).

Regardless, Stephen Nathan's observations really match my own: that nothing else in the sampling world comes close to VI Lab's offerings (including the excellent Ravenscroft, which I bought last year) in terms of realism of phrasing and proper coverage of the entire dynamic range as well as fast articulations. I also happen to like its timbre the best. Maybe I just prefer their miking choices.

At $244, it's up there with other higher-end offerings, but the Steiny can be bought separately. I actually bought it for the Bechstein though, as that is a piano that takes quite well to percussive playing styles and none of my current Bechstein libraries (including Pianoteq's old-and-not-yet-update model) stand up to Pianoteq's excellent Steinway D model in recent releases or these VI Labs True Keys offerings.

[Sean Kenny]

FWIW guys, I'm no piano aficionado but ViLabs Truekeys does it for me.

Never had a piano player do other than smile when they try it. Even the odd piano "snob" here and there, has left "converted".

Happy New Year

Sean

[mhschmieder]

I'm going to cut/paste what I wrote over at the keyboard forum in the wee hours of the night last night, but will first preface it with a disclaimer that I do not own Quantum Leap Pianos, Imperfect Samples, Garritan Steinway, or the new Hans Zimmer Piano from Spitfire (they don't say what it is, but probably a Yamaha?), so keep that in mind just in case any of those trumps the others.

[mhschmieder]

OK, let's see if I can stay awake, and coherent, long enough to write a proper account of my six hours of piano work that I just finished, right on the heels of a rather long jazz gig this afternoon.

My preferences are extremely clear and consistent at this point, on repeated listens and at volumes all the way from quiet to slightly above voice level (I rarely ever listen louder than that, and certainly not while my housemates are sleeping).

The VI Labs products are at the top of the list, and nobody else comes remotely close. The reason is that they have zero phase issues (rare in piano libraries), and handle every possible pedaling challenge I could throw their way (a big stumbler for most libraries). I would say they handle staccato by far the best, as well as half-pedaling and interrupted pedaling, and the most realistic ppp and fff (and beyond).

The only qualms I have will be easily addressed once I start working with a preferred mic balance, and maybe some EQ. They're just a little too bright for me, but not in a harsh way. I prefer a slightly dark piano timbre, like Pianoteq's. I will probably also need to slightly adjust the velocity curve in terms of any re-tracking work, as I didn't use a linear map with Pianoteq.

Pianoteq does come in at number two, after much listening and comparison. And it continues to improve. Based on how close its various voicings are in timbre to the better libraries out there, as well as continued improvements in articulations, pedaling, etc., it is clear they listen closely to the sample libraries to try to emulate what is best about them. And there are plenty of other uses for Pianoteq now besides just acoustic piano (including the excellent new harp addition).

Where Pianoteq falls down relative to VI Labs (but still is better than ANY of the other products) is in the sort of muddle that develops when a lot of notes are played at once, while pedaling and playing percussively with fairly soft grace notes in between. But then, this would have been a hopeless task ten years ago.

Between the VI Labs libraries, I eventually kept coming back to the Fazioli as the best for this particular jazz album (not really pure jazz, but more influenced by latin styles, stride, and other less improvisational and more aggressive playing), even though I originally thought I'd switch from Pianoteq's Steinway "D" to the VI Labs American Grand. But all of the VI Labs libraries are equally good; they simply show each piano model for what its actual strengths are, which is ideal.

The only problem I have is two missing samples in the Fazioli. I'll have to see if they have an update, or write them an email. It's when enabling una corda, which for this particular project is irrelevant as I only briefly had a tri-pedal unit (Roland), which wasn't compatible with anything I owned and so got sold.

For Yamaha piano sounds, it's a tight race between Orange Tree Samples Evolution Rosewood Grand and Impact Soundworks Pearl Concert Grand, but even though the former needs some work regarding complex pedaling, its timbre seems a bit more spot-on and also less compressed than the Pearl library. Yet both are great options and will probably see programming improvements over time as both vendors are known for that.

The Hammersmith still eludes me in terms of pedaling, but other than that, and needing more time with it to really dig in, I would say it's definitely in that second tier along with the two Yamaha libraries mentioned above (and with Pianoteq).

The more expensive Vienna Imperial library (not to be confused with the cheaper Bosendorfer Imperial library), still gets used a lot in orchestral projects, as it really slices through in that context, but it is horrible for solo or chamber work as it seems incapable of handling pedaling of any sort. A shock at that size and price. But I have to mention its utility in the context for which it was created.

There's a HUGE step-down at that point, towards the other libraries, except for the caveat that the Sampletekk and Galaxy libraries are very musical, easy to work with, cheap, and great placeholders in the early phase of a project. They simply don't handle enough of the nuances to cut it on more demanding projects where there's a lot of dynamics, fast multi-strike action, pedaling, etc.

The Acoustic Samples libraries are interesting and well-done, but are hard to judge as I don't have as much experience on the originals. They focus on lesser-sampled pianos and historical models. They are interesting, and possibly better than the models in Pianoteq for such pianos. The Kawai and Pleyel are quite different.

UVI's own Fazioli library is quite good, but completely unnecessary given that one can buy the VI Labs Italian on its own. It is worth noting that both UVI and Acoustic Samples are stepping up their game though. Keep an eye on both vendors.

Finally, so far at the bottom that it came out the other side of the planet in China somewhere, is the Ivory Italian II. I spent a LOT of time trying to make this library work, but at its core, it seems fatally flawed in the ways I mentioned earlier, meaning that I doubt continuing to spend more time tweaking it will make a difference. The issue is that it is phasey, and can't handle any of the more challenging playing styles mentioned above. Each note sounds discrete and disconnected to my ears, just as it did in the version I products as well.

I hate to rag on Ivory because it is well-loved and its developers used to be Kurzweil employees. Maybe I'm still missing something. Yet the official demos also sound problematic to me in the same ways as I notice in my own use.

As for my current jazz album, I think I'll likely stick to tonight's choice of the VI Labs Italian Grand, as the Fazioli sound seems able to tame more aggressive playing styles and make them more bearable, without sounding a bit compressed like a Yamaha acoustic piano. The Fazioli sound to me sits somewhere between Steinway, Yamaha, and Kawai.

[dpdan]

Hi guys,

posting this for whatever it's worth,,,
I don't think the Garritan Steinwway is still available to buy new, possibly eBay, but the new Yamaha CFX Grand is also wonderful and it is sold by Make Music who now owns Garritan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw79ap5VNio

A customer wanted to sing "Sometimes" by the Carpenters and wanted me to create a piano track for them so I used the new Garritan Yamaha CFX Grand and I think it's wonderful.
Here is a link to listen to the finished piano track that I picked out and played by ear to match the original recording by the Carpenters with Karen singing softly underneath just for reference.

http://www.dankury.com/miscuploads/Some ... erence.wav
Dan

[mikehalloran]

I don't think the Garritan Steinwway is still available to buy new

Is that the one that comes with Finale or was there a different one available?

[dpdan]

Hi Mike,
originally, Garritan Personal Orchestra (GPO) did include a Steinway Grand piano, but it was not the same library or piano that is included with Finale.