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I'm looking for a Virtual Instrument plug in that has authentic piano and electric piano sounds. I will be using the piano sounds in mostly a solo piano & vocal kind of setting. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

ROCK!

ec_pat5150 wrote:I'm looking for a Virtual Instrument plug in that has authentic piano and electric piano sounds. I will be using the piano sounds in mostly a solo piano & vocal kind of setting. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

ROCK!

Depends on what you mean by 'authentic'. There are a bunch of piano vi's out there as witness the Steinway thread on here. If you want a brighter rock type acoustic piano there are Yamaha vi's out there. And electric piano that depends on if you're looking for a Rhodes or Wurlitzer sound as they are both different.

But I think you're going to be hamstrung by your old OSX version.

I'm a big fan of Pianoteq

https://www.pianoteq.com

It isn't a sample-based piano, it is physical modeling. But if you listen to the demo recordings, you'll hear a very expressive and realistic sound. Here are my favorite features:

1. It is versatile. Not only does it contain an assortment of pianos, those can all be tweaked very intensely to create more of the sound you want. All the way to a pretty "synthetic" modeled sound.

2. It can be mono-compatible. Many commercial sampled pianos use pretty elaborate mic-setups that are problematic when summed to mono on a live gig, or on a small device speaker. Not only are the Pianoteq stereo programs mono-compatible, but you can just set it to mono (and/or choose the mic(s), and move the it (them) around in a virtual room).

3. You can pick a version to suit your needs and budget, and choose add-ons (like electric pianos, mallet instruments, harp, etc).

4. Great developer and support.

I'm also big fan of Pianoteq.

IMHO and to my ears, basic sounds are just fine to fit with vocals.

You can set dynamic to your exact needs. That is a great point to me. IMOE, when played in actual modern pop music and the like, dynamic is much too wide in many piano VIs.

BTW, I do like the *Bluthner* one, and the *Rhodes* in Pianoteq.

Pianoteq is an excellent start, as it also covers so many e-pianos and chromatic/tuned percussion instruments and does them all well enough to render alternatives rare and expensive.

The new version has just put it back at the top of may acoustic piano choices after having recently flirted with VI Labs and Galaxy Instruments piano libraries, which are still the only sample-based alternatives that I feel can really challenge Pianoteq on very many points but which are also mostly bound to a static level of quality vs. an always-evolving modeling-based solution.

The bottom line though, is that Pianoteq is more and more becoming the best recommendation for people who don't yet have many VI's, due to the breadth of what it covers and how well it does everything (including marimba, vibraphone, clavinet, etc.).

Another nice thing is that you can incrementally upgrade, and the libraries/models sound the same regardless of version. The upgrades are more for your own ability to further tweak the provided presets (or to create your own).

Others can correct me if I'm wrong about this; I own the full-on Pro version of Pianoteq so may have minimized the differences, but I think they have a chart at their website that shows what's what.