Ivory users, please comment

[MegaDPuser]

I am considering purchasing Ivory as a replacement for my Yamaha P-200 to free up space in the studio and continue the transition to software. Can any Ivory users comment on what they think of the samples, and whether it will completely blow away, mildly blow away, or be about on par with the great sound out of the P200. That, for both solo piano and for sitting in the mix. The P200 has always sounded phenomenal to me on its own as a stage piano, but has been more challenging to get to sit right in the mix. This is studio use only, not for live performance.Thanks!

[BradLyons]

Ivory certainly works fine line, but sits in the studio just fine. It's one of the best piano libraries I've ever heard and with good reason, it was designed to do so The guys @ Synthogy were former Kurzweil guys who know a little thing about piano sampling, the software is stunning. HOWEVER, you really need a powerful and well-tuned computer to run it.

[HCMarkus]

The realism Ivory presents goes far beyond anything I have ever heard from hardware. I have a Motif ES and Roland's latest SRX Piano card (which I use for live work) and neither comes anywhere close to the Ivory sound. The nuance Ivory allows the performer to achieve is phenominal. I seriously doubt you will regret the move.

The critical task (other than making sure you have a fast HD dedicated to Ivory) is getting the dynamic range/velocity response set up properly. I find I prefer to run Ivory at 26-28 dB dynamic range with my Roland controller set to "full" velocity response. If a brighter piano sound is called for, I simply switch my Roland to "Hard" or "Medium" response.

Inserting a "trim" plug in on Ivory allows one to narrow the stereo field in a band context. Altiverb or other convolution reverb imparts the final touch of realism.

Frodo says the new 12-layer Italian Grand sample set is fantastic. I'm very happy with Ivory's stock "German Grand" 10 velocity layer Steinway. Either way, your Yamaha will most assuredly be reduced to "controller" status once Ivory finds its place on your hard drive.

[Shooshie]

I am considering purchasing Ivory as a replacement for my Yamaha P-200 to free up space in the studio and continue the transition to software. Can any Ivory users comment on what they think of the samples, and whether it will completely blow away, mildly blow away, or be about on par with the great sound out of the P200. That, for both solo piano and for sitting in the mix. The P200 has always sounded phenomenal to me on its own as a stage piano, but has been more challenging to get to sit right in the mix. This is studio use only, not for live performance.Thanks!

Ivory is the standard that real pianos are going to have to measure up to in the future.

Seriously, it's unbeatable. There are no hardware electric pianos out there that even come close. But: you MUST have a very powerful computer. Old computers will choke. I'd say a minimum of a 2GHz dual G5, or any Intel Mac. Next, it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you get a Western Digital Raptor. The smaller one will do (80+ GB). They are 10,000 rpm, and exceedingly fast. I can gliss every note on the keyboard up and down repeatedly, with pedal, and it doesn't choke.

If you use less than the recommended hardware, you may find yourself limited to certain kinds of music.

Get it. You can get others, but nothing will replace Ivory.

Shooshie

[dtobocman]

Ivory is pretty cheap considering its exceptional capabilities. I haven't heard your P200 sounds, so I can't answer your question directly.

What's nice about Ivory is that its got three completely different pianos and a Fazioli too if you splurge for the expander (the Faz is actually my favorite). The Yamaha is spectacular... I've used it for some Roy Bittan styled rock stuff and it made the song. The Fazioli is perfect for my style of jazz playing... kind of trad, not modern. The Steinway was perfect for another song (piano ballad, sort of Broadway) and I even used the Bosendorfer with some EQ for a different jazz thing.

The Ivory sounds pretty close-miked, which may not work for everything. Then again, the closed-miked sound is what I find useful most of the time.

As for the sounds blowing you away, the only piano that made me weep is the Fazioli. The other pianos are mighty useful in performance (as I described), but the Italian Grand is truly inspirational. I brought my wife out to the studio and told her "you've got to hear this."

All in, the package I bought was under $500 and it has pretty much revolutionized my rig. I did have to finally buy a weighted controller... coincidentally, I bought a Yamaha P70 for that task... Yes, I'm happy with the purchase. I'm still using some of my other pianos for their distinctive sounds, but I'm mostly going to Ivory.

You should know that Ivory needs a very fast hard drive and the whole set of samples 60gigs, I think, needs to be one hard drive only. The internal ATA drive on my G5 gives me playback errors almost constantly. My plan is to upgrade my SATA drive to twice its capacity, but you can easily use a firewire 800 drive if you don't mind the noise and your computer has the capability.

[buzzsmith]

This cocktail style of music may or may not be your cup of tea, but I emailed Steve Siu, asking him about which piano he used to record, micing techniques, etc. and he kindly emailed back that it was all done with Ivory.

http://www.ivorytreasures.com/

=buzz=

[Frodo]

I have the Yamaha P80 and used it in sessions for a good while with satisfactory results-- and being a lifelong pianist, I was very picky about what digital piano sound I wanted to use. The P series was the first I really felt good about.

Along came Ivory.

I was pretty happy with the first release-- the 8 layer version. It was really good enough and more convenient to use than the Yamaha. I was also pleased with not having to route the analog outs of the P80 into DP, which reduced concerns of AD conversion that often put a little "hair" on the sound of the piano.

One of my only other complaints about the Yamaha piano sound is the relatively fast decay. On many occasions on a final chord, the Yamaha would just fade out and cut off before I wanted it to, and there was no remedy for that. Ivory hangs in there on long chords like a champ.

Then, Ivory went to 10 layers and it sounded even better. The Italian Grand really surprised me-- it was fat, warm, AND it sparkled at the same time without the usual artifacts of most sampled pianos. The dynamic range of its 12 layers were a real plus.

The dozens of presets are wonderful right out of the box, but I've also enjoyed creating my own edits and tweaking velocity curves for an even tighter, more personal playability.

I can't say enough good things about it. I rarely need to use more than two instances of it, but two instances run quite well on my G5 2.5 Dual PPC. I can't even say that I've tried to load up more than that on my computer, but I haven't needed to.

For overall performance improvement, I moved Ivory to one of my Raptor 10k drives, and this took care of the occasional "drive too slow" warning that would crop up on my now retired 7200 rpm FW drive.

Yes-- Ivory is rather close mic'd, but there's one plus: it has a setting that plays back from the player's perspective (notes panned low to hi from left to right as though you're sitting at the keyboard) and fromt he audience's perspective (a more general stereo imaging from a little further away). This is a rather subtle effect, but dramatic enough that it can make the difference in a mix where multiple stereo images are jockying for their own space.

While I don't use Ivory's reverb in favor of Altiverb, I do tweak the wet/dry mix of the early reflections to "place" the piano in the proper space. Actually, Ivory's close mic-ing comes in handy because the wetter it is, even with early reflections, the easier it is to lose the attacks. It's also nice to have control over this parameter.

There a several really great virtual pianos out there, but Ivory not only sounds great, it works well and "plays" nicely along side other virtual instruments on my PPC in DP.

[halcyo]

I think everybody freaks out about how powerful your computer has to be to run Ivory.

I run it on a Dual 1.8 Ghz G5, with the samples coming off of a 7200 RPM FIREWIRE drive, and it runs fine! You might not be able to max out the polyphony, but I can get upwards of 100 voices easy. I would say that having a seperate sample drive, and alot of RAM is a requirement for any of the modern sample libraries out there nowadays, so if you take the plunge, this is a fact to consider.

Ivory will blow the P-200 out of the water soundwise. I have a P-90, and it is pretty much now justa controller keyboard! To give you an idea of how good Ivory sounds, I think that the built in P-90 piano sounds fairly nice, but there is no comparison to Ivory, or many of the other huge sample libraries out there for that matter.

halcyo

[dosuna11]

Ivory is it! No more Mics!

[burp182]

A new player in the game is from VSL. Their Bosendorfer instrument is quite remarkable and seems a little easier on the CPU. Nowhere near as flexible as Ivory (one piano, either close or distant micing and bone dry as all VSL instruments are) but stunning in its realism. Most worthwhile to check out if it seems suitable in your situation.

[Frodo]

A new player in the game is from VSL. Their Bosendorfer instrument is quite remarkable and seems a little easier on the CPU. Nowhere near as flexible as Ivory (one piano, either close or distant micing and bone dry as all VSL instruments are) but stunning in its realism. Most worthwhile to check out if it seems suitable in your situation.

I've heard some of the demos of the VSL Bösendorfer. The price is certainly one of their most affordable, but I held off on it because there is a Bösendorfer included with Ivory.

It is of interest that it's a little easier on the CPU, however. It appears to be generally bright and percussive on various demos, but I must say I enjoyed the sound of it on the recent demo of the Tchaikowsky Piano Concerto that was posted on the VSL forum.

This is something I may consider if VSL would expand their collection to include other pianos besides the Bösendorfer alone. There's something to be said about having a multi purpose piano VI that offers not only a diversity of settings for one piano but a diversity of pianos as well. At least in this area, Ivory is still the best bang for the buck where quality is paramount.

But it should also be mentioned that the VSL Bösendorfer only has 7 velocity layers to work with presently. That's one less layer than Ivory started with-- we're now up to 10-12 layers on Ivory-- and this could be why the VSL piano is a little easier on the CPU.

I do like the VSL interfaces and have the Vienna Instruments orchestral set in house.

[David Polich]

I'll be the black sheep and say I've tossed out Ivory in favor of Pianoteq.

There are some users here who have tried Pianoteq and haven't found it to their liking. That's okay by me, but for me personally, Pianoteq blows every sampled piano in the world away. It's physical modeling, it doesn't use samples (the entire program is only 8 MB in size). It does require a very fast computer - at least a 2Ghz PPC G5 or better, or a 2 Ghz Dual-Core Windows machine or better.

The presets that come with Pianoteq aren't that great. However, I made an fxp preset for Pianoteq based on my Yamaha Disklavier and that is available on the pianoteq website:

http://www.pianoteq.com

The reviews for Pianoteq have been largely positive. And I've demoed it for pro keyboard players who have stopped by my studio (including a very "big" name guy who has worked with Whitney Houston, Michael jackson, Sting, Lionel Richie, and others) and they have all been amazed.

The main thing about Pianoteq is that, unlike a sampled piano, you have a response and behavior that is much more like a real piano. You get a different sound for all 127 MIDI velocities, not four or six or even eight layers, but really "127" layers. You can completely adjust the hammer hardness, quadratic factor (which makes the sound more or less "metallic" with hard strikes), piano soundboard size, hammer sound, damper sound, and string detune. You can change the overtones of the piano (so it has more fundamental, or more of a seventh harmonic, for instance).If you crank up your monitors and press the sustain pedal down without hitting any notes, you can hear the dampers lift off the keys - no sampled piano does that. You can also re-pedal, or half pedal and then re-pedal, it works exactly like you would expect it to. Again, you can forget about this ever happening with a sampled piano.

I have Ivory and I also have Steinberg's The Grand. I used to really like Ivory but Pianoteq changed all that. As I said, you do have to spend some time with it and "build" your own ideal piano.

There were some complaints from people who demoed Pianoteq, concerning the midrange of the keyboard (G2 to G4) and the soundboard. Modarrt has announced that they are working on an improved soundboard model which should be available the end of this month.

I just find that playing Pianoteq feels like I'm playing a piano, not triggering 88 dead bodies laid end to end.

[Frodo]

I just find that playing Pianoteq feels like I'm playing a piano, not triggering 88 dead bodies laid end to end.

Ivory doesn't quite give me that impression!! But I was impressed with Pianoteq and fascinated by all the customizations.

Now, The Grand annoyed me to high heck. I never like that plugin at all. It "barely" installed and worked properly-- and then the sound was indeed like dead bodies laid end to end-- but only 44 of them! Didn't have the conscience to sell the thing or give it away. I honestly took a hammer to the discs, it was so frustrating.

As usual, those who use a particular bit of software will have their reasons why they love it. There are several virtual pianos available now that I'd like to have in addition to Ivory. I think there was a virtual piano thread going 6-8 months ago on with tons of links-- I need to scare that up again.

[MegaDPuser]

Thanks for all the detailed replies, folks. I really appreciate it.

It is so clear what has to happen. The P200 will be sold. Ivory will be purchased. In so doing, I will:

- free up some real estate in the studio, and
- get better piano sounds, and
- get money for another VI or two

I do like the P200's action, but I also have a Trition Studio 88 (nowadays a very, very expensive controller), which has a completely different but also likeable action. (And a grand piano for when I need to feel the real weighted keys, which isn't very often anymore).

Now, for the unpleasant hassle of selling a piece of worthy but dated studio gear...I hate that.

[mhschmieder]

I'm glad to hear followup from Dave Polich on his experience with Pianoteq. It is still out of the picture for me as I am further postponing a computer upgrade, but now at least I won't bother trying to see if Ivory will run on my 800 MHz computer, saving precious funds for more useful purchases.

As I cannot run Pianoteq, and many here will be in the same boat, I recommend also looking at the new RP-X half-rack module from GEM. Yes, it is hardware, but in the interest of freeing up studio real estate, it accomplishes that goal pretty well, so is relevant to the discussion.

The DRAKE technology uses a combination of sampling and modeling, and has an added advantage of containing a superb collection of 100% physically modeled e-pianos (thus allowing for postponing a purchase of the expensive AAS product suite just to copver both Rhodes and Clavinet via Lounge Lizard and String Studio).

In terms of software solutions, definitely do NOT waste your money on NI Akoustik, which is fatally flawed (unless you have time to re-map the entire sample set in Kontakt and correct, as much as is possible, the upper three registers).

Even at velocity=127, the upper registers barely produce usable volume. When I spoke to NI about this at NAMM, they proudly exclaimed that this was an "improvement" they had made to the library based on early feedback about the upper register being too "loud". Probably someone with a synth-action MIDI controller was banging away up there and didn't like the results.

They should have taken a listen to the roughly 4:1 volume ratio of the lower registers vs. the upper registers when MIDI note velocities are taken down to 40 for the low notes and up to 127 for the high notes. In order to render audio using this sample set, I have to re-map all my MIDI files extensively to get even moderately acceptable results.

Obviously that will not play out well in terms of live usage.

Of course I got mine eessentially for "free" as part of Komplete 4. As the sample set itself is probably good, I hold out hope that Komplete 5 will fix the problems.

In the meantime, it still serves some usefulness as being better than using a hardware ROMpler. And it does cover some pianos that the other libraries don't have, which gives me a larger palette to choose from.