A little VI help, please...

[sndhse]

Sooshie. Check out these pianos!!! The best I've ever heard and played. I'm also do alot of scoring and the quality of the piano is absolutely essential.
http://www.sampletekk.com/
You will be blown away... Promise!!!
They are huge in size
John
www.soundhousestudio.com

[chrispick]

Originally posted by Shooshie:
Very interested in Native Instruments' Acoustic Piano, but they have no demos. How the heck are we supposed to take a chance on an instrument without hearing it?

I haven't fished around their site, but they usually offer time-restricted downloadable demos you can test-drive yourself (I've tested Guitar Rig, FM-7 and some other NI goodies this way in the past).

Maybe in their NAMM rush they haven't posted an Akoustik Piano demo yet? I'd bet that, if there isn't a demo hidden on that site now, there will be in a few days.

<small>[ July 22, 2005, 11:31 AM: Message edited by: heavypick ]</small>

[Morpheo]

Originally posted by Shooshie:
Very interested in Native Instruments' Acoustic Piano, but they have no demos. How the heck are we supposed to take a chance on an instrument without hearing it?

Patience, patience.... it has just been annouced.....

[blue]

Originally posted by Shooshie:
Blue, are you familiar with thepiano samples at this place? If so, how do they compare to Ivory?

Here is a page of demos, if that helps.

Shooshie

I haven't played these pianos so I couldn't really give you a detailed analysis, but over at Northern Sounds I hear them being discussed quite a lot. And Michael, the developer, frequents the board and could probably answer any questions you may have.

NS gets a lot of traffic, and a lot of the people there are pretty sample savvy. I would post this question over there. You'll probably have a 100 post thread by the end of the day!

[chrispick]

Originally posted by Morpheo:

Originally posted by Shooshie:
Very interested in Native Instruments' Acoustic Piano, but they have no demos. How the heck are we supposed to take a chance on an instrument without hearing it?

Patience, patience.... it has just been annouced.....

Looks like it's scheduled for a mid-September release. I assume we'll see demos pop up around then.

[Shooshie]

Originally posted by sndhse:
Sooshie. Check out these pianos!!! The best I've ever heard and played. I'm also do alot of scoring and the quality of the piano is absolutely essential.
http://www.sampletekk.com/
You will be blown away... Promise!!!
They are huge in size
John
www.soundhousestudio.com

I'm glad you posted these, because this illustrates some things I'm trying to escape. Please don't think I'm being critical of you or your tastes. These are great samples for the average workhorse piano in an ensemble. But I'd compare these samples to approximately the recordings of Arthur Rubinstein from the early 1960s. They are very nice, but they are not a tool for creating the piano sound of my dreams. Here is specifically why:

••• Mid-range: muddy and imprecisely recorded
••• Low range: boomy and without harmonic definition. I want to hear those overtones chasing each other up and down each low string.
••• room miccing, not close miccing. I want the mics right up in the piano. I know exactly where to place them for the sound i want; it's a question of finding a sample maker out there who thinks as I do
••• the piano is not tuned as I like it.
••• non-linear transition to the high register. Highs suddenly leap out like bells
••• over-emphasis on the range of about 315 Hz. I always do some pretty sharp cutting of that range. Good miccing and good recording makes that less necessary.
••• narrow dymanic range. Yeah, it gets loud and soft, but there is not a lot of shading in between.

Compare to some of these. I hear more what I'm looking for in at least some of these.

Also, compare it to the piano in the intro of this. That is allegedly MOTU's Symphonic Instrument. Hear the overtones running up and down the strings? The interplay between the chord tones? That's what I want to hear. I'll be amazed if this sample turns out to be this good in all contexts. But even if it only sounds good in this context--ringing at medium-low velocity--it will be worth the cost of the entire sample set.

Getting an idea of what I'm looking for? I am gradually narrowing it down. I need a demo of Ivory.

Shooshie

[edit]

Scroll down: I found these demos of Ivory. There is much to like in those demos. Some of them--particularly the Debussy--are very messy. I am assuming that it's the processing that's at fault. That's one of the samples which says it has "ambience" and other stuff added to it. The Traumerei sounds very good, as does the Chopin op.25 No.6 Etude in G# minor. And Jordan's cut is excellent.

Now the choices are getting good. I'm liking Ivory, Post, and MOTU's piano samples.

Shooshie

<small>[ July 22, 2005, 04:13 PM: Message edited by: Shooshie ]</small>

[BKK-OZ]

Dunno anything about it, just saw it listed as new over @ KVR.com, but you might want to look @ Art Vista's new piano thingy.

[Dragonwind]

Shooshie,
Kontakt2 works great on a mac but if you are used to using a buffer of 1024 or even 512 you will will be sadly dissapointed with DP's perfomance once you get down to the playable range of 256k.
Your best bet is to get a PC with 2gigs of ram, a decent SATA HD for samples and a very fast processor.
If you choose not to add another machine then you will need to freeze tracks a lot more often. This works but can get quite annoying after a while. I wish I had better news but I also do a lot of orchestral, fantasy, filmscoring work so I am familiar with DP's ins and outs. DP is used best when your VIs are on a different computer.
Chris

[FrankDSM]

In my main studio, I run Kontakt on a seperate rack PC. Kontakt also works well with DP 4.6 on a G5 dual 2GHz Mac.
For piano, Vintaudio's Ultimate Yamaha C7 (Kontakt version) is our favorite. Highly recommmended. Demo available.

http://www.vintaudio.com/

Frank

[Shooshie]

Originally posted by BKK-OZ:
Dunno anything about it, just saw it listed as new over @ KVR.com, but you might want to look @ Art Vista's new piano thingy.

You know? it's not bad. Really, I would like this piano for certain things. I may include it in my collection. Thanks!

Shooshie

[BKK-OZ]

Could be worth a look, esp with their 'special offer', you can get their piano & Kontakt for $438, or just their piano library for $99.

Its kinda hard to tell from their site, but it looks like their piano uses NI's Kontakt player-engine, and I can't see if you could use their piano library in Kontakt 2 itself. If you can't use the full Kontakt for the piano, you need to be aware of the limitations of that player engine.

I have it with a library called 'Altered States' and there are some little problems with it. It works OK, but it would be a lot better if you could just use Kontakt.

Their web-site doesn't make this question clear.

[richardein]

Ivory seems to be the best so far, in terms of piano sampling. But, oh what a pleasure it is to sit in front of a real Bosendorfer or Steinway after playing with VI's for a week or two!

[Shooshie]

Originally posted by Richard Einhorn:
Ivory seems to be the best so far, in terms of piano sampling. But, oh what a pleasure it is to sit in front of a real Bosendorfer or Steinway after playing with VI's for a week or two!

Not a Bosendorfer fan here. I think they are highly overrated. But they aren't bad pianos, either. They just aren't Steinways. They actually remind me a bit of Baldwins.

I've also come to like Yamahas on an equal plane with Steinways. It's just a different sound, but it's so flexible. You can do so much with it. Not superior to Steinway, but equal in its own way. I've spent a lot of time with my head in a playing piano while miccing it, and there is nothing like that experience. Maybe not good for the ears, but I haven't had any hearing loss from it, so I guess it's ok.

I was surprised a while back to learn that Steinways are not German pianos. They're American! The Hamburg plant was opened only after the New York company had trouble shipping enough pianos overseas to satistfy the demand, but it was totally under the direction of the Americans, and worked from the American plans. Of course, the family had emigrated from Germany, where the patriarch had made some square pianos under the name of Steinweg, but they started fresh in the USA and most of the inventions that became standard in the modern piano were created in New York. The family was a patriotic American family, who integrated completely into American life, including politics and everything else. Fascinating history.

Yeah, I'm a piano fan. I'll grant the possibility that the few Boses I've played on may have been unregulated, but I just didn't like them. I've met many other pianists who said the same thing. But, maybe there are some examples out there that would change my mind; I'll always be looking for them. Meanwhile, I'll place my trust in Steinway and Yamaha. Interestingly, in the sample libraries, those are always my favorites. I've yet to use a Bosendorfer sample for a project, because I just don't get the sound I want.

Shooshie

[BKK-OZ]

Shooshie-

Ck out your PM's, just sent you a note.