.Anyway, interesting feedback on Lounge Lizard. It does feel more organic when I play it, vs. when I play Elektrik Piano from NI, but it is hard to judge sound-wise as the demo never expires but fades in and out constantly. I actually get pretty good results from Elektrik on tracking pre-recorded MIDI parts, but I wish it also covered the Yamaha Electric Grands and the more common Hohner Clavinet models vs. the E7 model.
I haven't gotten very satisfactory results from String Studio, though it too feels more reactive than sample-based instruments. I have tried it for banjo, clavinet, and a few other things. But I understand most people seem to prefer it for its possibilities in creating "new" instruments vs. for emulating traditional instruments that are not covered by Lounge Lizard.
The total price of the AAS product suite is a bit high, considering I hate Tasman and Ultra Analog (yes, I know many at this forum love them both, and my not liking them does not make them bad products; they simply don't meet my sound design or tracking needs). I have always been eager for an excuse NOT to have to buy either Lounge Lizard or String Studio
.In some ways, the GEM DRAKE technology has appealed to me even more for its renditions of electric pianos (including clavinets) than for its acoustic pianos, as there is less competition in that arena (I don't even care much for the Nord Electro, except for its Wurlitzers).
I will definitely buy Pianoteq as I have no doubt about its long-term viability and growth, and the upcoming features will definitely help a lot as well. I may postpone the purchase a bit, but I'll first see how it stacks up against GEM's DRAKE technology, as I'll need to use that for most live work and for real-time tracking, due to my CPU limitations.
As I just switched to the RME Fireface 800 last week, though, there may be some settings I haven't optimised yet, that are interfering with the ability of Pianoteq (even at 22 kHz internal sample rate) to keep up with tracking live MIDI alongside live audio output (tracking existing MIDI from within Digital Performer is slightly less taxing).
As to the monophonic physical modeling from Yamaha (which was actually tried on a supercomputer for viability towards piano rendering, during the early days of VL research), I get much more satisfactory results for winds, brass, and strings, than with Synful Orchestra's phrase modeling, but I also feel that Synful has a LOT of potential (especially if they improve their raw sample quality) but has further to go in order to be fully viable as a replacement for sample libraries (and certainly there aren't enough instruments or sections currently).
Matt Traum took the best of the factory presets and improved upon them, so you lose nothing by replacing the ROM. I went through the presets thoroughly before replacing the ROM, so I could earmark the ones I would want to load into Custom slots. It turned out that the ones I liked were also in Turbo but much better.
I didn't have time to do a similar experiment with Matt's earlier two-volume set of MIDI files for loading the Custom bank, as it is so time-consuming to only do six patches at a time. I do notice the "Miles" patch is gone from the ROM or maybe was renamed to match one of the new "Muted Trumpet" patches. No worries, as I still have those files (and they entitled me to a $45 discount).
The Yamaha VL covers a lot of bases, but requires more raw playing skills and technique on the part of the user. This is a big reason why it has never been a big seller; though the bigger reason is that it is monophonic and doesn't have a piano patch (which is the first thing most people try out at ANY keyboard or synth, and is the main basis for most people's decisions on what to buy, regardless of how different the needs may be of most of us on Unicornation and other professional forums).
