True Piano vs Akoustic Piano vs ???

[Heartfelt]

Which is the best acoustic piano vsti in that price range?
Thanks
Rob

[kilroy]

Don't know about Akoustic... but I do like True Piano a lot! Some very versatile pianos in there. Some sound very good by themselves while others are better in the context of a mix. It's good for the price and light too (both on cpu and memory)

[Julio]

Hi Rob.

You may like to have a look at www.pianoteq.com

Pianoteq is based on physical modelling rather than samples, and comes with many varied presets and a host of configurable elements to tweak the result. It can even sound like an harpsichord if you want.

On the website you can download a trial version for free, and I would suggest doing that to see what kind of sounds you get. The plugin itself is incredibly small and efficient too, around 15MB iirc.

I do have several other (much larger) piano libraries, but Pianoteq has become my default choice for flexibility and ease of use. Depending on the sound you’re after, this may be your cup of tea.

[Art Evans]

I think pianoteq is a lot more expensive.

There's really no substitute for download the trials and seeing how they work with your particular playing and your particular music. I have the Piano AcustiX Steinway and like it enough to have resisted other temptations.

[Julio]

As Art says too, trying them out (where available) is definitely the best way to go. You can download a 40 day True Piano trial, for example, to see what you think.

I was comparing the Pianoteq to an Akoustik Piano retail price I saw, but I see that True Piano is considerably less; I suppose there may be deals going around on the Native Instruments one also.

It is a very competitive market, I’m sure you’ll be able to find something to suit your needs.

All the best,
Julio :)

[Art Evans]

And I'm getting confused between Acoustik Piano and Piano AcustiX!

http://acustix.vanbarel.com/ is their site.

[Thehaxx]

Pianoteq is the shizzle as far as i'm concerned. I honestly haven't used the others, but i'm someone that's ridiculously finicky about piano sounds, and when i discovered pianoteq i fell in love.

[Klemperer]

I also hear praise from people who own pianoteq. I liked the demo, but had bought the Artvista Grand (kontakt player instrument) from Hans Adamson (find the website

HERE (http://www.artvista.net/Virtual_Grand_Piano.html)

which is a very warm and nice sounding piano I love best of all. I didn't like the playing on the website that much as it's not my musical style, but the piano just plays wonderful, comes with many outstanding "presets" like how different players play their Steinway, and is all in all just wonderful for my ears...(I heard some find it a bit "without highs", but you can simply change that, and I always thought that remark was made by people who only heard emulations and no real piano under their fingers).

Then I own Akoustik Piano which is from Native instruments and gets you a Bechstein (lovely), Boesendorfer, Steinway grands and a Steingraeber upright.

Since a few months people seem to think pianos without samples are "the thing". I always shudder when I listen to such sentences, but of course if it is personal preference to have an empty hard drive rather than what sound a piano has....:). That aside, the pianoteq and true piano have the advantage that there are demos. And indeed the pianoteq is a nice one. So many options :D

[fab]

the Artvista Grand (kontakt player instrument) from Hans Adamson (find the website

HERE (http://www.artvista.net/Virtual_Grand_Piano.html)

which is a very warm and nice sounding piano I love best of all


+1 but pssst...it is really nice to have piano that not everybody uses...

i did not try the modeled stuff in depth since i have a good modeled rhodes (AAS lounge lizard 3) which i use very rarely. i reach for the scarbee samples everytime, they just feel better to me. i think i like each tone to be a little different from it's neighbor...

[Heartfelt]

The ones I am looking at are in the $200 range.

I am using the True demo and so far, like it alot. There is no demo for Akoustik from NI.

I have to have a VSTI as I have no sampler or vsti sample player like reason or kontakt. In Fact, I am not apiano player but need it in some songs and can tinker to get it semi-right.

What about specific thoughts about Akoustic from NI?

[Oxytoxine]

direct your browser to www.galaxypianos.com.

these galaxy II pianos are a) in your pricerange and b) extremely good and c) light on pc resources (at least the download editions). they come with their own kontakt II player and there are download versions at www.soundsondemand.
3 pianos: a bösendorfer, a bluethner baby grand, and a steinway. they compete with the best out there (more information also in the www.northernsound forums). i like especially the bose a lot.

i also have truepianos which is very nice too, but has not quite the realism and dynamic range of these vsti's. depends on whether you play solo piano, then there is definitely a big difference; for mixes and if you don't play rachmanikov, truepianos is good also (but i personally only really like the diamond module).

you do not have to get kontakt and libraries in order to get good pianos!!
i made that mistake (spent a fortune on kontakt and on sampletekk libraries) before i discovered galaxy II.
seperate piano vsti's also have the advantage that you have much more control over many parameters, which makes adjusting the piano a breeze (different velocity curves, different tonal colors, hammer noises etc etc).

good luck and enjoy!

EDIT: ah, i've now seen your last post - makes a lot of my reply obsolet it seems

[Jae.Thomas]

i thought pianoteq sounded like a toy...

but true pianos is VERY nice, and also employs some modeling.. They have a 40 day trial.

I think ivory takes the cake, but @ 40 gigs or whatever, its quite a hdd hog, but who really cares when they are practically paying people to take hard drives nowadays :p

[Oxytoxine]

i thought pianoteq sounded like a toy...

but true pianos is VERY nice, and also employs some modeling.. They have a 40 day trial.

I think ivory takes the cake, but @ 40 gigs or whatever, its quite a hdd hog, but who really cares when they are practically paying people to take hard drives nowadays :p

ah, finally someone else also thinks that, i reading all the raving reviews i started to think i needed new ears.
nice in the higher registers, but no bottom - so kick it in the bottom..;-)

[technogremlin]

I still have to hear a plugin Piano that rivals the sound of my Roland RD-150. As soon as I get more audio inputs I'm going to MIDI-up the bastard :D

[jakerock]

Hey heartfelt... did you ever end up trying the Free Tascam one?
http://www.tascam.com/products/gvi.html

I have only ever heard a handful of the $$$ ones, and im not a piano player, but they all sound a little... umm... wrong at times.

The tascam is no exception, but it is free, and ok if its just an element of the song and not the focus IMHO.

Best of luck! -Jake

[larrygates]

Malmsjö

OH Man, that brings back memories. That was one of the first piano libs I brought. And was I happy. Malmsjö version 1 for GigaStudio Version 2. 1 week after having that, I sold about 2 or 3 tracks with that piano on it. It makes you want to PLAY. Good call on that company.

I bet there other piano is GREAT.

I also hear praise from people who own pianoteq. I liked the demo, but had bought the Artvista Grand (kontakt player instrument) from Hans Adamson (find the website

HERE (http://www.artvista.net/Virtual_Grand_Piano.html)

which is a very warm and nice sounding piano I love best of all. I didn't like the playing on the website that much as it's not my musical style, but the piano just plays wonderful, comes with many outstanding "presets" like how different players play their Steinway, and is all in all just wonderful for my ears...(I heard some find it a bit "without highs", but you can simply change that, and I always thought that remark was made by people who only heard emulations and no real piano under their fingers).

Then I own Akoustik Piano which is from Native instruments and gets you a Bechstein (lovely), Boesendorfer, Steinway grands and a Steingraeber upright.

Since a few months people seem to think pianos without samples are "the thing". I always shudder when I listen to such sentences, but of course if it is personal preference to have an empty hard drive rather than what sound a piano has....:). That aside, the pianoteq and true piano have the advantage that there are demos. And indeed the pianoteq is a nice one. So many options :D

[Heartfelt]

Hey heartfelt... did you ever end up trying the Free Tascam one?
http://www.tascam.com/products/gvi.html

I have only ever heard a handful of the $$$ ones, and im not a piano player, but they all sound a little... umm... wrong at times.

The tascam is no exception, but it is free, and ok if its just an element of the song and not the focus IMHO.

Best of luck! -Jake

I have it but never got it going on Vista.

[Heartfelt]

direct your browser to www.galaxypianos.com.

these galaxy II pianos are a) in your pricerange and b) extremely good and c) light on pc resources (at least the download editions). they come with their own kontakt II player and there are download versions at www.soundsondemand.
3 pianos: a bösendorfer, a bluethner baby grand, and a steinway. they compete with the best out there (more information also in the www.northernsound forums). i like especially the bose a lot.

i also have truepianos which is very nice too, but has not quite the realism and dynamic range of these vsti's. depends on whether you play solo piano, then there is definitely a big difference; for mixes and if you don't play rachmanikov, truepianos is good also (but i personally only really like the diamond module).

you do not have to get kontakt and libraries in order to get good pianos!!
i made that mistake (spent a fortune on kontakt and on sampletekk libraries) before i discovered galaxy II.
seperate piano vsti's also have the advantage that you have much more control over many parameters, which makes adjusting the piano a breeze (different velocity curves, different tonal colors, hammer noises etc etc).

good luck and enjoy!

EDIT: ah, i've now seen your last post - makes a lot of my reply obsolet it seems

Thanks but I saw this is about $100 more.

[stratman]

I'm no expert on piano, but there are the other options to consider.

1) Proteus VX: Free with a large amount of sounds including pianos
http://www.emu.com/promo/proteusvx/welcome.asp

2) Wusikstation: Fairly inexpensive. This has some good piano sounds to my ear and a vast amount of other sounds. The Summer group buy appears to include the Maestro Grand-Piano
http://www.wusik.com/w/index.html

Pete

[Art Evans]

Do try the AcustiX one...

[fab]

"I have to have a VSTI"

the artvista VGP comes with kontakt player. that's a vsti, a specialized version of the kontakt engine. feel and sound are really good, way more natural than my kawai mp9500's internal sound. price is 199,- $.

fab

[peter5992]

This is probably above your budget, and at 263GB it is certainly not "light", but Eastwest has just released "Pianos" -- Bechstein D-280, Steinway D, Bösendorfer 290, and Yamaha C7, all sampled in three different mike settings, and using their new 64 bit Play technology.

They also have several comparison samples with other libraries (Pianoteq, synthogy Ivory, Native Instruments) so you can listen for yourself:

http://www.soundsonline.com/product.php?productid=EW-171.

[carbon]

Hey heartfelt... did you ever end up trying the Free Tascam one?
http://www.tascam.com/products/gvi.html



Doesn't work on XP SP3 :(

http://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/60278/tascam_cv_piano_with_xpsp3.png

[Heartfelt]

I have been playing with the demo of True Pianos and with only one module in the demo (3 total with the purchase), I am liking it a lot. Each module has different sounds... just the diamond is scratching the itch.

So far, my need has been for a bright pop piano to cut through a mix and this one is jammin'... nice and punchy.

I have considered the Akoustic but I can't demo it in my project.

Go here and here it in a mix (click on The Way it is)
http://truepianos.com/demos.php

check this out too
http://truepianos.com/videodave.php

[Cableaddict]

True Pianos sounds promising to me (despite the horrid playing on "The Way It Is" )

Sadly, the demos all have some nasty mp3 aliasing going on. they need to fix that, pronto.

For me, the once and still current champion is Ivory, hands-down. However, this is partly because Ivory responds so well to the touch, and to the sustain pedal (modeled resonance.) It's also because Ivory has shockingly-low latency. No other piano that I've personally tried can compete with that.

If your technique is only average (a guitarist laying down piano tracks) then other software could easily be as good or even preferrable.

[Cableaddict]

This is probably above your budget, and at 263GB it is certainly not "light", but Eastwest has just released "Pianos" -- Bechstein D-280, Steinway D, Bösendorfer 290, and Yamaha C7, all sampled in three different mike settings, and using their new 64 bit Play technology.

They also have several comparison samples with other libraries (Pianoteq, synthogy Ivory, Native Instruments)

Thanks for that url, I hadn't heard about this collection before.

Sadly, when I listened to their comparison mp3's (with great hope & anticipation) I was reminded of just how good Ivory is. (I also liked the Pianoteq mp3) All the East-West mp3's still sound "sampled" somehow.

I'm not being an Ivory snob, (far from it) I really do hear this. Otherwise, I would have just ordered their product. I did not. Ivory is not perfect, either, but it is pretty darn great.

I also note that E-W slightly rolled-off the lower mids on their Ivory MP3, and probably used the lowest-possible resonance setting. Adjusting the resonance in Ivory is its most powerful feature, and that particular piece called for a LOT of resonance. E-W also somehow "forgot" to include Ivory's Italian Grand, which is the best of the bunch for that style of music.
---------------

FWIW- NI's Akoustic works really well for rock, though I can't stand the latency. I will sometimes use it for playback, after recording with Ivory. Mostly though I use Ivory's Yamaha.

Also, for rock, Synthogy (the company that makes Ivory) just released "Upright Pianos." Street price is about $280, and it runs stand-alone or as a plugin.
I just ordered mine, so no comments yet, but the demos sound absurdly good. I mean RIDICULOUSLY, absurdly good. I can't wait to get those sounds under my stanky little fingers.

[Heartfelt]

If your technique is only average (a guitarist laying down piano tracks) then other software could easily be as good or even preferrable.

Woot!! Score on my part. I have to comp my key parts to be any good, LOL.

[Heartfelt]

Ivory does sound great... wow

[out]

Totally agree about Pianoteq. It sounds nice in the mid and upper registers, but the bottom end is weak, which makes it a no go for me, since I use the bottom register all the time.

I use TruePianos and VGP and I'm mostly happy with them. Saphire is my fav, among the TruePiano modules.

I don't think you'd go wrong with TruePianos.

[Jim Roseberry]

Ivory does sound great... wow


FWIW, I've got the Akoustik piano... and it's pretty decent.
It's just good enough to keep me from springing (right now) for Ivory. :)
Ivory (IMO) is currently THE piano sample/instrument. It sounds amazing...


Jim Roseberry
www.studiocat.com
jim@studiocat.com

[manning1]

Heartfelt
dunno if this will float your boat.
coyote forte plug in is 40 buks and you can use giga samples.
just another option to look at.
it does more than just pianos also,.
http://www.coyotes.bc.ca/Forte.html
http://www.coyotes.bc.ca/ForteDXi.html
read up on the site.

[EvilDragon]

The opening date of this thread is back in 2008.

+10 to thread necromancy!

[Viedypeties]

I'm a dumbass spammer

[chrisharbin]

SPAM! Get the spammer!!!!!!!!!!

[martimdurao]

Hi

I have made a youtube video comparison between GPO4 Steinway Piano vs NI New York Concert Grand vs Truepianos vs Pianoteq Play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-qea43n1GE

This should help you all decide that Pianoteq is way better then truepianos.

Truepianos feels that a cloth was puted over the speakers....???

Greetings

Martim

[ugh]

Hi

I have made a youtube video comparison between GPO4 Steinway Piano vs NI New York Concert Grand vs Truepianos vs Pianoteq Play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-qea43n1GE

This should help you all decide that Pianoteq is way better then truepianos.

Truepianos feels that a cloth was puted over the speakers....???

Greetings

Martim

when you showed Pianoteq for the first song, it seems that your Master Volume was clipping, at least it showed +2.0 db at one point and was marked as read. You Master Volume fader is set above zero as well.

I think the clipping even started with Truepinaos, who played at +0.9 db at one point.

However, a really nice video, good comparison, thanks for this.

[marce]

Doesn't work on XP SP3 :(

http://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/60278/tascam_cv_piano_with_xpsp3.png

I have it working on Windows 7 64 bits. It´s tricky, but you should google a little and you will found some little tricks to make the installer compatible with any windows version.

[sostenuto]

Ivory does sound great... wow
-------------------------------------------------------------

Came to Roland KR577 after sale of treasured Grotrian Steinweg 225 Concert Grand. Regretful experience but necessary .... and now ..... Ivory II Italian Grand Piano!! The organic interaction is gone forever, but the sound has come back in a major way. Wish I could comment on other choices, but Spectrasonics/Ivory and Ilio support has been a delightful recovery. Still much to learn about the wide range of settings .............
Good luck!

Tom B

[martimdurao]

Hello piano lovers...

I have made my newest personal review between affordable pianos VSTi, and after discovering the Truepianos Atlantis Module. Hope it meets all requirements for a good review, beside my expressed opinion in the video.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eIKY7jnNEg

Regards to you all.

From a piano and music lover
----
Keep playing, keep composing, life is short!

[martimdurao]

This is my solo review for the truepianos 2.0 atlantis module preview.

Feel free to share, as i think this video does more justice for this amazing new module.

http://youtu.be/Erxbh8YEet8

Regards

Martim

[boatbassguy]

Thanks for your reviews Martim. I already own GPO 4, but was contemplating a piano sound upgrade. I clearly don't need to after watching your comparisons.
I didn't have any issues with your original MIDI files, I thought they were fine.

I also thought your reviewing style and presentation was great!

Cheers, Mikey

[optical]

http://www.acoustica.com/pianissimo/

250Mb of samples combined with modeling.

Costs $68.95 but sounds much, much more expensive. 7 day fully functioning demo.

[martimdurao]

I also thought your reviewing style and presentation was great!

Cheers, Mikey

Thank You a lot!! :-)

[martimdurao]

http://www.acoustica.com/pianissimo/

250Mb of samples combined with modeling.

Costs $68.95 but sounds much, much more expensive. 7 day fully functioning demo.

It is OK, but doesnt work natively on Mac.

[optical]

It is OK, but doesnt work natively on Mac.

Oops! Sorry about that..