Best sampled piano (3)

[reflekshun]

Declaring a "best piano" is kind of like declaring a "best wife/husband". The response will always be, "for who?".

If you can't tell, I am getting really tired of the "best" & "most playable" discussions. They've become as tiresome as declarations of the world's biggest number of layers and samples.

Ernie

Lol - well said! My personal faves are Ivory II, White Grand and Old Lady. The latter two don't have any fancy DSP stuff, still in the top three.. White grand is great clean piano, Old Lady is a more beautiful deeper sounding piano.

[Bryantee]

Nice post and i am a big found of piano and i love to play piano thanks for sharing this Best sampled piano (3)

[JohnGrant]

Update on this. For recording purposes only, I thought the Galaxy Vintage Steinway might be the one. After extensive recording and listening, in a solo context only, I've concluded it isn't quite there. Great sounding Steinway, but slightly "honky" or "nasal" quality in the low mids, say c4 and below, which either gives it away as sampled, or sounds like an early, very early, recording of a Steinway. Surprisingly, my early Wet Bos Bach which I have recorded all of Book 1 of Bach's WTC sounds more realistic tonally, from a recording stanpoint, of course. I'm not commenting on any instrument from a playing standpoint. That's a completely different kettle....

JG

Update.... now listening to the Grand 3, particularly the Yammy and the Steinway. Very few demos out there, it seems, of this sample.

Second update.... listening to the ewql pianos .... the demos are extraordinary... but are the samples really that good?

[Sven Bridstrup]

@OP... I have both Alicia's Keys and Galaxy Pianos II K4. I find the Galaxy Bose and Stein both far superior to Alicia's Keys. Just my .02

Cheers!

[JohnGrant]

Right now I'm comparing recordings made from 3 different samples: Garritan, Galaxy Vintage, and the venerable Black Grand. This is for recording purposes only, not live.

Since the Garritan has many different samples based on the mic position, I'll be including which ever of these mic positions works best, again as a recording.

The Black may seem oldish, but on a preliminary listen it holds up incredibly well against others (again, for the recorded result). Interesting that the Vintage sounds great playing, but as a recorded instrument, not so obviously good. The Black, on the other hand, is fairly dull to play, but sounds pretty close to a standard solo piano, when you listen to the recorded result.

Jg