Unfortunately my Alicia's Keys stopped working with newer versions of Kontakt...

 

Alicia's Keys working fine with kontakt 7. However that lib has some sort of weird slappy effect going on with the lower 1.5 octaves or so. It sounds like a slap-back echo effect that is still there even after going thru the settings and turning OFF all effects (there's quite a few FX turned on by default). The BEST sounding piano IMO is still the UVI version of a ravenscroft 275. There are some very nice sounding grands in keyscape and omnisphere as well..

 

Testing Best Service Galaxy Vintage D v1.5 KONTAKT...

 

Always been a favorite of mine...

 

the grand 2 fits in a mix very well...much better than the grand 3 imho

 

love both of those, especially the Art Vista
thanks for the tip about the phase issues!

 

Lots of good pianos available, all context dependent. Anybody who has had the experience of actually recording an acoustic piano will vouch for how it's perhaps the most difficult instrument to reproduce. So many variables within the instrument itself with the added complexities of the room it's recorded in and microphone choices made. Then there's the post-processing to make it behave in the mix. The idea that there's a perfect piano library is a strange concept. There's only ever the right piano for the music it's involved with.

For my own use I have dispensed with most sample based libraries these days and gravitate towards XLN for the quirkier sound design oriented approach and Pianoteq for the more authentic sound (which also has good sound design options should they be needed).

Being a very basic keyboard player and not a true pianist (pianos have at least 80 too many strings for me), I cannot personally vouch for the playability of any library but a couple of pianists that I work with swear by Pianoteq for its natural response and don't use anything else.

There's also the M1 of course..

Somewhere in the unnavigable labyrinth of M1 internet search results is an interview with one of the original M1 sound designers with quite a bit of detail regarding how the samples were compiled. I've read it fairly recently so it's not a page from the internet that time forgot. I've just had a good look though and can't find it.

There's a little in this SOS article but not much detail and no mention of the piano.

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/korg-m1-retrozone

This document (KORG M1 Super Guide) may also be of interest.

https://www.korg.com/us/support/download/manual/1/139/3770/

 

Hmm, if my brain had been working correctly I'd have said at least 222 strings too many...

 

I was gonna say but didn't

 

PianoTeq

 

Right now my straight-up go-to piano is Keyscape's C7. Unfortunately that probably doesn't pass the "under 5Gb" test too well if you install the whole thing.

 

So in terms of sfzs and sf2:
I better bet:
Keppy's Steinway D and B Piano (at github; 900+ mb each) (sfz format) (D towards on Black MIDIs or in certain cases piano performance and B towards to Performance or non-Blackened MIDIs)

ZDoc Piano 2 (1.6 gb)

The yamaha concert grand have 20 velocity layers, and it's final version, sad it is lost soundfont (both are sf2 format)

That is my beloved soundfont and so pristine.


**Update BBCSO Discover just updated with free Steinway D Piano it's 40 mb in size (sad still no rr and 1 velocity layer)

but if you want to take further with realism:
Core Collection (Core Package with Core Piano)
and Professional Collection (Core Pro with Pro Piano)

But I still preffer with Soundpaint and these soundfonts.

 

Last edited: Jun 30, 2023

Let me know if you find it, I'm way too curious.

 

What are "Black Midis"?

40 mb Piano in the BBSCO Discover update? That is too small to be good I think.

Have you tried the Autograph Grand in Spitfire Labs?

Regarding sfz format pianos: there is also Maestro Concert Grand and Salamander Grand Piano. They are really good, even though I'm more of an upright piano sound type of guy!

 

MIDIs with up to millions of notes. Most of them don't do anything and are only used to "draw" a picture when used in something like Synthesia. Or just to flex really.

 

The original post is from 2013. It's literally 10 years old and we haven't exhausted the options yet. It's crazy

 

And it won't be ever exhausted, because of subjectivity of taste.

 

It's kinda funny, the OP hasn't been here since like november 2019

 

Cyclone (the TX16W emulator) has been mentioned a few times but is there something more streamlined? As much as I love low-level hardware emulation it's a PAIN to use and it's not even any faster than the real thing.

 

Noire