If I could I would uninstall all my kontakt piano libraries, I only keep them installed for compatibility with older projects. Pianoteq 9 gives you infinite velocity, ultimate customization down to the strings and dampers themselves, and they have every kind of piano you could think of and every way to customize them to get whatever piano sound you want. And if you don't want to mess around tuning things, the presets are already more than good enough. What other piano library could ever compete anymore? Pianoteq is just too good and i'm amazed we could ever have something this realistic and it isn't using samples at all. I always see people trying to compare one piano lib to the next... and I just don't get it. With any kontakt library you're getting 10,50 or 100+ GB of samples depending on what library it is. And even then you will never be able to capture every nuance of the piano, whereas Pianoteq just does it and only needs around 100mb and even less if you don't need every piano. It just seems objectively to me like the best choice for any application, for orchestral music, for pop music, solo piano, etc it just WORKS.

 

I'm sure some people who work with piano VSTi will have particular reasons. I, for one, don't need anything else; with Pianoteq 9 I have more than I'll ever need haha

 

Valid point. And it's been that way for years, I think. I've installed the v8.4.3 and man, incredible. Have yet to try v9
- very light on disk and ram. Even light on the CPU, which seriously blows my mind
- very versatile

The only thing I'll keep will be EzKeys because of the productivity features it has, being a beginner myself. Not the sound itself.
It's an amazing thing; physical modelling well done.

 

Perfect Match For Me Pianoteq Pro 9 + Keyscape + NI Noire, Everything else deleted.

 

A number of reasons. They use Kontakt heavily already, or Falcon. They like the results of high end Kontakt libraries of all the different pianos.
They know that sample-based instrument usage can be less cpu-intensive as a physical modeled synthesis based plugin. They think they sound better. They know they would just pile on Impulse Responses trying to get Pianoteq to sound as realistic. They do not want to pay like 900$ for a piano plugin. They know they are going to be using Kontakt anyway for more instruments and having two or more instruments open in Kontakt does not add all the additional overhead of another plugin instance.

We don't need to debate each individual point they may or may not have. You asked what they think, and those are some reasons. Personally, I don't care either way. They are entitled to their points.

Your point is something along the lines of why do I need another stupid piano plugin when I needed a 40$ UAD Korg delay plugin.

 

Well, certainly there are more reasons to consider Pianoteq over other libraries and options than there are to consider the $40 UAD Korg Delay plugin over other delay options. Otherwise, I agree. It's mostly people who already have a career going on that will have different needs.

 

As someone who is VERY picky about piano libraries, Pianoteq doesn't sound good enough. Especially the mid-range which is the most crucial part. And to me, the playability of Premier Sound Factory Kawai Legend and Garritan CFX are close enough to a real grand piano on my Kawai VPC1. IK Multimedia Pianoverse with some tweaking is a close second. Their sound is a hundred times better than the very plasticky sound of Pianoteq. If you listened enough to real pianos, it's not even remotely close.

My ONLY complaint with them (alongside the lack of Una Corda is Kawai Legend) is their half-pedaling which, while it is better than 99% of other libraries, still isn't better than Embertone Walker which is the ONLY piano library where I feel like the half-pedaling behaves like a real piano. However with this latter one, pedal catching is inconsistent, which is a big no-no for classical.

So yeah, great playability, but terrible artificial sound compared to real samples. Pianoteq is best for studying, or in situations where disk space and RAM are hugely limited. High quality sample libraries are incomparable when it comes to getting a good sound.

 

Totally agree. Finally got hold of PT v 8.x.x the other day and was completely amazed at how crappy it sounded compared to Pianoverse, Keyscape, RavensCroft275, and "Claire" caliber kontakt pianos. PT v9.x.x same deal. Those here who have been raving about PT for years now I gotta question what exactly are you listening to it with? And how good is your hearing? The very lowest/highest scales on PT are complete shit. The in between stuff is ~~ok~~ but doesn't pass, IMO, for world class piano sound. Kontakt "Claire" or UVI RavensCroft275 kicks shit all over PT in regard to the blind "which one is the real piano" test. The RavensCroft275 from low to high will put PT to shame! The only thing PT has going for it is that is has more than just piano sounds which I didn't know going in. But even at that, with all the sounds PT makes they are all contrived sounding compared to real sampled libraries of the real things. For a compact, low disk foot print, multi instrument noise maker PT can fill a bill maybe as a live performance tool, but as an exacting studio recording replacement for a well done high quality sampled piano (which are usually rather large bit wise) it falls way short.

 

Last edited: Nov 4, 2025 at 2:23 AM

I'm not a piano enthusiast and not good at all at playing one, so most of the finer details and nuances that you can get out of modeled as compared to sampled piano are either lost on me or I simply do not care about them. I can absolutely hear the difference in resonances playing Pianoteq vs any sampled piano, it's substantially better. Playing fast and complex, mostly classical, compositions sounds better with Pianoteq and many sampled pianos can fall apart due to limitations of samples and scripting. Playability of Pianoteq is also great but I never really had any problems with sampled pianos that I like, so that is not a product seller for me.

The main thing that I'm looking for in a piano is its tone and sound. My biggest gripe with Pianoteq is that it sounds like a piano, quite literally. The best way I can describe it is like this.
Imagine you're standing in an empty endless liminal space with nothing around you at all. There is the sound of a piano playing, but there's no piano at all, no speakers or any sound sources, just the sound that exists and plays. It doesn't sound bad, it sounds quite nice, like a real piano.

To me it just doesn't sound right. I don't want this sound and I don't really like it because it doesn't sound like a recording of a piano in a real room, which is what the sound of piano to me is, because that's what I've heard the most over my life as opposed to synthesized/modeled or a real piano in front of me or in the hall or whatever. It also doesn't sound like I'm sitting in front of piano and playing it, but that's not the Pianoteq issue, it's just impossible to recreate no matter what you're using.

I've tried fiddling with settings, makes no difference to me. The sound changes and it's different but it still sounds like disembodied soundwaves. Using different IR reverbs to put it in a fake room helps but I get way better sound and tone that I like more out of the box from sampled libraries (Embertone Walker D and Noire are my 2 main pianos).
I guess if you just want more wet classical hall type of sound that would probably be easy to achieve with reverb but that also not what I like. I prefer very upfront and dry piano.

I have not yet tried the trick of using Pianoteq purely as resonance generator for my sampled pianos. If I like it and it's not much of a hassle to set up, I might end up using it for this purpose. But other than that I have no intentions of replacing traditional sampled pianos with modeled one as of yet. Also partially, like clone has mentioned, because CPU usage is much more valuable resource, RAM and storage are super cheap, so sampled pianos are more efficient in that regard for me.

 

I never really used any other ever since Pianoteq 5 for Pianos and up to the fantastic v9, Lounge Lizard for my Rhodes Electric pianos. and Genuine Soundware VB3-II and GG Audio Blue3 for Hammond organ sounds, always realistic, light on resources and small in size. I don't like software being gigs in size and resource heavy for a slight if even noticable sound improvement, do any of you actually believe any audience could differentiate the sound difference specially in live situations. You know they can't. Besides it also all comes down to equalization, amplification and speakers, apart from the listening environment.

 

Last edited: Nov 4, 2025 at 4:39 AM

Scaler & Pianoteq would make a great musical sketchpad.

 

Last edited: Nov 4, 2025 at 6:48 AM

Compatibility with older projects is a reason to keep other libraries. And ... there are the Pripyat Pianos, nothing comparable in Pianoteq. And there is The Giant from Native Instruments, a Klavins upright, 2 stories high. Nothing comparable in Pianoteq. And pianoteq contains no prepared pianos. And I am sure there are other specialties that are not covered by Pianoteq. Beside the point of having libraries that do not eat money, only taking up space on harddrives.

And ... there are the Roland (SRX) pianos. Excellent sound, and not "natural". And completely different from Pianoteq. And the ujam and Arturia augmented and otherwise OTT pianos ...

So, I think, that pianoteq is absolute fantastic, but not the end of everything else piano library.

And to be honest: with that masses of sounds, libraries and plugins we used to it is not a problem to have maybe redundant piano sounds around.

 

Last edited: Nov 4, 2025 at 7:38 AM

Funnily enough I have always used the ezkeys piano as it sounds great to my ears. The software itself is also one of the best. I had to get over the Toontrack name though....it made their products sound a bit "Mickey Mouse"

 

Pianoteq is fun and I've been close to making it sound as "real" as possible, but I do find myself going with Keyscape when it doesn't cut it. On the run I always use Pianoteq simply for light-travel purposes. It's lightweight, and it works.

 

So you will love Dexibell T2L Piano

 

They sound good according to most people. My problem is I have a slow PC so I typically use v1 libs and their size has its limitations

that caught me off-guard

 

For me, I am happy just having Pianoteq 8.4, Pianoverse, NI Noire, NI Definitive Piano Collection, Sonic Couture's Hammersmith Pro, EZ Keys, Addictive Keys and Cinesamples Cinepiano. Everything else is overkill. And I am not even a pianist.

 

Which version of Pianoteq 9 from the sister site are people using, there were a couple of different posts

People certainly seem to like it.