I recently did a fresh install and I'm looking to try different VSTs for dark pianos. My go to for many years was Keyscape, but for it's large size I really only used a few patches.

What are some of your favorite VSTs for realistic sounding pianos both dark and light sounding?

I'm trying to branch out of using the same two or three VSTi's.

 

I like Noire for Kontakt a lot. Pianoteq is a love/hate situation, works extremely well for some things not so well for others people have very strong feelings about it but I would definitely recommend checking it out. When you get right down to it I don't think I've ever found any single virtual piano that truly satisfies me as a solo instrument but lots of them will go into a mix just fine.

 

I mostly use Pianoteq, I really like how it's more of a more versatile piano while not being like 60 GBs.

 

You should try UVI Falcon. It is the best Swiss Army Knife plugin. If you want highest quality, then kontakt of course. But for less demanding option, Falcon is killer.

 

Have you tried Steinberg Verve that comes with Cubase Pro 12? Pretty awesome!!!

 

The ULTIMATE STAGE PIANOS and ULTIMATE STAGE PIANOS HD
For NI Kontakt, are pretty nice! it has a variety of piano sounds! Pretty light for HDD space as well

And Ascend Modern Grand is nice it's also for NI Kontakt but 3 times bigger than ULTIMATE STAGE PIANOS, But it has some nice Piano sounds

 

+1 to pianoteq. incredible for it's size

 

With little tweaking, Pianoteq is my go-to piano vst always

 

Try
ADSR Dark Silence Dark Grand Piano and tweak it with reverb and effects to your needs. Also the Falcon Ravenscroft Piano Sound is Very nice. Also there is the Keyscape 12 Kontakt Libary which is compact in size against the real Keyscape.

 

+1 for Noire, also Hammersmith, SSS Signature Grand, Ravenscroft 275, Piano In Blue and the Embertone stuff.

 

there is also Airmusic Tech's Grand piano

 

Personally I like and use Modartt Pianoteq for acoustic piano sounds and Applied Acoustics Systems Lounge Lizard EP-4 for Fender Rhodes type sounds I've been using them for several years, they are small in size and not heavy on PC resources and sound great.

 

Kawai Ex Pro for Kontakt is still one of my favorites. Has a very nice neutral but high quality sound that works in all kinds of genres and a very seamless velocity response.

 

Pianoteq has been my favourite for a while, especially for playing live. That may change soon as I just installed the latest Arturia Piano V. I have never really liked Arturia's pianos, but this latest one seems to be very promising. I spent an hour playing the grands after installation, due to the great sounds and different pianos that it has.

 

Due to its size and sound quality, the Pianoteq is without a doubt the best option. The Falcon also fits well in this issue of size x timbre quality. Too bad it hasn't been cracked for macOS yet, because we would have a lot to test in relation to acoustic piano sounds.

 

Arturia Piano V3's pianos are killer too, following the same pianoteq concept of physical modeling rather than sampling.

 

I like Pianoteq for customization and playability but often prefer more character type pianos.
The free soft piano in Spitfire LABS is quite good for the size.

 

See if K-Sounds' Signature Piano/Epic Grand are your thing. Both of them combined are like less than 4.5GB
I use Signature on my Motif and it's my favorite piano to just load up and play. But if you want to tweak everything Pianoteq is still your best bet.

Addictive Keys is also really good for its size.

 

Some of my favourites, and I heavily use for the past few months:

1) Falcon's Augmented Piano - pop music, in your face type of piano, variety of preparation. Go-to these days because it has everything.
2) Soundiron Emotional Piano - mellow piano based song, pop songs, it sounds kinda pop minor to me. Romantic.
3) Soundiron Monteclarion Hall grand - same as above but when the Emotional Piano, too emotional, I change to this one
4) NI Color Piano + Una Corda - layering, pad-like piano sound, background, dark cinematic, tack, experimental sound. Not for main piano.
5) Cinesamples Abbey Road Classic Upright Pianos - mellow song, it has unique tuning and kinda dark, I like it.
6) Cinesamples Piano In Blue - Classical, jazzy type piano, too detuned for my liking sometimes.
7) NI Noire - big piano sound, love the Particle Engine and Swarm. Background sound mostly when the song isn't really piano driven. Noisy and Dark.
8) Pianoteq, NI Hybrid keys, Addictive Keys - to layer out idea before changing it to other library because of its lightweight, sometimes they stay. neutral sounding IMO.

 

the new arturia piano is pretty smashing