Hey guys,

I'm looking for a library that sounds very realistic. I remember I found a post on the sister site about one that seemed pretty good but can't remember the name.

Any suggestions are highly appreciated.

Thank you!

 

There are so many great one's nowadays. I like the C.Bechstein Digital Grand. It seems to be the one I most go with. It's easy on the CPU, laods fast and sounds great.

 

Imperfect Samples are still some of the most realistic sounding piano libraries I've ever heard although they're well over a decade old now. The one on the sister site is massive but there are plenty of others worth checking out. Braunschweig is my favorite

 

Thank you so much guys, I'll take a look. Couldn't find the one I was looking for on sister site. Will keep searching.

 

With all due respect this a a very subjective question. There are many great piano libraries out there both on sister site as well as legit.

If you want to go for VSTi, Speptrasonics KEYSCAPE is hard to beat it offers great sounding pianos suitable for media composition. Another great alternative is Garritan CFX Grand PIANO.

As from KONTAKT you have plethora to choose from
NI Alicia keys(Pop) , The Giant(Big Bass Sound), Noire(Modern).
Simple Sam Signature Grand, Fracture sounds Midnight Grand +Woodchester Piano(Both great All rounders and cheap legit).
All the above have low footprint.

On the other hand there are some gigantic libraries with great sound like Sonniccouture Hammersmith(Great Modern Sound) , Skybox Hammer +waves (Keyscape of Kontakt), Walker 1955 Steinway D(Classical Sound).

On the free side Spitfire Labs Soft piano is so good even professionals can't resist it's use in commercial productions


Hope it helps.....

 

I still go back to that Braunschweig myself, and have been using it since, what, 2009 or so when it was released?

There are obviously larger and more lauded and more advertised releases, and the owner/dev/creator from Imperfect Samples has had some issues over the last decade and a half etc, but that piano just "works" for me....

 

As already said there are a lot of really good pianos for Kontakt.

Some of my favorites are:
Soniccouture Hammersmith Pro
Embertone Walker 1955 Concert D

 

For subtle quiet dynamic range stuff the Max Richter piano is fantastic. Wide range of tones available with 3 mic sets and open and closed-top versions.

SRM Sounds #1 Max Richter Piano.

 

Have a look to these threads:
Best sounding piano library (...to aprox 5Gb)
I found the best piano
Keep in mind that everyone will have a preferred instruments (this is the best, this is shit, blahblah), but at the end, it's up to you and your ears.
In my personal opinion I think that most modern (kontakt) libraries are good at least in the mix, but if you want to use it as piano solo, things are very different.

 

XLN Addictive Keys is a very underrated one. Not very clean but that can be easily solved with processing, and it's got such a nice character imo

 

... or go Pianoteq ...

 

It's a shame that the 4th part of the 12 is missing from the release on the sister site. Braunschweig was never on my radar until this thread and I'd love to check it out. I'm always intimidated by large piano be they sampled based or solid pianos. I lived in a house with a Yamaha C5 for a year and played it like twice. I'm weird.

 

Surprisingly, Noire is a very good piano library. I am not sure that there is any one-size-fits-all piano library. Noire, providing you are adept with keyswitches and velocity does most things well. Many are good, even the Steinberg The Grand III has uses as does the Zimmer and Fazoli pianos.

 

If it has to be Kontakt, the Bechstein one that has been cited above. But honestly, chasing realism is hardly worth it because no one hears it if you're a good player. If you're doing solo piano, might be better going with Pianoteq. The Pianoteq Bechstein is my go-to piano for solo playing.

 

This topic has a mega thread somewhere on here but IMO the best Piano lib's I have met up with are not Kontakt lib's at all. My fav is the VI-Labs Ravenscroft 275 that runs on UVI Falcon. Others are the Yamaha Grands in Omnisphere Keyscape. Alicia's Keys (Kontakt) is not bad, however it has some funky anomalies to it that kind of disqualify it from the purely "authentic" classification.

 

Last edited: Apr 22, 2024

I already discussed in other threads about it, it's not about the sound, I found some terrible glitch with sustain pedal, that basically made it unusable or playable in an unnatural way compared as you would with a real piano, but I can't remember exactly the issue, it was many years ago.

 

Last edited: Apr 22, 2024

If we're talking absolute realism, accept no substitute

 

I didn't notice the sustain thing you mentioned, but what was particularly glaring to me was that in the lower 1st - 2nd octaves there seems to be some kind of "echo-y" thing happening when playing a staccato on any notes in those octaves. It's almost like a slap-back effect. Tried turning OFF all kontakt effects and/or processing, but it's always there regardless. Notes above those lower 2 octaves seem OK for the most part. Must be the way they sampled those lower octaves or something...