What are your suggestions on a contemporary alternative to TruePianos?

TruePianos were brilliant to sketch ideas and built chord progressions and many times made it to the final mix for EDM productions.
Now as the sun sets on VST 2 I need an alternative to a piano emulation plugin with a similar ethos (more than average convincing sound, a few hundred of MB in size) but being compatible with VST 3 and AAX formats.

I do have all the usual suspects of "Grands" of several GB each but as it was the case I've never bothered to use.

I'm going for convincing simplicity over immaculate authenticity. Something that sounds way better than say, the piano sounds from the Scaler and alike without loading several GB of multisampled libraries.

Any help will be much appreciated!

 

TruePianos used a modeling-based approach (but combined with sampling), thus it was quite small in size. Today, Pianoteq would be most likely the best-known modeling piano library. Maybe that's something you're looking for.

36.5 MB for a complete installation.

 

XLN Audio - Addictive Keys - Studio Grand
https://www.xlnaudio.com/products/addictive_keys

Waves Grand Rhapsody Piano - 39,99
Perfect sampling of the Fazioli F228 grand piano housed at London’s Metropolis Studios
www.audiodeluxe.com/products/virtual-instruments/waves-grand-rhapsody-piano

 

IK Multimedia are doing Pianoverse Max for $99 at the moment.

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/pianoverse/

 

Each Piano is over one gig in size.

Another multi-Gig product.

Pianoverse is a MULTI-GIG per-piano thing.
He's looking for something probably under one Gig.

TruePianos was my favorite (I still have it installed), but now replaced by Pianoteq.
I have found nothing yet that loads as quickly and uses fewer resources and still sounds great.

 

Last edited: Jan 3, 2025 at 1:55 PM

Pianissimo - stock plugin, that comes with Acoustica mixcraft

 

Pianoteq .. Definitely
or Ivory (Big size tho)

 

Last edited: Jan 3, 2025 at 3:10 PM

Pianoteq (and EZ Keys I suppose) are great contenders so far.

A VST2 to VST3 wrapper would be fine indeed although I think Blue Cat's Patchwork maybe will do the trick...Hmmm, I have to try it.

 

Pianoteq seems to be the best choice.
(btw in your photo vst3 64bit extension cannot be .dll though)

 

Pianoteq Studio Bundle is a VST 3 Plugin! www.kvraudio.com/product/pianoteq-studio-bundle-by-modartt
K2 Grand Piano is VST2: www.kvraudio.com/product/k2-grand-piano-by-modartt

EZ Keys is a VST 3 Plugin!

VST3 Folder is here: C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3
.dll ist VST2 ---> VST3 ends with VST3

 

There are also SoundFonts (SF2) you can play them with the VST3 player:
sforzando is a free SFZ player. www.plogue.com/products/sforzando.html

Top 5 Free Piano Soundfonts Under 500 MB for 2020-2021

All Soundfonts Download Link
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JkTMvPwM_XURqG2114n4Qj0rR83WEucL

 

As other already mentioned, Pianoteq.

Physical modeling is the way to go and perfectly makes sense for a piano.

The technology is already mature enough to replace almost any multi gigabytes library.

 

Here yo go:

 

1928 Vintage Grand Steinway by 8DIO Productions VST 3 Plugin

 

Here's a beautiful free Yamaha C7

https://www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/dolan-piano/

 

Soundfonts is an option that escaped my mind!
The goodies of brainstorming!
Thanks Radio!