Thumb up for the honesty.

 

Spectrasonics Keyscape 'LA Custom C7 Grand Piano" is very good for me. XLN Audio Addictive KEYS "Studio Grand" too for Rock and pop. For classical I don't kwon. I think you must try.

 

I'm not sure if anybody else posted this, but Simple Sam Signature Grand is georgous and I am just loving the sound of it. There are oodles of voices to be found if you either dive into the settings or pick one of the very many presets to use as is or as a jumping off block to tailor the instrument to your needs. It can be tried in the playground around the corner.

 

Last edited: Mar 9, 2022

You cannae go wrong with these two. I've used them on everything. Use a little phase correction (ARX ONE vst plugin, PC users only) if needed to just make them just that much more perfect for mono compatibility. Soothe2 will fix any phase issues too (from multi-mic setups).

https://www.artvista.net/vgp3.html
https://www.acousticsamples.net/kawai-ex-pro

 

My honest favourite is TruePianos by 4Front. Better than Pianoteq in my opinion

 

At least in the mix it sounds great, its strongest points are the reverbs and the quick genres setups.
It doesn't take much hdd requirement, 10GB about.

 

Emotional Piano, definetely (Tonehammer 5gb / Soundiron 2.5gb)
I like Noire by NI too (14.5 gb thought...) Alicia Keys is nice also. You can check Imperfect Samples if you like a dirty sounding piano.

But it depends if you're looking for a grand piano, an upright, if you prefer it bright or dark sounding, if you wanna play jazz, pop, or classical, etc

I personnaly prefer darker pianos because i find the brighter ones sound really cheap and unrealistic
Oh.. and if you wanna play a house riff, go for Korg M1 lol.

 

It never sounds as good as Kontakt ones but it always somehow works in a mix.

 

Modartt Pianoteq all the way. Small, endless possibilities.

 

Last edited by a moderator: May 26, 2022

its ~7GB and great sounding with some reverb on it - so prepared out of the case.
there was this 8dio 1928 Piano, yet all at once its 10GB.

https://hugsbabies.com/

 

Free Ones that sounds great:
1928 Steinway (Soundpaint) approx. size is 8GB (it has kontakt version but it is paid size is slightly larger: ~12GB)
Monastery (Melda) size is 3GB at least
Spindle (Orchestral Tools) size 5.7GB
Claustrophobic Piano (Pianobook; Kontakt) size 1.67GB
Soft Imperial (VSL) at least 2GB is the size
Piano 162 (Ivy Audio)

Spitfire LABS Libs (Soft piano is kinda lacking on release, glass piano has nothing much great still sounds decent, and tape piano is for lofi enthusiast)

Premium Ones:
Pianoteq ranging from cheap to expensive 899 USD
TruePianos the OG Pianoteq
Galaxy Steinway
Grandeur very sharp and crisps sounds tbh

the way of physical modeled piano is fascinating it saves your space with the sake of sound quality but the drawbacks is CPU Intensive.

 

The ultimate in versatility and mic position choices. But it comes at a heavy cost of 200+ GB.

 

There is an Kontakt Version of Ivory with about 5 GB after unpacking which sounds nice. Was released back in 2016 on Sister Site

 

It has a weird glitch where, when you use the pedal, there is a drop in volume, in an unnatural way.

Also it didn't sample every note, only every nth note (forgot how many they sampled)

That just doesn't cut it, especially if you consider how self aggrandizingly they promoted this crap piano when it came out.

 

Good stuff. Also worth checking out for free: Hammersmith Free (~4.6GB), ESW Denver Grand (~1.5GB) and Pianobook Isolation Piano (~5.5GB).

 

Same here. I find Soundiron's Emotional Piano so emotive and when playing it, I just somehow feel more attached with what I'm playing and I find I get lost in the moment much more with this piano than any other.

 

Art Vista Virtual Grand 3 for me all day every day

 

I agree that the marketing hype over this lib was over the top. However, I wouldn't call the library crap. I have tried replicating this drop in dB you speak of, and I cannot get any mic combination or patch to behave that way. Maybe there was an update that addressed the issue? Either way, it can be a powerful production tool when used correctly.

 

I don't remember well details, but there was also a kind of sustain pedal bug in Alicia keys, that essentially made impossible to me to play it.
All other NI libraries I tried didn't have that problem.