Claire , Claire Avant , Noire , these are the bests

 

16n years old and still sounds great:

 

My go-to pianos are these two.

Embertone Walker 1955 Concert D Lite The Essentials.
SonicCouture The hammersmith.

They actually sounds like a real piano.

 

In case no one else has mentioned it, for me the best piano in existence is the Steinway Muze Pa Dione. It works with Kontakt. It's very realistic and has several microphone capture options. It's amazing.

• 55 Classic Piano & Hybrid Presets
• 12398 Steinway D and Addon Samples
• 10 mics for complete audio control
• 21.9 GB (Lossless compression) library size
• 30 Built-in Effects: Compressor, Delays, Reverb, etc.
• 4-Band EQ & more
• Full set of effects in the settings for total customization
• Powerful Layering Engine
• Sound Browser and Fx
• Sampled with Analog & Digital equipment.

 

Last edited: Mar 15, 2025

Some suggestions could be considered ... interesting.
I guess you can always go with the "it's up to your personal taste" answer and then recommend something that sounds like Microsoft GS Wavetable synth.

Maybe someone heard of Synthogy Ivory ... ?
Grandeur is a solid library for small size.
There is a Bösendorfer by Vienna Symphonic Library, that actually sounds authentic: https://www.vsl.co.at/products/synchron/bosendorfer-imperial
Keyscape is popular, likely for a reason.
Noire is also a good instrument.

Forget Bechstein and the Hammersmith. Velocity and sample jumps all over the place, especially the Bechstein, while having a nice tone, is unplayable for that reason.

 

Which Keyboard do you use ?

 

How can you have a "realistic" piano that can't be tuned, revoiced, changed in any way... yes most sampled piano libraries will add varying amounts of tweakability but they pretty much all amount to a single snapshot of a single possible piano. And therefore you will audition a few hundred of them trying to find that piano that you actually want. That's why to me Pianoteq is ultimately the most realistic solution, because you can change so many parameters to try to get the piano sound that you want out of it. So to answer the original question, for a Kontakt library, I'm a Noire fan. But I've pretty much given up on Sample pianos.

(Just to show how subjective a subject it is, I've never understood all the love for Alicia's Keys, I hate that thing.)

 

Like 5 different? The flaw is in the samples/sample mapping. The master keyboard doesn't matter. It can be checked by simply changing the velocity of a note in a DAW or comparing different notes with the same velocity.
Grandeur has that, too btw.

 

If you want an C7...this is the one!!! The best piano by far.
https://www.orangetreesamples.com/products/rosewood-grand-piano

 

If you have the hard disk space Production Voices Concert Grand Platinum is the best I've heard, I also like Native Instruments The Grandeur

 

It heavily depends on the sound you're after.
Let's say you're used to the sound of a Steinway D in a way too small room it might be hard to find that as a sampled instrument.
A lot of rehearsal rooms or schools sound 'bad'. Yet that's the sound students are used to. And then there is the brand itself. A Bösendorfer does not sound like a Steinway.
So in the end it's a question of personal taste. Most of the better known / bigger libraries sound very realistic. I mean it's no rocket science to sample a keys based instrument. It's just tedious work. Have a go to the sister site and choose the one you immediately fall in love with.

 

My preference is Claire and Noire from NI. I haven't tried anything that better suits my needs.