It is difficult to compare unequal things. That's why, among the samples of Yamaha pianos: 8DIO the reverb makes some of the sound disappear; Garritan: excellent sound, with a lot of body and presence in the lows, mids and highs; IS Pearl: also an excellent sample, with a lot of sharpness in all the tracks; Spectrasonics: good, but I found the stereo a little over the top. My biggest surprise is with Bechstein, which I didn't know about. Excellent sample.
That's right. There are several factors which should be taken into account, like playability.. The "Default" instrument sounds aren't always good especially for playing classic, so in this comparison I added some reverbs or other tweaks. Might also do with default sounds some time.
Great comparison! Thanks a lot for sharing. Well I am a piano maker by profession! And if it comes to classical music Steinway is and probably always will be the leading instrument, while I see Bechstein following straight close to that path. Bechstein has a bit more of transparency. Both instruments are very rich in harmonics. Yamaha is great for Jazz and modern Pop music but it never convinced me, when it comes to classical music. So here is my favourite list. 1. Walker 1955 2. C. Bechstein 3. Soniccouture Steinway Model D 4. Imperfect samples - Steinway Walnut Grand 5. Garritan CFX Yamaha 6. 8DIO - 1990 Studio Grand Yamaha C7 7. Wavesfactory - Mercury 8. VI Labs - Ravencroft 275 9. Spectrasonics Keyscape 10. Impact Soundworks- Pearl Concert Grand However, great video and much fun to watch! Love it! Cheers DimiZ
For me it's really a matter of preference. None of them are objectively bad, they all sound different. The main difference I notice is the spacial aspect or how close to me they feel, with the Walker 1955 sounding very close and intimate (like if my head was under the lid) and the Sounnicouture Steinway D being very distant. The CFX and Ravenscroft have more of a concert hall sound, and the IS Steinway sounds more like a studio recording, but the bass resonates a bit like the lid isn't fully open. I personnally like the CFX the most, but because I'm used to Yamahas. The Bechstein sounded good too, a bit brighter.
Wow I am so surprised!..Anyway thnx for this video!:)..In my studio EMBERTONE and BECHSTEIN sounds most natural in mids..they are full of sound and dynamic like a real piano..and for this style of music are these two the best for me!..
i have the original Garritan 10ft Steinway Concert Grand emulation...from 2010...they searched the world for the best room acoustics and ended up in a bank building in NYC used a crane to lift the piano that was specifically hand picked by Steinway & Sons up seven stories then spent a full week recording with i think 21 microphones a pro pianist hitting the keys with different velocities etc...the amount of effort that went into it (the whole process took 8 years) is incredible. It's naturally my personal favorite. I think some of these emulations use fine pianos but where they fall short is room acoustics/sound design.
Hi, yes every sampled virtual piano is limited by the room acoustics. I think for classic music, Garritan CFX and VSL piano libraries are currently best.
I can tell you that Garritan CFX is the only VSTi that can truly sound like a real piano. A friend of mine secretly recorded Chopin and Liszt with it and nobody could imagine that it was not an acoustic recording.
if the only criterion is realism, the steinway walnut is at least as good as garritan. But Garritan is much more playable. Anyway, they are all samples pianos, so what we hear is the sound of a real piano, you can trick people with all of them. So the criterion to evaluate them, is more playability.
@@heisenbergwalter3363 Garritan is the only sample library that can trick melomaniacs AND sound engineers. A friend of mine recorded a complete classical album with it and nobody ever thought it was not a real grand piano. No other VST is capable of doing that, also not VSL Fazioli, Steinway Walnut library is no compare at all. Walnut sounds over saturated, pedalling is unnatural and as with all Kontakt piano libraries, legato is unnatural as well. As a sound engineer I wished I could help Garritan to go to the other level and record legendary piano's like Chopin's own Pleyel grand piano or Horowitz's CD95 Steinway.
I love your video!! i was looking for something like this since I have the IS Pearl vst and I wanted to upgrade to another better vst. I have to say that the Pearl version you used to make this video was v2.0 and developers fixed a pedal issue in that version, but messed up everything else, like harmonics, resonance and quality in general. That's why I stayed on v1.0, because I value harmonics and resonance over the other features. I think the harmonics is the piano sound's heart (that's just my opinion) and I find the Stainway Walnut Grand a nice next step from a Pearl Grand Concert. Nice video!
Thanks for your comment! Yes the harmonics definitely define the character of the instrument. For me Pearl grand fits more as a pop piano. After trying many plugins, I'd put Garritan CFX, NI Noire and VI Ravenscroft above all in playability for classics. Of course, with the proper settings :) VSL pianos are top in sound, but they arent that optimized in memory usage.
Hi. Thanks for the review. I’m interested in Steinway Model D. Looks like Embertone Walker 1955 has good reviews but it is too massive for my SSD. You used main-classical patch. Is it possible one would buy only one or two sample packs instead of 200 GB of content. Honestly one good realistic Steinway with good body of tone and good dynamic range and good playability is all I need. Thank you. 🙏🏽
@@arbous65 hi, thank you. To be honest, I am not sure what they offer nowadays since the release of this piano. You can take a look at their webpage, maybe they have a reduced option. You can also take a look at other good options like VSL Steinway D or Synthogy Ivory 3.
Thats one of the best comparisons available! I really like the CFX, Embertone Walker and the Imperfect Samples Walnut quite a bit. Pearl is also maybe interesting for Pop productions. Which Pianos do you like the best and which is the best to play? Btw. do you like the Kawai VPC-1? I waited really long for a successor to buy my first Piano controller but a VPC-2 never seems to appear sadly :D So maybe i'm also getting the already quite old but nice VPC-1 one day. :)
First of all, I love seeing your plugin comparisons, thank you. Your speed curve setting for Keyscape what i can see in the video is for the standard curve in Vpc1? I'm asking because I have this plug-in and there's always something that doesn't seem right to me. I will try to copy your setting :)
I bought a Roland FP-30X to finally learn the piano at 28 (not trying to produce music etc.). In your opinion, which is the best plugin to take the Roland’s sound to the next level? Just started learning about all the available plugins, but I heard about Garritan CFX, Keyscape’s C7, Ravenscroft 275, Pianoteq (to mention a few), are great. What’s your opinion? Also, trying to load Garritan CFX on a Roland FP-30X connected to a desktop PC but I can feel the latency affecting my playing. I can around 2 ms latency but it still feels “slow”. Don’t know if my brain is making this up. How do you load the plugin (VST, Standalone)? How can someone “eliminate” latency, to replicate the feel of a real piano? What is the most responsive (lowest latency) plugin in your experience? Maybe Pianoteq? Currently using Reaper as my choice of DAW (tried Ableton too), I’ve set the Sample Rate to the maximum of 384 kHz that my Chord Mojo DAC supports, which lowered the latency instantly, and now I’m experimenting with the Buffer size, around 128-256 samples, keeping in mind how my system responds, so as to avoid cracks and pops. I’ve also got a Ryzen 3600 system, which handles all this pretty fine I’d say. Still feels kinda slow.
Hi! Garritan CFX, Keyscape C7, Ravenscroft 275, Pianoteq are all good. It depends on your sound tastes and feeling during the play. I personally like Garritan CFX and Ravenscroft plugins in terms of sound and playability. Also, Production grand sounds very good. VSL piano libraries are believed to be one of the best sampled libraries, but they are "heavy" on memory and also cost.
Keyscape is great by far… - It has the most dynamic range - Great clarity - Best depth by far - Tape compression but not baked in so it’s optional (tape noise is pleasant to the ear) - brilliant consistency
