# DEAL: 3 deeply sampled concert grands by VI Labs at an amazing 71% off



## APD (Jan 25, 2017)

*True Keys Pianos – Three deeply sampled virtual concert grands*
True Keys is a virtual piano collection based on three highly revered concert grands. With nearly 50,000 audio files recorded with multiple high end mics and preamps, the pure sound of these instruments is available at your fingertips.







*3 Pianos Included!*

American True Keys Piano ($149 value)
Italian True Keys Piano ($149 value)
German True Keys Piano ($149 value)


*Key Features*

Nearly 50,000 samples of 3 of the most popular grand pianos in the world
100% sample-based, no modeling or synthesis used
Very efficient use of RAM and CPU resources
4 discreet Microphone Perspectives available
Fully sampled Una Corda pedal
Sympathetic and Pedal Resonance
Adjustable Sympathetic Resonance polyphony
Re-pedal and True Pedal Action for realistic sustain pedal control
Half-pedal mode is sample-based and fully adjustable
Customizable MIDI and Dynamics response
22 pristine Convolution Reverbs included
Thousands of Release samples, including true Staccato Releases
19 total Velocity layers, including Silent Strike samples
Custom Tuning with presets and Micro-tuning supported
Lossless flac format allows highest quality with smallest drive space
Fast loading times
Computer-based copy protection (Use on up to 3 machines, no dongle required!)

Youtube Demo Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq5zvy3wsKYZcZXlTS-qFT7ppSZDgSaso

SoundCloud Demo Playlist: 

For more info, visit https://audioplugin.deals

This deal is valid only until 8th February.


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## Fleer (Jan 26, 2017)

This is indeed an amazing deal for some of the best sampled pianos around. Ordered, thanks!


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## AllanH (Jan 26, 2017)

Hi Fleer - I'd be interested in getting your opinion. The demos sound excellent, and I'm always a sucker for another America D.


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## Fleer (Jan 26, 2017)

It's a great one indeed, Allan, comparable to the one in Ivory II by Synthogy.
Also, una corda (soft) pedal!
And the UVI engine is particularly strong at lossless compression: from 64 GB to 7 GB.
Authorizing was easy. You get a serial from AudioPluginDeals and enter it at VI Labs.
Also listen to the Bechstein and the Fazioli.


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## SoNowWhat? (Jan 27, 2017)

Fleer said:


> It's a great one indeed, Allan, comparable to the one in Ivory II by Synthogy.
> Also, una corda (soft) pedal!
> And the UVI engine is particularly strong at lossless compression: from 64 GB to 7 GB.
> Authorizing was easy. You get a serial from AudioPluginDeals and enter it at VI Labs.
> Also listen to the Bechstein and the Fazioli.


I must confess that I'm interested in this.
What do you think of the number of velocity layers? Does it provide a good range of dynamics? 
How does it compare to the Kontakt Library pianos (Grandeur, Maverick and Gentleman)?
How about comparison with Ravenscroft?
Any comments appreciated, thank you.


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## Thorsten Meyer (Jan 28, 2017)

SoNowWhat? said:


> I must confess that I'm interested in this.
> What do you think of the number of velocity layers? Does it provide a good range of dynamics?
> How does it compare to the Kontakt Library pianos (Grandeur, Maverick and Gentleman)?
> How about comparison with Ravenscroft?
> Any comments appreciated, thank you.


I did compare some as requested


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## Fleer (Jan 28, 2017)

American (Steinway D) indeed sounds warm. You can play with three mic settings. I guess Player's best. Resembles the one in Ivory II. 
Getting these quality grands (Steinway, Bechstein and Fazioli) for $99 is one hell of a deal. They normally go on sale at 30% off, each of them costing $99 at least. Now you get all three for that. And una corda.
I guess the Bechstein Digital Grand is more detailed and tweakable but also much more expensive. 
Maverick is quite good too, but I prefer the TrueKeys one. 
Ravenscroft is particularly interesting for jazz. 
Conclusion: very happy with these three TrueKeys, some of the best in my book.


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## AllanH (Jan 28, 2017)

I bought yesterday, so here is my short review: I really like the Steinway D. It's very playable and responds as I expect. I have Falcon, and loaded the three libraries in Falcon instead of the UVI workstation. I lowered the buffer size to 128 samples as I could feel a tiny latency otherwise. 

The Player view sounds best to me and the stereo image is "just right". They provide good controls to accommodate differences in midi-keyboard velocity curves (not as good as the Garritan CFX, though), and have additional tone control that relates to volume and velocity. I think of those as an EQ and compressor, but you have to experiment to see/hear what they do and if you like it. After a fair bit of fiddling, I ended up using the defaults, as they sounded best (duh!). They also provide fine control over pedaling, resonance, and sympathetic resonance. There is a built-in reverb with EQ for the reflections.

Initially, I thought it sounded a bit flat, but that was using my speakers. Using my headphones made the instrument come to life and let me hear a large amount of fine detail that had been suppressed. 

Regarding the German and Italian: The German is a bit softer and darker ("muffled") and the Fazioli sounds a bit brighter and metallic (which is accurate from the one time I played a Fazioli).

I was primarily interested in the American Steinway D, and I'm very happy with what I got.


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## robgb (Jan 28, 2017)

Amazing deal. If I didn't already have five piano libraries, I'd be on it in a flash.


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## Fleer (Jan 28, 2017)

What can I say. I've got more than 20 ...


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## lumcas (Jan 28, 2017)

I rather won't tell how many piano libraries I've already got. But jumped on this deal anyway, couldn't help it. 2 hours with the German D, great responsiveness to my keybed and the sound is great. I like it probably even more than the Ravenscroft although the GUI is simpler and settings don't have as many options. But I'm a Steinway guy and have spent a good amount of time at the real thing. After initial tweaking (less pedal noise, bit of an onboard reverb) I've just been playing and playing which is a good sign. CFX, Ivory D II and this little creature (UVI data compression is really unbelievable) are currently my favorite grands (among many others). I'm done with pianos (for a while).


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## Michael Antrum (Jan 28, 2017)

lumcas said:


> I'm done with pianos (for a while).



Yeah, right.


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## lp59burst (Jan 31, 2017)

I'm in... I bought the Bechstein Digital Grand too... 

I'm trying to catch up with Fleer who apparently has a considerable head start...


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## Fleer (Jan 31, 2017)

We boldly go ...


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## AllanH (Jan 31, 2017)

I'm really enjoying the Pianos. I don't think I've spent this much time "just playing" in a very long time.


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## SoNowWhat? (Feb 1, 2017)

lp59burst said:


> I'm in... I bought the Bechstein Digital Grand too...
> 
> I'm trying to catch up with Fleer who apparently has a considerable head start...


Would love to hear your thoughts (on all of them) if you get a moment.


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## lp59burst (Feb 2, 2017)

SoNowWhat? said:


> Would love to hear your thoughts (on all of them) if you get a moment.


My initial, somewhat limited, impressions are that the Bechstein is better for me since I'm a tweaker by nature (no, not that kind...  ). The Bechstein has a great deal of configurable parameters and settings so you could fairly easily tweak it to suit your tastes, mood, or for your compositional type. That being said the VI Labs pianos sound very, very, good too.

If I could only buy one right now I'd say I'd get the VI Labs trio for $99 because that's a really outstanding price that may never come up again. The Bechstein is full price and maybe it'll go on sale down the road. I'm not seeing any "wow this one is substantially better than..." differences so if you can afford both, and have no self-control like I do, then, well there's that option too...


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## SoNowWhat? (Feb 2, 2017)

lp59burst said:


> My initial, somewhat limited, impressions are that the Bechstein is better for me since I'm a tweaker by nature (no, not that kind...  ). The Bechstein has a great deal of configurable parameters and settings so you could fairly easily tweak it to suit your tastes, mood, or for your compositional type. That being said the VI Labs pianos sound very, very, good too.
> 
> If I could only buy one right now I'd say I'd get the VI Labs trio for $99 because that's a really outstanding price that may never come up again. The Bechstein is full price and maybe it'll go on sale down the road. I'm not seeing any "wow this one is substantially better than..." differences so if you can afford both, and have no self-control like I do, then, well there's that option too...


Thank you.


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## ohernie (Feb 4, 2017)

Anyone have any idea how these would be for live gigging?


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## Fleer (Feb 4, 2017)

Well, I can say they're highly playable.


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## AllanH (Feb 4, 2017)

ohernie said:


> Anyone have any idea how these would be for live gigging?


Two thoughts:
1) The are very playable and respond as I expect. I had to lower the default buffer setting to 128 to not notice lag.

2) The Fazioli is very bright and actually fits very well in a mix. I had never thought of a Fazioli from that perspective, but the bright slightly metallic sound is excellent and easily gets heard if the mid is busy. I would think the Fazioli would be excellent as a rock piano. I know this is crazy-talk to some 

The Steinway D is rich but also busy between 200 and 2000 Hz. For Solo, the Steinway D is fantastic.

I have not used them live.

OT: Depending on situation, I would consider Pianoteq for live play.


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## Fleer (Feb 4, 2017)

Same thought here, for live play go Pianoteq.


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## jtnyc (Feb 4, 2017)

Can anyone comment on cpu/ram efficiency? I have no experience with the UVI engine. Do samples all load into ram or is it like DFD in Kontakt? The demos sound great and it's a very tempting deal..... when will it end...


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## John57 (Feb 4, 2017)

With my virharmonic libraries it mostly all loaded into RAM With the VI Labs True Keys "American Grand" you expect to use 314mb of memory. I use my SSD for all my EastWest and UMI libraries. UVI uses a single file that gets broken down as it loads into memory. OF course it uses Pace ilok machine license, a dongle is not required.You can have a limit of three activations.


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## Fleer (Feb 4, 2017)

Deal ends in 4 days.


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## jtnyc (Feb 4, 2017)

John57 said:


> With my virharmonic libraries it mostly all loaded into RAM With the VI Labs True Keys "American Grand" you expect to use 314mb of memory.



Cool, so it's like DFD. Any noticeable hit on cpu compared to Kontakt libraries? Better/worse in general 

Thanks


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## John57 (Feb 4, 2017)

With my Vir Harmonic libraries with I7 4790 CPU stays below 5% as good or better than Kontakt. Just takes much longer to load after reboot and that is why I use SSD for UVI. The new Bechstein Digital Grand is very CPU intensive as shown by demos and user comments. As long I do not reboot the computer UVI will use its prefetch file.


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## jtnyc (Feb 4, 2017)

John57 said:


> With my Vir Harmonic libraries with I7 4790 CPU stays below 5% as good or better than Kontakt. Just takes much longer to load after reboot and that is why I use SSD for UVI. The new Bechstein Digital Grand is very CPU intensive as shown by demos and user comments. As long I do not reboot the computer UVI will use its prefetch file.



Thanks for the info John


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## AllanH (Feb 5, 2017)

Re performance: I use Falcon, not workstation: load time for the America D Player perspective is about 3 seconds. Memory consumption about 500 MB, streaming load about 3%. This is on a 6700 class CPU with 32G of RAM and the UVI instrument file on SSD.


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## ohernie (Feb 5, 2017)

Thanks all! I have Pianoteq and I'm trying to wean myself off of buying anything that's on sale, painful as that is. That said, it IS a bargain and I do like the sound ... <g>


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## APD (Feb 6, 2017)

Only a few hours left on this deal, don't be late to the party!


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## John57 (Feb 7, 2017)

I decided to get the True Keys Pianos. Was looking at the C. Bechstein Digital Grand but it is mostly a solo instrument too much of a CPU hog to be put into a mix. I looked at Quantum Leap Pianos but no half pedal. Was also looking at Imperfect Samples but no answer to sales question.
With True Keys you can load the full set or a choice of just one mic set. Mic setting can be easy purged as needed. You also have lite versions as well for rough composing in a large mix and switch out for the full version when rendering. Much more suited for heavy DAW work. I like the American D a bit better than my Hammersmith and has less processing lag. Also Glissando is much smoother on the True Keys and snapper that my Hammersmith which was a bit of a surprise. I am all set for pianos!


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## Polarity (Feb 7, 2017)

I will pass on this great offer.

Personally I like the Grandeur and the Maverick more than the VI-Labs True Keys models (still on great discount offer now).
In a comparing video I felt too much nasal the VI-Labs pianos!
Is it the same feeling for you?
Matter of tastes actually.

So I think I will go with the latest NI-GalaxyInstruments models updating my Komplete 9 package (so I can get also UnaCorda and a couple of other things) as soon as they will offer me a discount on the update/upgrade.
I have already The Giant from same joint-team (and same GUI then) and I like much the way how you can alter its sound...

Personally I'm not a fan of Fazioli' models but I always loved the sound of Kawai pianos instead: many many years ago I had the chance to put hands on a concert grand model and it was "love at first hear"




...


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## Fleer (Feb 7, 2017)

Well. I have those NI pianos (in Komplete 10 Ultimate) as well as the VI Labs TrueKeys and I definitely prefer the latter for their playability and overall "feel".


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## SoNowWhat? (Feb 8, 2017)

AllanH said:


> Two thoughts:
> 1) The are very playable and respond as I expect. I had to lower the default buffer setting to 128 to not notice lag.
> 
> 2) The Fazioli is very bright and actually fits very well in a mix. I had never thought of a Fazioli from that perspective, but the bright slightly metallic sound is excellent and easily gets heard if the mid is busy. I would think the Fazioli would be excellent as a rock piano. I know this is crazy-talk to some
> ...


I guess there's still a few hours left if anyone's still on the fence. I purchased the pianos and think they're very good. The above post sums it up pretty well. However, I really love playing the German (Bechstein) as a solo. Not sure how it would sit in a mix. IMHO they're great.


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## Fleer (Feb 9, 2017)

Quite nice how each of these three pianos can be a favorite, depending on taste.


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