# My experience with Imperfect Samples



## star.keys (Nov 5, 2017)

So I purchased their fazioli Extreme version. This software is nothing short of a piece of crap and takes forever to load in Kontakt, if not forces Cubase and PT session to hang, requiring force restart. Same is the case with Steinway walnut grand. I sent them 4 polite messages trying to seek support to fix this issue. No response. Again reminders, no response. I'm not sure if this company is still doing business. I would expect so, since they are selling their products, which don't work. I'm about to open up a dispute on my credit card transaction. This company sucks. Oh yes that these 'imperfect samples' = detuned and completely unuseable samples. They also provide a version of 'perfect samples' which are nothing but useless and outdated piano samples with laughable dynamic range and muddy low quality recorded unprotammed instances of a piano.

Just writing to warn the wider community. I have all samples of probably every other developer and there have been issues, however not responding emails to support ID is criminal.


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## kurtvanzo (Nov 5, 2017)

star.keys said:


> So I purchased their fazioli Extreme version. This software is nothing short of a piece of crap and takes forever to load in Kontakt, if not forces Cubase and PT session to hang, requiring force restart. Same is the case with Steinway walnut grand. I sent them 4 polite messages trying to seek support to fix this issue. No response. Again reminders, no response. I'm not sure if this company is still doing business. I would expect so, since they are selling their products, which don't work. I'm about to open up a dispute on my credit card transaction. This company sucks. Oh yes that these 'imperfect samples' = detuned and completely unuseable samples. They also provide a version of 'perfect samples' which are nothing but useless and outdated piano samples with laughable dynamic range and muddy low quality recorded unprotammed instances of a piano.
> 
> Just writing to warn the wider community. I have all samples of probably every other developer and there have been issues, however not responding emails to support ID is criminal.



I understand your delema and have the walnut steinway complete myself. I have gotten it to work properly with Pro Tools, but it was without support, which is spotty at best. I believe once I switched over to using VE Pro it worked much better (as did most of my other libraries) but that may have only been Kontakt, Imperfect Samples is another issue all together.

My first suggestion is to have a backup, then batch resave the patches if you have not already. The nki's often load poorly (lost or misaligned graphics) and often this will solve this prolem.

The olther problem is the samples. After saving it multiple times I still get release samples only when it first loads. I have to turn off mic positions and turn them back on (by selecting them) before it works properly. Even after saving it as it's own nki. I had hoped for a fix for this but the owner has not been very active in the last years. Too bad. I have held off on other purchases from him until it changes.


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## Saxer (Nov 5, 2017)

Seems to be a one guy business who isn't available very often... but I love the Fazioli.


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## khollister (Nov 5, 2017)

I have the Walnut Steinway (Complete version) with Cubase 9, Windows 10 & the latest Kontakt. It is rather slow to bring up the GUI (20 sec or so), but the samples load reasonably well after that. Plays fine for me. Can't comment on the support as I haven't needed it.


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## bjderganc (Nov 5, 2017)

star.keys said:


> ...takes forever to load in Kontakt, if not forces Cubase and PT session to hang, requiring force restart...



Have you tried to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4reaZG5cCn0 (Batch Resave)?


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## slobajudge (Nov 5, 2017)

star.keys said:


> So I purchased their fazioli Extreme version. This software is nothing short of a piece of crap and takes forever to load in Kontakt, if not forces Cubase and PT session to hang, requiring force restart. Same is the case with Steinway walnut grand. I sent them 4 polite messages trying to seek support to fix this issue. No response. Again reminders, no response. I'm not sure if this company is still doing business. I would expect so, since they are selling their products, which don't work. I'm about to open up a dispute on my credit card transaction. This company sucks. Oh yes that these 'imperfect samples' = detuned and completely unuseable samples. They also provide a version of 'perfect samples' which are nothing but useless and outdated piano samples with laughable dynamic range and muddy low quality recorded unprotammed instances of a piano.
> 
> Just writing to warn the wider community. I have all samples of probably every other developer and there have been issues, however not responding emails to support ID is criminal.



Why torture yourself, almost all samples piano libraries have problems, Imperfect samples is one of the worst (IMO). Lots of noise, hard to control, completely useless for fast playing, bad dynamic, etc. No mean to run another debate but go to Pianoteq and play digital piano like it is supposed to be, once you adapt to a difference (real digital piano) you will never go back. If I really and really need to chose among the samples, then Ivory II German, Garritan CFX, Ravenscroft and VSL Vienna imperial.


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## star.keys (Nov 5, 2017)

Thanks everyone... I will try batch resave

Yes I've got Ivory II, Ravenscroft, which are wonderful. Pianoteq 6 is game changing and I have started using it since this release, didn't bother much until version 5. VSL Imperial is amazing in certain situations.


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## rocking.xmas.man (Nov 6, 2017)

you keep typing "they" - imperfect samples is just Matt. It's a one-man-show.
The technical problem you're describing is a common issue that many users of different libraries experienced - loading a patch freezes kontakt and your DAW before loading the samples. There is no realiable solution for this I know of and that is nothing that is a standout problem of imperfectsamples. Things usually considered to check:
Batch-resave
Anti-Virus should not secure the location where the samples are
Fiddling with Kontakt Database (deleting everything / adding manually)

I remember piano in blue left many users with these problems when it first came out. I don't remember what solved that for me though


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## Johnny (Nov 6, 2017)

Matt pops around here from time to time, he'll eventually respond and apologize. He has mentioned on here before that he was going through some pretty hard times and personal health issues in past replies, not to belittle sample issues; however, we should all take that into respect and consideration that we have no idea what is going on in his personal life until he responds. He will, he usually does after the thread comes to his attention. As for loading and crashes? No worries, all of my piano libraries do that too! Mainly to do with my auto-save in protools or cubase, make sure you disable any auto-save or background features on your computer too before loading your larger piano libraries. Hope this helps


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## dahnielson (Nov 6, 2017)

rocking.xmas.man said:


> The technical problem you're describing is a common issue that many users of different libraries experienced - loading a patch freezes kontakt and your DAW before loading the samples. There is no realiable solution for this I know of and that is nothing that is a standout problem of imperfectsamples.



I guess it's the same problem I complained about regarding Auddict libraries in another thread "Long loading times for Auddict libraries (solved)" which was solved by adding an exclusion rule to Windows Defender for the directory containing the Kontakt instruments.


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## shomynik (Nov 6, 2017)

star.keys said:


> So I purchased their fazioli Extreme version. This software is nothing short of a piece of crap and takes forever to load in Kontakt, if not forces Cubase and PT session to hang, requiring force restart. Same is the case with Steinway walnut grand. I sent them 4 polite messages trying to seek support to fix this issue. No response. Again reminders, no response. I'm not sure if this company is still doing business. I would expect so, since they are selling their products, which don't work. I'm about to open up a dispute on my credit card transaction. This company sucks. Oh yes that these 'imperfect samples' = detuned and completely unuseable samples. They also provide a version of 'perfect samples' which are nothing but useless and outdated piano samples with laughable dynamic range and muddy low quality recorded unprotammed instances of a piano.
> 
> Just writing to warn the wider community. I have all samples of probably every other developer and there have been issues, however not responding emails to support ID is criminal.


Check the Windows Defender, try disabling it alltogether. Google it how to disable it full coz unchecking it in the settings is not enough if I remember correctly. I had problems with slow loading which were resolved with turning defender completely off. GL


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## star.keys (Nov 14, 2017)

Tried disabling auto save, batch save etc but no luck. This is the only library on which Cubase and PT crashes every single time. Load times are unbelievably high. No response from support team.

Is it a good idea to dispute the transaction through PayPal, given this company has not obliged with their obligations? Appreciate the could be going through hard times but they have taken my hard earned money and have provided a product which does not work. No support.


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## whinecellar (Nov 14, 2017)

I too have the issue @kurtvanzo describes; I have to unload and reload the mic positions after initially loading any patches from Walnut Grand - otherwise it doesn’t play properly. I can’t believe it got released like that - pretty huge bug. I’ve emailed Matt several times over the course of months - never got a response. 

It’s a shame because I really love that piano - it’s one of my favorites.


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## Kaufmanmoon (Nov 14, 2017)

I tried to contact them a couple of weeks ago to ask about upgrading one of the pianos. No response. Matt's problems and responses are around this forum and gearslutz.


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## kalisam1 (Apr 10, 2018)

Hi,
I'm new to the community, so bear with me.
I'm interested in purchasing the Braunschweig upright piano library from Imperfect samples.
Has anyone RECENTLY purchased the Braunschweig from IS? And was the download immediate/successful with no Kontakt technical issues? 
Can I purchase and download without prior contact with IS?
I am also experiencing a lack of response from Matt.
Thanks


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## Mike Fox (Apr 10, 2018)

It's unfortunate that their customer service seems to be non-existant. I have the basic versions of all their pianos, and they truly sound amazing, and play/work just fine for me. If Matt is going to respond to customer e-mails, he probably needs to close up shop.


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## kalisam1 (Apr 10, 2018)

Mike Fox said:


> It's unfortunate that their customer service seems to be non-existant. I have the basic versions of all their pianos, and they truly sound amazing, and play/work just fine for me. If Matt is going to respond to customer e-mails, he probably needs to close up shop.



Thanks for replying, Mike. They do sound amazing.
When was your most recent IS transaction?
I'm mostly concerned as to whether the website store is still active and functioning. I heard that the transaction process is entirely automated. Do you think that it would be relatively safe to purchase the Braunschweig without prior confirmation with Matt?


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## CGR (Apr 11, 2018)

FWIW, I bought the Fazioli Basic last year, and upgraded to the Pro version in September. Both times everything went smoothly - no problems with payment, downloading & installing. I've expressed my opinion on VI Control on the positives & negatives of my experiences using the Imperfect Samples Fazioli (don't own any other Imperfect Samples pianos). In summary - really great realistic tone, but frustrating playability and inconsistent velocity transitions & keyboard action noises.


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## Mike Fox (Apr 11, 2018)

kalisam1 said:


> Thanks for replying, Mike. They do sound amazing.
> When was your most recent IS transaction?
> I'm mostly concerned as to whether the website store is still active and functioning. I heard that the transaction process is entirely automated. Do you think that it would be relatively safe to purchase the Braunschweig without prior confirmation with Matt?


It was about two years ago. The process was automated and painless. At first, I didn't think I had received the download link, but it was actually in my junk mail. Be sure to check that If the link doesn't arrive in your main inbox. Good luck!


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## j3tman (Nov 3, 2018)

I'm having this problem now with the extreme Walnut Grand-- Logic Pro X is hanging on a nearly empty project, and mics reset on load.

Has anyone heard from Matt? I'd love to use this wonderful sounding instrument if I could!


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## kavinsky (Nov 3, 2018)

imperfect samples are honestly my go to pianos.


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## Camus (Nov 3, 2018)

I´m wondering! The Fazioli is my fav Piano for movie Scores since years. It sounds great with its very individual character - that´s true - and I don´t have any problems either on MAC or PC. Maybe I did something wrong that makes it right ........


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## Saxer (Nov 3, 2018)

j3tman said:


> I'm having this problem now with the extreme Walnut Grand-- Logic Pro X is hanging on a nearly empty project, and mics reset on load.


I don't have the Walnut but the IS pianos I have are also available as EXS24 patches. I always use them. There's nothing more efficient than EXS in Logic.


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## CGR (Nov 3, 2018)

I've been running the Fazioli (Complete) in Kontakt 5.7 on a Mac without any problems. Have read about instability problems with the later released Walnut Grand, which has made me reluctant to purchase it (along with the dubious reputation of Imperfect Samples customer support)


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## CGR (Nov 3, 2018)

Saxer said:


> I don't have the Walnut but the IS pianos I have are also available as EXS24 patches. I always use them. There's nothing more efficient than EXS in Logic.


Given that the IS pianos don't seem to implement any advanced scripting in Kontakt that EXS lacks, I'd suggest that strategy is a wise move.


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## ECK (Nov 3, 2018)

Purchased the Braunschweig last year and been running it on PT constantly ever since. No problems. Immediate download. Easily my favorite // most used piano.


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## whinecellar (Nov 3, 2018)

Yep, a very frustrating aspect of using this great instrument. It works fine for me once I click unload and then reload the samples from the Kontakt GUI. I went so far as to assign CCs to those buttons and then resaved the patch; now when I load it, I just hit those CCs to do it for me...


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## Mike Fox (Nov 3, 2018)

whinecellar said:


> Yep, a very frustrating aspect of using this great instrument. It works fine for me once I click unload and then reload the samples from the Kontakt GUI. I went so far as to assign CCs to those buttons and then resaved the patch; now when I load it, I just hit those CCs to do it for me...


Does saving a snapshot help at all?


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## whinecellar (Nov 3, 2018)

Mike Fox said:


> Does saving a snapshot help at all?



Nope. I have tried saving all kinds of versions, and nothing works. It’s the weirdest thing...


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## Mike Fox (Nov 3, 2018)

whinecellar said:


> Nope. I have tried saving all kinds of versions, and nothing works. It’s the weirdest thing...


What sucks is that you can't get any help from the developer.


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## whinecellar (Nov 3, 2018)

Mike Fox said:


> What sucks is that you can't get any help from the developer.



Yep, I've emailed several times - silence.


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## Mike Fox (Nov 3, 2018)

whinecellar said:


> Yep, I've emailed several times - silence.


That's wrong. Don't sell shit you can't support.


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## j3tman (Nov 4, 2018)

Does anyone still have a copy of Kontakt 4? It looks like latest updates (2011) were made for Kontakt 4 instruments.. I wonder if this is a some issue with specifically loading in Kontakt 5?

@Saxer, the walnut grand came with EXS24 patches for the individual mic positions... maybe I'm being a noob here, but I'm not really sure how I would mix the three positions together other than making separate tracks in Logic for this?


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## Saxer (Nov 4, 2018)

j3tman said:


> @Saxer, the walnut grand came with EXS24 patches for the individual mic positions... maybe I'm being a noob here, but I'm not really sure how I would mix the three positions together other than making separate tracks in Logic for this?


You could try loading one mic position per EXS, selcet all those tracks and create a track stack. If you play the main track it could work. As far as I know the EXS is sample accurate... when triggering two identical EXS at the same time they just get louder, no phasing. So stacking should work as long as there are no round robins and all mic psitions have the same velocity splits.


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## andyinjapan (Nov 19, 2018)

Guys,

I also have something to say about IS and I hope someone can help me out.
I bought Walnut Grand Complete about two months ago, and I was actually pretty happy using it.
But the external drive in which it was stored died the other day, so I tried to re-download it.

But all the download links are dead now. So I sent a mail to Matt two weeks ago, no answer.
I'm kinda pissed because I use it in a lot of my recent projects.
If someone has an idea!

EDIT: For anyone having a similar issue. I saw on IS's facebook page that download support was managed by fastspring, so I contacted them at (support[at]fastspring.com), and they sent me new working links in a few hours.
They also told me to write to orders[at]fastspring.com If i needed download links again. So yeah, problem resolved.


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## j3tman (Nov 19, 2018)

andyinjapan said:


> Guys,
> 
> I also have something to say about IS and I hope someone can help me out.
> I bought Walnut Grand Complete about two months ago, and I was actually pretty happy using it.
> ...



Good to know! Do you use IS with Kontakt by any chance?


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## j3tman (Nov 28, 2018)

Saxer said:


> You could try loading one mic position per EXS, selcet all those tracks and create a track stack. If you play the main track it could work. As far as I know the EXS is sample accurate... when triggering two identical EXS at the same time they just get louder, no phasing. So stacking should work as long as there are no round robins and all mic psitions have the same velocity splits.



Finally getting around to trying this. It seems there are many EXS patches for effects-- finger taps, key up, mic noise, misc, pedals-- at each mic position, so 5 x 4 = 20 effects patches. This is not mentioning 4 special EXS patches for each position (I suppose these could be separate stacks though). What would be the most sensible way to integrate this into a track stack? It seems excessive to have 4 piano tracks and 20+ FX tracks in a single stack. I'd love to figure this out, as this is all the extra glue that drew me to purchase the library in the first place.

I know nesting stacks under folders is a thing, but I usually have all my keyboards/synths already nested in a folder, and AFAIK you cannot go more than 2 levels deep in a stack.


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## matt9b (Dec 5, 2018)

star.keys said:


> So I purchased their fazioli Extreme version. This software is nothing short of a piece of crap and takes forever to load in Kontakt, if not forces Cubase and PT session to hang, requiring force restart. Same is the case with Steinway walnut grand. I sent them 4 polite messages trying to seek support to fix this issue. No response. Again reminders, no response. I'm not sure if this company is still doing business. I would expect so, since they are selling their products, which don't work. I'm about to open up a dispute on my credit card transaction. This company sucks. Oh yes that these 'imperfect samples' = detuned and completely unuseable samples. They also provide a version of 'perfect samples' which are nothing but useless and outdated piano samples with laughable dynamic range and muddy low quality recorded unprotammed instances of a piano.
> 
> Just writing to warn the wider community. I have all samples of probably every other developer and there have been issues, however not responding emails to support ID is criminal.



Hi Star.keys, I'm so sorry to read about this. Please email me at orders[at]imperfectsamples[dot]com and I'll do my best to get these problems sorted for you quickly. Usually, the instrument is much faster to load the second time onwards. If you'd like a much faster loading instrument, light versions are now provided with your download which you can use to work with, and then switch over to the full instrument before bouncing if you prefer. I always recommend using a dedicated sample HD for larger sampled instruments, and the faster the read time of your HD, the faster they'll load. Plugins are always faster to load than samples, particularly the larger instruments as they're huge and the recordings are quite long! That's the down side of using real recordings vs. synthesis I suppose, but I personally really prefer the recordings in terms of sound. I'd also like to offer something for you for the frustration you've experienced, if you do see this message please email that address.

Matt


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## j3tman (Dec 31, 2018)

matt9b said:


> Hi Star.keys, I'm so sorry to read about this. Please email me at orders[at]imperfectsamples[dot]com and I'll do my best to get these problems sorted for you quickly. Usually, the instrument is much faster to load the second time onwards. If you'd like a much faster loading instrument, light versions are now provided with your download which you can use to work with, and then switch over to the full instrument before bouncing if you prefer. I always recommend using a dedicated sample HD for larger sampled instruments, and the faster the read time of your HD, the faster they'll load. Plugins are always faster to load than samples, particularly the larger instruments as they're huge and the recordings are quite long! That's the down side of using real recordings vs. synthesis I suppose, but I personally really prefer the recordings in terms of sound. I'd also like to offer something for you for the frustration you've experienced, if you do see this message please email that address.
> 
> Matt



Hi Matt,

I'd love if you could address some of the issues that have been discussed earlier. Mainly the issues (for me) are that loading instruments in Kontakt is causing Logic Pro to hang-- even with an empty session-- and reloading the session will reset mic levels, which can cause FX mics to be pulled up to unacceptable levels.

I'm trying to use an EXS track stack as a workaround, but all of the in-between stuff like control of pedal noise is really what sold me on the instrument in the first place, so I would really like to use those! I invested in the Extreme walnut grand version, but so far I haven't been able to use even half of what it truly has to offer.


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## Wolf68 (Dec 31, 2018)

thanks for the decent hint with the sale. downloading my walnut steiny atm....


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## evilantal (Dec 31, 2018)

Wolf68 said:


> thanks for the decent hint with the sale. downloading my walnut steiny atm....



What is this sale you speak of?


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