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Pianos that inspire

chillbot

Sock Muppet
Today I bought Orange Tree Evolution Rosewood Grand and Art Vista Malmsjo.

I also got Pianoteq Electric Pianos, and as such was able to demo all of their pianos, none of which did a ton for me.

I have a ton of pianos that do piano. I have Ivory which to me is the piano that does the best "piano" but I'm probably biased as it's been my piano for 15+ years.

HZ Piano is nice in the high end, nice and sparkly, I love it for that. But that's about all I use it for.

I've never been a huge fan of Piano in Blue, or Alicia's Keys, or any of the NI pianos, I have all of them.

The Rosewood has a nice warm low end that I love. Malmsjo is surprisingly dark and moody, to me. Maybe a bit too much so.

Obviously I'm a piano player, I am looking for pianos that have a magical "feel" that just inspire you to play them. Must also include super-low latency.

My top 3 are Emotional Piano, Olafur Arnold's Felt Piano, and Woodchester Piano. Honorable mention to Una Corda. They are all great in their own ways.

I looked at Embertone's 1955 Steinway, wasn't feeling it. From the demos at least.

So it sounds like I have everything... but wondering if there's another piano out there like Emotional or Woodchester that I've missed?

I love the way each 'colored' piano inspires you to play it a certain way. That's what I'm looking for.
 
Quantum Leap Pianos sound wonderful. Ivory is a little brighter and less round - which isn't better or worse, just a different sound. More like Chick Corea.

I also like Malmsjo a lot.

But really, I start playing any of the good sampled pianos and get lost in the wilderness. I'm a keyboard-as-tool player, though, not a real pianist.
 
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Unless I want the super soft/felt sound, I use Soniccouture's Hammersmith for almost everything. It's fairly neutral, character-wise, but I've stumbled across lots of nice ideas with it and it seems to fit in wherever I ask it to go.
 
It looks like we share some piano tastes, and it's rare... Ivory American D is my favorite, and... That's it.
I bought many others (even tried pianoteq), and every time I was kind of super disappointed because I could not feel the subjective pleasure of a convinced piano performance.

I got few (and very personal) outsiders, because like you I like warm/lively sounds.
- 8dio 1985 Passionate Piano (I got all the 8dio, but I just use this one and the 1990 prepared), dry with dynamic velocity, very warmy with the right play and settings.
- Embertone 1955 Binaural mic soft velocity for soft piano beds. Cannot use this one for real play, it sounds thin with high velocity and notes attack/release sounds weird with fast détaché play.
- Imperfect Samples Steinway: I just use the noises from this one that I stack with other piano sounds.
- Hans Zimmer piano: I just use harmonics patch for random harmonics shimmering.

Btw, I never bought any Art Vista piano, do some people would recommend one piano in particular? I'm searching for pianos with identity but with playing consistency as well. I really like the wine and roses demo spirit of the VG3, but I'm also interested by the sonic characteristics of the Supergrand in thirteed nights demo, and I also liked few demos of the Malmsjö, but on this one I'm afraid about some resonance in the medium register.
 
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Well I did try Pianoteq, and it left me a bit cold. Don't know why, but it just did. It is certainly an impressive achievement, and there are a lot of people on here whose opinions I really respect love it, but it's not for me, at least not yet....

I'd love to get back the SSD space that Ivory II takes up, but every time I try something else, I just end up going back to the D, and have no desire to wander off.

I've bought a few other libraries, but they get no real use.

It must be love....
 
The Acoustic Samples yamaha has a nice sound when you play around with the 3 microphone setups to make it sound fuller, rounder, warmer, intimate,etc...

The feed the good old ‘playability’ disussion, but then related to your post topic: I enjoy the recording 3 preset from the grotrian in pianoteq 6 but then add ew spaces with a piano venue to taste and experiment with tape sims, or any saturation plugins on top to find a warmer feeling to make especially the midrange of pianoteq sound more attractive.
And I am still experimenting but because the sound improves, and the playability nuances stay using pianoteq, there is an added ‘sparkle’ to playing something with much more enthusiasm.

A friend of mine uses the uno corda together with american grand from the ‘labs’ guys, and gets fairly good results too. Even without hearing that its 2 pianos on top of each other.
 
Today I bought Orange Tree Evolution Rosewood Grand and Art Vista Malmsjo.

I also got Pianoteq Electric Pianos, and as such was able to demo all of their pianos, none of which did a ton for me.

I have a ton of pianos that do piano. I have Ivory which to me is the piano that does the best "piano" but I'm probably biased as it's been my piano for 15+ years.

HZ Piano is nice in the high end, nice and sparkly, I love it for that. But that's about all I use it for.

I've never been a huge fan of Piano in Blue, or Alicia's Keys, or any of the NI pianos, I have all of them.

The Rosewood has a nice warm low end that I love. Malmsjo is surprisingly dark and moody, to me. Maybe a bit too much so.

Obviously I'm a piano player, I am looking for pianos that have a magical "feel" that just inspire you to play them. Must also include super-low latency.

My top 3 are Emotional Piano, Olafur Arnold's Felt Piano, and Woodchester Piano. Honorable mention to Una Corda. They are all great in their own ways.

I looked at Embertone's 1955 Steinway, wasn't feeling it. From the demos at least.

So it sounds like I have everything... but wondering if there's another piano out there like Emotional or Woodchester that I've missed?

I love the way each 'colored' piano inspires you to play it a certain way. That's what I'm looking for.
Sampled pianos which inspire me to play and discover new ideas (in no particular order):

– ArtVista Malmsjo (Swedish Grand) & VGP 3.0 (1960's era Steinway B) - never fail to inspire ideas for me.
– EWQL Steinway, Bosendorfer & Bechstein (something about the depth they captured - playability a little 'jumpy')
– Chocolate Audio's Italian made Steinbach Upright Piano (my new go-to upright)
– Embertone's 1955 Concert D (Steinway)
– Impact Soundworks Pearl Concert Grand - Yamaha C7 - (version 2.0 about to be released)
– Sampletekk Black (Ambient mic set) - a Hamburg Steinway D sampled in a Swedish concert hall
– Wholesounds 1954 Baldwin Parlour Grand (real & raw & honest - great in a mix too)
– Production Voices Production Grand (Yamaha C7) - fantastically dynamic, responsive & flexible 'studio' grand
– Soniccouture's Hammersmith (New York Steinway D) a customised preset I made (default sounds a little thin/harsh)
– 8dio's 1928 & 1969 Steinways (I love certain vintage pianos - very different from modern manufactured pianos. The quality of the frame/rim & soundboard timbers used in many of these older quality-brand pianos are very hard to come by these days).

Many others I use for certain roles, or qualities that fit particular tracks, but the above pianos are the ones I call up in the early development/inspiration-seeking stage. For playability and response/nuance closest to a real acoustic piano, my vote goes to Pianoteq (Steinway B & Steingraeber in particular). Realism/character of tone is a contentious point with Pianoteq, but I am amazed at their achievements & development over the years, and each new model brings another level of realism - an impressive achievement.
 
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Try the Garritan CFX Concert Grand?

I personally find it pretty versatile and inspiring.
I agree - I overlooked that one! Due to the massive size of the full version, I have it on a separate external hard drive, so tend to neglect it, but a stellar sampled piano, and the natural, airy ambience of Abbey Roads Studio One means that additional reverb if often not necessary. Great sampled piano!
 
I looked at Embertone's 1955 Steinway, wasn't feeling it. From the demos at least.
To be honest, I wasn't shure, neither... especially since I am quite covered with all the EWQL Pianos, SI Emotional, Rosewood, TruePianos (for lightweight sketching). But hey, as always GAS took me over, and I bought the standard version (full features, 1 mic).
And man - fortunately, I did that!! I started with the more "lightweight" patches, but you HAVE to try out the "heavy" ones with all the velocities, and THEN came the magic to me: From all of my piano VIs, I got the most inspiration out of it!

Ok, and now since I reminded myself to that beauty - let´s fire up Kontakt and make some music :whistling:!
 
Lots of pianos here too, preferring Embertone Walker, Bechstein Digital Grand, WholeSounds Baldwin, Wavesfactory Mercury, OrangeTreeSamples Rosewood and ImpactSoundworks Pearl. Add those Pianoteq grands for individuality and playability. There’s also CineSamples. They’ve got a new and sweet CinePiano, but I also love their Piano-in-Blue, sampled from the one used on Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations and Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.
 
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