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How good is Artvista Malmsjö really?

Mason

Active Member
I’ve seen so much praise for this piano which of course makes it quite interesting.
But how good is really? Is it good to be $99 or does it compete with the big ones?
 
It’s quite hyped because Hans Zimmer uses it. Personally I think it sounds synthy and doesn’t have a good feel when you play it.
 
I own it, and think it is very good for a specific flavor, but I wouldn't call it a general workhorse piano. Obviously if you want to make use of a piano tone something like that heard in HZ's "Time", you really can't do better than the Malmsjö. But for the majority of purposes it isn't the first one I reach for.
 
Strangely, I like there EXS24 version (converted from Gigastudio I believe) better than the Kontakt version.
 
Strangely, I like there EXS24 version (converted from Gigastudio I believe) better than the Kontakt version.

That would make sense to me. The EXS doesn't have that 'filtered' sound, it's more upfront and clear. My opinion at least.
 
Some people prefer the audio engine of Steinberg Halion, or EXS24 to the one in Kontakt. But the wavs when converting the legacy Malmsjö to EXS remain the same. It is also important to remember that Malmsjö GVI is in many ways a superior, more versatile product to the legacy Malmsjö in any format. It also includes every legacy version.
 
Just listened to a bunch of the Art Vista demos. My favorite was the SuperGrand which can blend in some Steinway - really beautiful tone. I really don't need more piano libraries but I'm very tempted at this sale price. My main concern is that it's only 2GB in size and therefore may have very few velocity layers, which I often find annoying. Does anyone know how many layers the library has?
 
Just listened to a bunch of the Art Vista demos. My favorite was the SuperGrand which can blend in some Steinway - really beautiful tone. I really don't need more piano libraries but I'm very tempted at this sale price. My main concern is that it's only 2GB in size and therefore may have very few velocity layers, which I often find annoying. Does anyone know how many layers the library has?
Don't be put off by the size. It's a very dynamic piano, programmed & scripted very well and it 'plays' beautifully (there are a bunch of keyboard velocity profiles you can choose from in the GUI). As a side note, Nord manage to achieve some of the most realistic sampled acoustic pianos which are a lot smaller than 2GB. The Swedes seem to have a real talent in this area!
 
just remap the samples how you want, its very simple because its a very old instrument and the sample count is really low.
 
For me it belongs to the category of "character pianos" and offers a more vintage sound. Like Piano in Blue it has a rich, full timber. With my controller (Yamaha cp33) its playability it better than Piano in Blue out of the box.
For general perpose I still prefer my other piano libraries (Garritan CFX and the Grandeur) which have much more velocity layers, even if they sound a little too clean in comparison.
 
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Some people prefer the audio engine of Steinberg Halion, or EXS24 to the one in Kontakt. But the wavs when converting the legacy Malmsjö to EXS remain the same. It is also important to remember that Malmsjö GVI is in many ways a superior, more versatile product to the legacy Malmsjö in any format. It also includes every legacy version.

Hans, I don't doubt any off that, but I don't choose the Malmsjö to be versatile, but when I want a specific sound and for whatever reason, the default presets in the EXS24 version just put it where I want it more than the Kontakt ones.

Here is the Dream Grand preset, no verb on either, first with the EXS24 and then Kontakt. I tried to make the volumes commensurate as Kontakt version is louder by a considerable amount upon loading.

 
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