Good to hear another piece with Noire. I keep telling myself I don't need another sampled piano and then hear tracks like this. One thing I notice in many pieces produced with sampled pianos (including some of my own) is that they often sound a little harsh/heavy handed. Maybe because the keyboard/software defaults to a velocity setting which triggers the mf, f & ff samples too easily, which can result in a harsh sound. I hear it a bit in the above track. You really need to dig into the keyboard of a good acoustic grand to get those levels, so my suggestion is to keep the keyboard/software velocity response in check, and also monitor at a substantial volume level when recording the piano parts in order to get a realistic idea of dynamics and the subtleties of the m, mp, p & pp range.
I agree, some of the velocities in this track could be tweaked to give a more natural result. The thing is, I just replaced the existing Garritan CFX with Noire, and re-rendered the track (I think I actually did massage the velocities on a few notes) and came out with a pretty decent result. I'm sure I'll ultimately go back and re-perform the piano so I adjust my playing for the instrument in real time.
Thanks for listening and for the nice comments!
-Gary