What's new

New piano library - Yamaha CFX from Production Voices

Gotcha. What are your feelings on the Garritan?
I really like the Garritan, but I always feel like I can't quite escape that room. It is a lovely, lovely space, but you're married to it with the Garritan.

I instantly loved the 300 Grand, sonically speaking, but until @Mike McCarthy tinkered under the hood, I found it a bit of a bear to play.

I might feel very differently about lots of different pianos if I had something like the VPC1, but I don't. So for me, the 300 Grand is likely to be my main for a long time.
 
I really like the Garritan, but I always feel like I can't quite escape that room. It is a lovely, lovely space, but you're married to it with the Garritan.

I instantly loved the 300 Grand, sonically speaking, but until @Mike McCarthy tinkered under the hood, I found it a bit of a bear to play.

I might feel very differently about lots of different pianos if I had something like the VPC1, but I don't. So for me, the 300 Grand is likely to be my main for a long time.
Agree with Jett Hitt - this is a very beautiful piano that has replaced Garritan CFX in my template (although I still use Garritan if I need a "roomier", more aggressive piano sound).

Latest tweaked nki is attached (v2.3).
1.fixed a slightly "jangly" F#5 (if C4 is middle C)
2.fixed a slightly "unresponsive/dull" B5 that didn't match the singing tone of the surrounding notes
(both these notes were not sampling/programming errors; they were simply how the piano sounded - I just found them annoying. If you prefer the original notes, use the nki "My 300 Grand - Balanced 2" on page 14 of this thread).
3.Found a very nice IR among the IR's provided by Jason which added some useful early reflections - helpful in a dense mix - it gives a sense of "presence" to the CFX in much the same way that the Hammersmith's tree mics bring the studio's room reflections into play. I've set it as the default, along with the Close 1 mics + the Outside 2 mics (which for me, make the most beautifully detailed yet full-sounding mic combination).

This piano can sound dry & intimate - but also highly ambient if you use the Stage/Distant mics (which I seldom use).
 

Attachments

  • My 300 Grand 32V - balanced 2.3.zip
    3.4 MB · Views: 61
Agree with Jett Hitt - this is a very beautiful piano that has replaced Garritan CFX in my template (although I still use Garritan if I need a "roomier", more aggressive piano sound).

Latest tweaked nki is attached (v2.3).
1.fixed a slightly "jangly" F#5 (if C4 is middle C)
2.fixed a slightly "unresponsive/dull" B5 that didn't match the singing tone of the surrounding notes
(both these notes were not sampling/programming errors; they were simply how the piano sounded - I just found them annoying. If you prefer the original notes, use the nki "My 300 Grand - Balanced 2" on page 14 of this thread).
3.Found a very nice IR among the IR's provided by Jason which added some useful early reflections - helpful in a dense mix - it gives a sense of "presence" to the CFX in much the same way that the Hammersmith's tree mics bring the studio's room reflections into play. I've set it as the default, along with the Close 1 mics + the Outside 2 mics (which for me, make the most beautifully detailed yet full-sounding mic combination).

This piano can sound dry & intimate - but also highly ambient if you use the Stage/Distant mics (which I seldom use).
How do you feel about the playability? I have tried quite a few at this point, and I have personally yet to play a piano that feels comfortable/flexible in Kontakt. I have ModernU which plays like a dream but doesn't have the warm sound I crave, Ravenscroft which fills in about the same space as ModernU, and Xperimenta Due which has a pleasant sound but I struggle with the way it plays. I've tried all of the VSL Pianos and they are close-ish in feel but I still feel like ModernU and Ravenscroft play quite a bit better, and Noire was a quite good sound but it wasn't responsive like I'm looking for. I haven't had the opportunity to play Garritan CFX, and I have mostly avoided it due to the lack of sales and the inability to return/exchange it.
 
How do you feel about the playability? I have tried quite a few at this point, and I have personally yet to play a piano that feels comfortable/flexible in Kontakt. I have ModernU which plays like a dream but doesn't have the warm sound I crave, Ravenscroft which fills in about the same space as ModernU, and Xperimenta Due which has a pleasant sound but I struggle with the way it plays. I've tried all of the VSL Pianos and they are close-ish in feel but I still feel like ModernU and Ravenscroft play quite a bit better, and Noire was a quite good sound but it wasn't responsive like I'm looking for. I haven't had the opportunity to play Garritan CFX, and I have mostly avoided it due to the lack of sales and the inability to return/exchange it.
I find it every bit as nice to play as the Garritan CFX (which always gets highly praised for playability) - I think the 32 velocity layers has something to do with it, particularly as they were so evenly sampled from ppp to fff. This piano was very well recorded. The fact that I could find only two notes that bugged me says quite a lot - and they're now fixed :).

Maybe I can put it another way: when I'm sitting with my eyes closed and improvising using Noire, Hammersmith or Garritan, I hear things that remind me that I'm using a sampled piano (as pleasing as these libs sound, don't get me wrong). With 300 Grand I find myself immersed in the sound of a real piano - not hyped in any way - and surprisingly intimate for a big CFX. Beautifully responsive. Nothing will be like the real thing, but this one just sounds closer to what I'm used to hearing when I record a real grand. In very exposed solo playing there is some noise on lower velocity layers that can build up on long, pedalled passages - but some light denoising takes care of this. I don't hear any noise when it's in a mix.
 
The more I play it the more the noise bothers me. It's strange, since other PV piano libraries are very, very clean, with no noticable noise.
 
The more I play it the more the noise bothers me. It's strange, since other PV piano libraries are very, very clean, with no noticable noise.
Yes - this is my only remaining gripe with this piano. Hopefully this will be addressed when Jason is well enough to work again.

I spent a lot of time creating a denoise preset that fixes this (but on playback only of course) - happy to share my preset if you have Waves X-noise (or Z-noise).

But it really shouldn't be necessary to have to do this...
 
This piano has my attention! Along with others in this thread, I’m looking forward to knowing that an update is incoming from the developer. Sounds like there’s so much potential here.

This past week, after much shopping around for a great Yamaha C7, I settled on the Production Voices “Production Grand 2 LE” and couldn’t be happier. (Currently on sale for just $59, btw…) The bass thunders and the clarity is unreal. The instrument may be a bit pointed and forward for some, but my musical interests are primarily indie and pop, so it’s a marvelous fit for me.

Has anyone played the Production Voices C7 alongside their newer CFX release? I’d be interested to hear a direct comparison, since the C7 is already so, so good.
 
I have both. 300 Grand is objectively better, more complex and detailed library, but I prefer Production Grand 2 mainly due to the instrument sampled. I'm more after bright (C7) sound. Most people will probably prefer CFX.
 
I'd also welcome additional news!

I purchased 300 Grand -- my second library from Jason at Production Voices -- a few weeks ago, and it sounds phenomenal. I've never played an actual CFX, but I legitimately feel as if I'm in the room with this one. As others have said, it's not without a few velocity issues, although the fix a few posts back from @Mike McCarthy goes a long way toward addressing these concerns, if temporarily.

300 Grand has quickly become a favorite among my many, many piano libraries (I'm not admitting that I have a problem, but I may have a problem...), so I'm eager to see it receive additional attention.
 
In my piano template I have the Garritan CFX, the VSL CFX and now the 300 GRAND.

With a better balance between low and higher notes and a few bugs corrected, GRAND 300 could even take the lead... what I would have never believed... the potential is really there... congrats to Production Voices!

So yes, the famous update from Jason will be really more than welcomed!
 
I also hope that an update is in the works, however I did notice a thread in a Pianoworld forum where a user commented that they recently purchased a older Production Voices piano (Concert Grand LE) which has a similar issue with the 2 upper octaves being noticeably softer than the rest of the range.

I've never tried the Concert Grand LE, so can't verify if this is in fact the case, but if true it makes me considerably more skeptical that this issue is going to be rectified in a future update.

In the meantime, I am very grateful for Mike McCarthy's .nki edits, which really save this from being an also-ran into a very capable VI, but at the same time I don't feel comfortable recommending others invest in this unless there is a permanent fix from the developers end.
 
I was pretty gungho with this piano for quite a while, but I have to admit that I have returned to the Garritan CFX. I am always using the piano in the context of an orchestra, and the 300 just won't cut through in the upper registers, which is ironic because, in real life, it is the lower portion of the register that the orchestra will swallow.
 
I also hope that an update is in the works, however I did notice a thread in a Pianoworld forum where a user commented that they recently purchased a older Production Voices piano (Concert Grand LE) which has a similar issue with the 2 upper octaves being noticeably softer than the rest of the range.

I've never tried the Concert Grand LE, so can't verify if this is in fact the case, but if true it makes me considerably more skeptical that this issue is going to be rectified in a future update.

In the meantime, I am very grateful for Mike McCarthy's .nki edits, which really save this from being an also-ran into a very capable VI, but at the same time I don't feel comfortable recommending others invest in this unless there is a permanent fix from the developers end.
I have to admit that I had to remove the Grand Concert (full version) from my template and never really used it in any composition. The basses were sounding really weird to my ears :-(
But the new 300 Grand CFX, well... I compared it note by note with my old faithful Garritan CFX and the recently purchased VSL CFX (which sounds surely great but needs some tweaking re tuning and velocity curve to limit the metallic sound of some notes) and I have to admit that some mics are offering an "alternative" high quality sound which I could not live without... of course I need to wait for Jason's official update before being able to use it in a proper solo piano track to be released commercially...
 
Has anybody heard an update from Jason? I understand these things take time, but it would be nice to have a rough ETA. It’s such a lovely instrument but I find it nearly unplayable due to the upper register audio issues, and the tweaked NKI files only work with the full version of Kontakt (which I do not have).
 
Top Bottom