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Ultimate Piano Comparison Thread

Albeniz - Prelude (Exposition) - Chants d'Espagne MIDI
 

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Garritan CFX Classic for me out of these. The VSL pianos are too harsh in these examples on this tune, but of course, velocity scaling & dynamic settings could alleviate this.
I agree... VSL pianos are kind of a love/hate because the detail and configuration is insanely good, but there's something about those walls in that Teldex building that are hard-sounding. That's why I apply a slight dip in the mids on those, to try an soften the mid-fatigue.

No matter what I play, I always always come back to Garritan CFX Classic.
 
thank you Paulie, of these probably Garritan Cfx and (surprise!) EW Steinway, surprisingly good...
That one surprised me too. I had to drag it over from my RAID archive drive because I don't keep the EW Pianos on my SSDs at 292GB, but I had a feeling, and it's not bad for this piece at all!
 
I agree... VSL pianos are kind of a love/hate because the detail and configuration is insanely good, but there's something about those walls in that Teldex building that are hard-sounding. That's why I apply a slight dip in the mids on those, to try an soften the mid-fatigue.

No matter what I play, I always always come back to Garritan CFX Classic.
I'm a big fan of the VSL Synchron pianos (sampled on their own Synchron Stage in Vienna, not the Teldex Scoring Stage which Orchestral Tools use, which is a warmer and more "lush" sounding space to my ears).

The VSL sampling detail and precision is unmatched and playability is superb, but the Synchron pianos are not my first choice for a warm, lyrical jazz tune. Alternatively, their older Vienna Imperial sampled on the Silent Stage is better suited, especially with the Close or Player mic set.
 
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Because of an apparent copyright infringement on Soundcloud for the Shubert and Bill Evans piece, I wasn't able to upload it there unfortunately :sad: And it seems not all Chopin's made it to the playlist :crying:

That's capitalism for you.

In light of this, I've decided to pull all my entries from Soundcloud and deleted my posts in this thread. I don't want to deal with any issues on Soundcloud due to copyright issues.

I'll have a look at uploading the files again directly onto the forum.
LOL stupid SoundCloud, it said Schubert was from a Grammophone Album. IDK if it is worth challenging. Schubert: Piano Sonata No.13 in A Major, D.664 - 1. Allegro moderato... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000TDTZAY/ref=dm_ws_ps_adp (Radu Lupu)
 
Last updated: October 16th, 2021, 18:49, UTC+2

Here is a list of lossless files (FLAC).

In order to facilitate the comparison, I adjusted the loudness of each item to -23 LUFS, +/- 0.1 dB, 1dBTP.

I kept default configuration as much as possible, e.g. when there is a default reverb, there is reverb, and so forth.

Note that Piano libraries with many articulations, such as those of East West, are at a disadvantage since the midi files do not take advantage of them.

EWQL Pianos: after rereading the manual, it clearly states that the Room Mic should not be used alone.
So I provide a mix of the 3 Mics (Player, Room, Close) as close as possible to the one chosen for comparisons on their site: https://www.soundsonline.com/pianos
ew171_mixer.jpg

File ending:
Raindrop: Chopin - Prelude, Op. 28, No. 15 "Raindrop"
Sonata: Schubert - Sonata in A Major, Op. 120, D. 664, Mvmt. 1
Walz: Waltz for Debby - Bill Evans

So far, there are 78 files, for a total of about 2 GB.

Link to the folder: https://tinyurl.com/PianoComparison

By default, files are shown as tiles, I recommend to show by List, to see the whole file name:
Editor-PianoName-Mic/Preset-Music

List follows: can't publish post > 10k characters.
 
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After that massive list I feel like a dweeb posting ONE lol...

I was intrigued how my dusty unused EW Steinway sounded quite decent with Waltz for Debby. So I ran the Shubert piece through it and did a proper mix with a slight cut at 600Hz and 3KHz on the channel, then a +11 boost on Mid and High with Slate's Fresh Air (best free plugin as long as it's not overdone, and +11 is NOT a lot for that plugin), then a FabFilter MB Compressor on the mixbuss with a small 1db mastering preset on it. I also increased the pregain +4db... blah blah blah. Ran it dry, but sent it to my own reverb (not the built-in), and I'm pretty happy with a piano library that I had buried in the backyard. See what you think. Perfectly OK if it's not your flavor of the day, but it's not the worst piano VST I've owned. It probably needs a bit more shaping (and I just discovered it's left-heavy in the mix, duh), what I did was simple and quick:

View attachment Shubert on EW Steinway.mp3
 
How do you go about reverb? Are you using the VSTi's one or 3rd party? What parameters?
Sorry, I don't think this got answered! Obviously there can be 38,691 answers to that question since it's subjective. HOWEVER, here's a setting to try to add a nice reverb to piano and orchestra. It's A suggestion, not THE suggestion... just a place to start (expecting some darts to fling, lol!):

Use a Hall reverb with room size between 3.2-3.8. Maybe your DAW has a hall reverb built in. Valhalla I think is only $50 and people say it's great.

I put Pre-Delay at 25ms. Because the audience is listening from a bit of a distance they get all room with the source sound. Only with vocals to I crank that up to 120ms or so.

Mix at 100% Wet. Obviously, because you'll set the reverb up in an FX channel and use a Send from your instrument channels.

On the FX Channel, add an EQ: Put it right after the Reverb in the FX channel with two settings: a High-Pass filter at about 500Hz-600Hz at -24db/oct, and a Low Pass Filter at about 6KHz, again at -24db/Oct. You want to get rid of the mud and the third-order harmonics and whatever else flies around above 6KHz. Then your reverb will be sweet and clean. A lot of reverbs have an EQ built-in, like Waves H-Reverb.

From your instrument channel, create a Send to the reverb and play with the level of the Send until it all sounds "right". It's rare I'll send past 50% but that may be how Cubase and my Lexicon reverb work together.

So here's a statement that should start an argument, lol: I really really like the Lexicon sound. Others don't and it's usually love or hate. But there's a way to get a great orchestral reverb without spending $700 for the Lexicon PCM: Get the $109 MPX-i version. It has ONLY presets, you can't adjust anything, but you get the Lexicon sound if you want it. There's a specific preset that works great along with putting the stock EQ from your DAW after it. I just set it up in Studio One to take screenshots. Here's the preset on the cheap Lexicon:

Lexicon.jpg

Then I used the stock Pro-EQ in Studio One to set up the EQ after it. You will also see a slight dip at 2KHz, you can do that if you wish. I do because it's part of what's called the Abbey Road Reverb trick, but it doesn't make that much of an impact. Overall, this cleans up the reverb nicely:

EQ for Reverb.jpg

So there's a place to start, 3.X on the room, filter out high and low junk and see how it works for you.

Oh, to add fuel to the fire, Christian Henson picked the Lexicon as his favorite reverb in a blindfolded shootout he did with Jake Jackson... probably regrets ever doing the video, lol! Here's the winning moment:

 
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Sorry, I don't think this got answered! Obviously there can be 38,691 answers to that question since it's subjective. HOWEVER, here's a setting to try to add a nice reverb to piano and orchestra. It's A suggestion, not THE suggestion... just a place to start (expecting some darts to fling, lol!):

Use a Hall reverb with room size between 3.2-3.8. Maybe your DAW has a hall reverb built in. Valhalla I think is only $50 and people say it's great.

I put Pre-Delay at 25ms. Because the audience is listening from a bit of a distance they get all room with the source sound. Only with vocals to I crank that up to 120ms or so.

Mix at 100% Wet. Obviously, because you'll set the reverb up in an FX channel and use a Send from your instrument channels.

On the FX Channel, add an EQ: Put it right after the Reverb in the FX channel with two settings: a High-Pass filter at about 500Hz-600Hz at -24db/oct, and a Low Pass Filter at about 6KHz, again at -24db/Oct. You want to get rid of the mud and the third-order harmonics and whatever else flies around above 6KHz. Then your reverb will be sweet and clean. A lot of reverbs have an EQ built-in, like Waves H-Reverb.

From your instrument channel, create a Send to the reverb and play with the level of the Send until it all sounds "right". It's rare I'll send past 50% but that may be how Cubase and my Lexicon reverb work together.

So here's a statement that should start an argument, lol: I really really like the Lexicon sound. Others don't and it's usually love or hate. But there's a way to get a great orchestral reverb without spending $700 for the Lexicon PCM: Get the $109 MPX-i version. It has ONLY presets, you can't adjust anything, but you get the Lexicon sound if you want it. There's a specific preset that works great along with putting the stock EQ from your DAW after it. I just set it up in Studio One to take screenshots. Here's the preset on the cheap Lexicon:

Lexicon.jpg

Then I used the stock Pro-EQ in Studio One to set up the EQ after it. You will also see a slight dip at 2KHz, you can do that if you wish. I do because it's part of what's called the Abbey Road Reverb trick, but it doesn't make that much of an impact. Overall, this cleans up the reverb nicely:

EQ for Reverb.jpg

So there's a place to start, 3.X on the room, filter out high and low junk and see how it works for you.

Oh, to add fuel to the fire, Christian Henson picked the Lexicon as his favorite reverb in a blindfolded shootout he did with Jake Jackson... probably regrets ever doing the video, lol! Here's the winning moment:


I'll give your suggestions a try when I have more time.
Ideally, I think it would be interesting to produce files where we all use the same reverb/reverb parameters, possibly EQ, plus same approximate loudness, to make the VSTis pianos "as comparable as possible".
Although I think it's very valid to use default settings too, as this probably shows one config as intended by the developers.
 
Thanks for the continued submissions to the thread. We want every piano rendered if we could. Making history everyone! Best. More MIDI recordings are processing. If anyone has some rock and jazz bits, classical, baroque ... happy to have them here.
 
Sorry, I don't think this got answered! Obviously there can be 38,691 answers to that question since it's subjective. HOWEVER, here's a setting to try to add a nice reverb to piano and orchestra. It's A suggestion, not THE suggestion... just a place to start (expecting some darts to fling, lol!):

Use a Hall reverb with room size between 3.2-3.8. Maybe your DAW has a hall reverb built in. Valhalla I think is only $50 and people say it's great.
Thanks so much for this help on reverb. Often times I will just take the stock verb because I have not yet mastered my own verb. I do have Altiverb and this video helped me last night tweak it. You cover a lot of things too that I incorporated. Work in progress.
 
At one time Ivory II was on my list, but then I came across the Embertone Walker 1955 and (the occasional) Noire and haven't looked back since. Having said that - I just listened to it again, and thinking 'man, that would sound even better through my Seventh Heaven...'. So maybe one more piano library and then I think I'm pretty much set for life. Maybe. :whistling:

*Edit
Yeah, definitely - listening to all of these, aside from Ivory and the Synchron Imperial maybe, to me that Walker still takes the cake. As for the Yamaha's... I've never liked the tone of them, sampled or no. Way too bright. :emoji_thinking:
 
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(Continued from https://vi-control.net/community/threads/ultimate-piano-comparison-thread.115615/post-4936431 ) because of the 10k character limits.

PieceEditorPianoMicReverbAdjustment
RaindropEWBechstein 280PlayerEW Hall LR3,0 dB
RaindropEWBechstein 280CloseEW Hall LR4,2 dB
RaindropEWBechstein 280MixEW Hall LR2,5 dB
RaindropEWBösendorfer 290PlayerEW Hall LR9,8 dB
RaindropEWBösendorfer 290CloseEW Hall LR10,6 dB
RaindropEWBösendorfer 290MixEW Hall LR8,6 dB
RaindropEWSteinway DPlayerEW Hall LR14,6 dB
RaindropEWSteinway DCloseEW Hall LR16,0 dB
RaindropEWSteinway DMixEW Hall LR14,3 dB
RaindropEWYamaha C7PlayerEW Hall LR4,9 dB
RaindropEWYamaha C7CloseEW Hall LR4,9 dB
RaindropEWYamaha C7MixEW Hall LR4,6 dB
RaindropSampleTekkRain Piano MkIINone5,6 dB
RaindropSampleTekkTVBO Yamaha C7Neumann SM2Large Hall7,4 dB
RaindropSampleTekkTVBO Yamaha C7Neumann U89 x2Large Hall6,0 dB
RaindropSampleTekkTVBO Yamaha C7Neumann SM2+U89Large Hall6,8 dB
RaindropSonuscoreThe Orchestra Grand PianoLid ClosedConcert Hall 17,4 dB
RaindropSonuscoreThe Orchestra Grand PianoLid OpenConcert Hall 17,7 dB
RaindropSoundMagicPiano One-6,7 dB
RaindropNative InstrumentsThe GiantBasic Giant6,4 dB
RaindropNative InstrumentsThe MaverickBasic Maverick13,2 dB
RaindropNative InstrumentsThe GrandeurBasic Grandeur5,5 dB
RaindropNative InstrumentsThe GentlemanBasic Gentleman6,3 dB
RaindropNative InstrumentsNoire PureBasic Pure17,0 dB
RaindropChristianHensonFamilyGrand14,5 dB
RaindropPresonusStudio Grand-8,6 dB
SonataEWBechstein 280PlayerEW Hall LR2,9 dB
SonataEWBechstein 280CloseEW Hall LR4,1 dB
SonataEWBechstein 280MixEW Hall LR2,3 dB
SonataEWBösendorfer 290PlayerEW Hall LR9,6 dB
SonataEWBösendorfer 290CloseEW Hall LR10,3 dB
SonataEWBösendorfer 290MixEW Hall LR8,8 dB
SonataEWSteinway DPlayerEW Hall LR14,2 dB
SonataEWSteinway DCloseEW Hall LR14,7 dB
SonataEWSteinway DMixEW Hall LR13,4 dB
SonataEWYamaha C7PlayerEW Hall LR3,1 dB
SonataEWYamaha C7CloseEW Hall LR3,3 dB
SonataEWYamaha C7MixEW Hall LR2,8 dB
SonataSampleTekkRain Piano MkIINone2,8 dB
SonataSampleTekkTVBO Yamaha C7Neumann SM2Large Hall6,0 dB
SonataSampleTekkTVBO Yamaha C7Neumann U89 x2Large Hall4,2 dB
SonataSampleTekkTVBO Yamaha C7Neumann SM2+U89Large Hall5,6 dB
SonataSonuscoreThe Orchestra Grand PianoLid ClosedConcert Hall 15,2 dB
SonataSonuscoreThe Orchestra Grand PianoLid OpenConcert Hall 15,7 dB
SonataSoundMagicPiano One-8,3 dB
SonataNative InstrumentsThe GiantBasic Giant5,0 dB
SonataNative InstrumentsThe MaverickBasic Maverick12,2 dB
SonataNative InstrumentsThe GrandeurBasic Grandeur4,2 dB
SonataNative InstrumentsThe GentlemanBasic Gentleman5,8 dB
SonataNative InstrumentsNoire PureBasic Pure15,9 dB
SonataChristianHensonFamilyGrand12,3 dB
SonataPresonusStudio Grand-11,8 dB
WalzEWBechstein 280PlayerEW Hall LR1,7 dB
WalzEWBechstein 280CloseEW Hall LR3,4 dB
WalzEWBechstein 280MixEW Hall LR1,4 dB
WalzEWBösendorfer 290PlayerEW Hall LR6,3 dB
WalzEWBösendorfer 290CloseEW Hall LR9,1 dB
WalzEWBösendorfer 290MixEW Hall LR7,9 dB
WalzEWSteinway DPlayerEW Hall LR13,1 dB
WalzEWSteinway DCloseEW Hall LR14,0 dB
WalzEWSteinway DMixEW Hall LR12,1 dB
WalzEWYamaha C7PlayerEW Hall LR-0,2 dB
WalzEWYamaha C7CloseEW Hall LR2,0 dB
WalzEWYamaha C7MixEW Hall LR1,6 dB
WalzSampleTekkRain Piano MkIINone2,6 dB
WalzSampleTekkTVBO Yamaha C7Neumann SM2Large Hall11,1 dB
WalzSampleTekkTVBO Yamaha C7Neumann U89 x2Large Hall4,1 dB
WalzSampleTekkTVBO Yamaha C7Neumann SM2+U89Large Hall10,7 dB
WalzSonuscoreThe Orchestra Grand PianoLid ClosedConcert Hall 14,5 dB
WalzSonuscoreThe Orchestra Grand PianoLid OpenConcert Hall 1-0,9 dB
WalzSoundMagicPiano One-7,9 dB
WalzNative InstrumentsThe GiantBasic Giant4,8 dB
WalzNative InstrumentsThe MaverickBasic Maverick11,3 dB
WalzNative InstrumentsThe GrandeurBasic Grandeur4,1 dB
WalzNative InstrumentsThe GentlemanBasic Gentleman6,1 dB
WalzNative InstrumentsNoire PureBasic Pure9,4 dB
WalzChristianHensonFamilyGrand12,4 dB
WalzPresonusStudio Grand-11,8 dB
 
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