Alicia´s Keys is at 15€... I know it had a lot of praise back in the day, but is quite an old library. Is it still worth it, at that price?

Not at all in my opinion, it is maybe the worse library I own, it doesn’t sound very good and the dynamics are horrible. But maybe it is because I play solo piano and this may work better in a mix. Maybe check the pianos from Flufly Audio if you are looking for a cheap piano, I don’t own them but it seems they sound decent.

I own the Bluethner and it doesn’t suck at all as the other guy say, I think he is wrong. The Bosendorfer upright is their best I would say but the Bluethner is very good as well. The one I didn’t like too much is the Steinway, because it mics are too far, and the Bosendorfer 289 VC, because the high end is too cristal clear that it trend to sound fake (the low and middle notes sound perfect, I only have issues with the high notes)

The Embertone Walker 1955, to my ears, has the most natural reproduction of overtones when playing sustained notes and chords. The only downside is high CPU usage, I network two computers to increase polyphony.

I also like the Ivory 2 Steinway, it's quite dynamic and fluid-sounding.

Yeah, that Embertone Walker is still up there with the very best.

Like I’ve already just said in the real sounding Vsti guitar sounding thread ( The most realistic guitar VSTi ) about how Pianotek is supposed to be better:

- sounds wrong/plastic to me in the high registers.

Walker D is the best sounding to my ears but, maybe, lacks the real behavior of a real piano. My opinion obviously.

Which is why I love both

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As for Pianoteq, I suggest you get at least Standard: it allows you to morph and layer. Lots of creative fun to be had.
For the three packs, as you’ll get to pick one more than with Stage, I’d go for the Steinway double (NY and Hamburg D), the Blüthner (for its wonderful mids), and the Bechstein (a digitalized marvel). Also have a look at the electric piano bundle. Or the guitar.

Pianoteq is great in terms of playability and clarity, but some huge sample based pianos are as good as Pianoteq with more natural atmosphere. Check out Synchron, Walker, etc.

These days, we use felt pianos more and more, and Pianoteq does not offer convincing felt piano patch.

For felt there are even free libraries that are nice.

Regarding what packs to pick for Pianoteq: just do a prolonged demo period and play different models. Same song, different models. See what you like.

For me the Blüthner is a must, but the rest of the models will vary person to person.

Check some Pianoteq samples I posted

Modartt releases Pianoteq 8

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Just wanted to let everyone know that Jamie SEA who has been very active on this thread and on Gearspace in general has passed away today from a heart attack.

Jamie was a great pianist. You might know him most from this thread for always speaking highly of Sampletekk White Grand. It was his favorite product as a pianist, hands down. I tried to convert Jamie over the years to like and love other piano vsts, but without luck. White Grand remained his favorite tool when he wanted to express himself as a pianist.

Jamie provided several piano demos for Sampletekk, which they used on their website. He was also a big part of the Matrix free expansion for Scarbee EP-88, which he helped create a lot of patches for.

Jamie was a great pianist and a very close friend of mine. We used to text on a daily basis for more than a decade. He was a great person and a great husband to his wife Nadine.

RIP Jamie SEA

RIP Jamie

Sorry for your loss. RIP, Jamie.

I remember his posts from several years ago, when I was more involved in the gearslutz, as we knew it then, community.

Sad about his exit, but we all must go someday. Such is the brevity of our lives, it ends.

He has done his bit.

For a while, and it may have been covered already by others, IK MultiMedia had Pianoverse bundle - 9 pianos in a bundle on offer for 99 bucks or 99 Euros. Not sure if that offer is still available.

I bought this a few weeks ago. At that kind of pricing, it was impossible to ignore. I would hate to have to pay the full price of 800 bucks, if the offer ever expired.

Downloading and installing have been a bit of a pain, and a learning curve, cos the documentation on installation is either non existent or poorly written. I eventually figured it out through trial and error. Part of the challenge is that there are aspects of the install which you can do via an offline install of downloads from your user acccount, or from their plugin manager app, and there really is no comprehensive guide on which to use, and what the difference, if any is there between them.

My initial thoughts. Definitely more consistent sounding than something like Waves Rhapsody, when I load up the Fazioli grand in Pianoverse., and more like I was playing a real piano in a real room.

Definitely a velocity mapping tool, really helps me, I use midiCurve - a midi plugin, to adjust the touch to match my MIDI controller. Without this important caveat, pretty much ALL piano virtual instruments, sound like BS.

Pianoverse does have velocity curve tweaking and allows saving presets of this, which can be used across more than one piano instrument/patch. But I prefer, much prefer using MidiCurve, cos I can use the same tool across all my virtual instruments, and save presets for all of them in one plugin, in a most consistent manner.

How does Spectrasonics Keyscape compare with current Piano Vsts? I quite like the Rhodes, the pianos are goodish, maybe I'm expecting too much? Is there a VST similar to the top Yamaha Digital pianos? TIA.

Jamie Sea was a true class act. I will think of him every time I play the White. So helpful and a true prodigy. I’m so sorry to hear about someone who had so much….

I wondered if I may
You have the Bluthner Donethur?
I have the bluthner sitting in a cupboard
and am running windows 11
When I say I have the Bluthner I mean the program
Blüthner Digital Model One (BDMO).
I can not get this running under Windows 11
Have you a solution Yourself or others?
Thanks
Pounamu

Regarding SEA... that's extremely sad, and thank you for letting us know, keepitsimple. I hope his family gets through it all with as much peace as possible.

Regarding this...

I think Keyscape is still fantastic, and it's one of my favorites for all things piano, whether acoustic or electric. I love the C7 for modern-minded productions since it's so tightly controlled, the baked-in room sound is minimal and the releases feel great. The effects are great, everything is very well done. It has some haters, and this stuff is supremely subjective... so I'll just say that for my personal taste and work, Keyscape is always a very good option.

My favorite acoustic piano VIs these days are definitely the VI Labs instruments, though (Modern D, Modern U, Ravenscroft). Those are the state of the art, as far as I'm concerned.

I concur. It's clearly not for everyone, but if you're looking for a contemporary piano sound, Keyscape has got it. You will need a good controller, though.

I will say that my love for its Rhodes sounds has cooled somewhat, as of late. I guess that started when I had the real thing here.

I really look forward to trying out their Modern D someday. Until Keyscape, Ravenscroft was my go-to, and I still use it often as I find it easier to play. But it has gotten a little long in the tooth, showing its age.

Something I love about Ravenscroft – and, funny enough, the venerable Sampletekk pianos, which are still awesome – is that it can fit into such a huge variety of spaces with judicious tweaking. I don't find most presets useful, but the fundamental sound and implementation are still pretty superb.

Modern D is the best of the best, for my taste. It has everything, and I'm normally a Yamaha guy... If Lance ever makes a C7, I think it'll be game over, for me at least.

I agree. I don't like the internal FX, I recommend disabling the tape emulation and pretty much everything else. The raw sound is really good.

For solo piano I have settled on Ivory 3 - German D. The Ivory 3 pianos, as far as I know, are unique in that they use samples plus modelling which completely eliminates the machine gun effect.

For Rhodes, I think the Alex Magor Suitcase 73 is hard to beat.

Sorry to hear this; RIP. I'm a Sampletekk fan as well, esp their upright "Rain" piano. I haven't bought any of the grands as yet but from what I can tell of them, will sooner or later (I'm just not recording atm). They have awesome sales off and on.