For a long time I’ve searched for the best alternative as a day to day piano for practicing in the VST realm. I own a Clavinova CLP-745, which is a great instrument by itself, but in all honesty, there’s a single piano voice that actually fits my taste (CFX), and being originally an upright piano user, I wanted that kind of sound on my digital too.

As a background, I have a lot of experience on Yamaha’s U1, and played the U3 several times (but not exactly intimate with it), and also played several different upright pianos including Steinway (also Boston and Essex), Kawai and Yamaha (even the more expensive YUS series). Sound memory is not exactly pristine with human beings, but I’m confident enough that I’m more than capable of judging the Modern U based on my time with the U1 (my favorite upright piano) in terms of sound.

Installation:
The process is kind of tedious, simply because you’ll need to install a few different products if you’re not a UVI Workstation user. There’s a simple step by step installer that works just fine. You’ll also need an account on iLok in order to register the product. Nowadays it seems like a standard path for several developers.

Interface:
The UVI Workstation, used for loading the Modern U itself, is on the same league of something like the Kontakt Player/3. With the Modern U loaded, you get what I’d call a pretty interface. There’s a lot of controls for every important parameter of the piano on the main “page”, but there’s also two extra pages for the velocity curve and fine tune of each note.

For me, the original size of the interface is simply too small, and I need to use glasses with it (something that I don’t need with several other competitors like VSL). With resizing (which is kind of hidden) at 150%, the interface still keeps its prettiness while a lot more accessible.

Features:
One of the things that are quite special about the plugin is the amount of care they took while sampling the instrument, which is noticeable with all the available features.

The main sound of the piano is recorded thru six different microphone positions, but there’s also a fully recorded una corda sample (soft pedal for an upright, but I’ll keep using the una corda term), sordino pedal, half pedal and silent strike samples. One other very cool feature is the recorded, rather than software generated, symphatetic resonance, which in full polyphony (40 for the resonance) is realistic enough for a classical pianist for more than 20 years. There’s also pedal noise, that resembles (at default values), what you’d hear in person with a true piano (and not a recorded one). The recorded pedal resonance isn’t as realistic in terms of volume and seemed way louder than what I’m used to with real pianos.

Reverberation is provided either by the room recording of the U3 (by combining up to three different microphones) or the included reverb, that is basic, but very good.

On the MIDI panel, there’s control over the velocity curves for both amplitude and tone, and provides different tonalities for touch, generating some valuable variations on the sound of the plugin. The default curves are almost precisely what you’d get from the real U3 (at least with the CLP 745, whose keybed action is also close enough to the U1). The other panel includes a tuner for each key, to give it some variation on the scale and allow some realistic untuned pianistic sound.

There’s one thing that I’d like different though… the way the program starts, is always on the defaut preset, and not the last saved one. This can be managed by saving a multi inside UVI Workstation.

System requirements:
I’d say the Modern U is really good at CPU consume, and flawless with the setup I use (Windows 10, i7 10th gen, 32GB RAM, SSD). Using max polyphony, with 3 mics, full sympathetic resonance and both una corda and sordino pedals loaded, and software reverb, didn’t get any hiccups on standard playing.

For the sake of test drive, I couldn't get it to cut notes by playing the coda from Chopin’s first Ballade while exaggerating on pedal use (intentionally keeping it depressed all the time). The other things I’ve tried, such as chromatic scale upwards and downwards while sustaining the notes, didn’t get me any problems either, even doing it with octaves.

In comparison, I’d say that VSL Synchron Pianos is a lot worse. On the Synchron, if you start adding different mics (and they’re really good!) while increasing the available polyphony, it isn’t hard to overdrive CPU and get to mayhem land.

One other appreciated feature is the 6 GB disk space requirement. For the quality of the sampling material, I’d say it is pure gold! I’m actually impressed they’ve made it so “tiny” in comparison with other sampled pianos. Garritan CFX is on the 120 GB mark, while the Synchron pianos gets to the 200+ GB use. The compression used on the Modern U and other VI Labs products is quite remarkable for what you get in terms of sound.

Sound:
Describing sounds is not always easy, and such task needs to be provided with sound examples. I’ll try my best to provide what I think is the most realistic piano sound you can get with the Modern U, while also showing a few of the features while doing it.

The included captures of the U3 are beautiful. There’s a sense of realism that is not always present with VSTs, but since the recording seemed to be made on a small environment, you don’t get so much intrusion of ambience with the samples, and they’re crystal clear to be processed as you want. This is especially true for the close captures and for the player perspective.

https://gearspace.com/board/attachme...close-pm40.mp3
Close PM40 Mic
Chopin Nocturne Op 9 No 2 Excerpt

Room mic is beautiful and what I’d recommend in terms of realism if you’re sticking to a single microphone. There’s just the correct amount of ambience (which is just a bit) and it’s the one that reminded me the most of playing a real U3 (using solo).

https://gearspace.com/board/attachme...-room-c414.mp3
Room Mic
Chopin Nocturne Op 9 No 2 Excerpt

The soundboard and the mono mics allow some tweaking to the sound by combining it with the other mics. Used the soundboard when I wanted a little more bass without any extra EQ. The mono isn’t something I’d really use, at least not for solo playing of classical piano pieces.

https://gearspace.com/board/attachme...board-room.mp3
Soundboard + Room Mic
Chopin Nocturne Op 9 No 2 Excerpt

All of the una corda and sordino pedal captures are beyond glorious and quite unique to the VI Labs libraries. The una corda samples are different than simply applying a filter (like many other libraries use, including the expensive VSL) and sound realistic, with a more mellow and limited sound coloration than the standard sound. The special tone of the sordino, with a mellow felt piano sound is just perfect, better than any others I’ve tried/played (VST).

https://gearspace.com/board/attachme...-una-corda.mp3
Sordino and una corda
Chopin Nocturne Op 27 No 2 Excerpt
Changing between sordino, una corda and regular sound

The sound of the pedal resonance is kind of unrealistic. The reason is that if you simply use the sustain pedal without any note being held, you’ll instantly hear the “effect” in an exaggerated manner. On the real instrument it is far less pronounced, and this is amendable by reducing the volume of this effect. The sound of the pedal itself (like, the mechanism) is well balanced and realistic from the player perspective, if that’s what you want, but I’d certainly put it back for recording purposes.

Velocity curves:


Every piano VST includes the ability to change the velocity curvas, which seems to me, originally an acoustic piano guy, like a very nice way of “voicing” each piano. This couldn’t be different with the Modern U. What I liked the most is that, besides the default curve, you get some preset curves for different touches that might be better balanced for your controller or type of piano playing/touch.

Tune:


You can tune each key of an octave by either cents or ratio. It turns the Modern U into a realistic untuned typical upright piano used at home. The way it makes easy to adjust the whole piano in a single row compensates the lack of control thru all the scale, but that would be the desirable feature for someone who values that kind of control. Here, like with the velocity curves, there are presets for different tuning scales (Werckmeister temperament for example) and even for an untuned piano.

Reverb and Tone:
Starting with the reverb, I was impressed on how good and realistic it sounded. It’s a very nice convolution reverb with several presets. The small ambients on presets are more than enough for the musician, and I sticked to those while playing. It gave a lot of life to the overall feeling of Modern U and something I’ll use all the time (with low wet level).

https://gearspace.com/board/attachme...music-room.mp3
Beethoven Pathetique Sonata Excerpt
Music Room Reverb

https://gearspace.com/board/attachme...-cathedral.mp3
Bach Goldberg Variations Excerpt
Bright Chapel Reverb

Tone knob, together with the timbre control, works like some kind of EQ for the piano sound but it’s more than simply that, allowing you to get a mellower or sharper sound. There are several variations of the original sound by combining these two controls. You can also use a full EQ on the + button for a standard equalizer.


Playability:
Besides evaluating the sound itself, here I’m even more subjective in terms of how it feels against a real piano. This is something that I usually feel with every different library, that the recorded piano isn’t in front of me.

https://gearspace.com/board/attachme...piano-room.mp3
Chopin Prelude Op 28 No 20

As subjective as it is, this is a totally personal feeling. When I’ve first played the library I was somewhat not entirely confident that it would be enough, at least as for the feeling of the real U1/U3. The sound comes close, but there’s a feeling that somehow it lacks the bottom end of these pianos in person, like if it is a polite recording of the thing, instead of the true sound. I’ve felt it with the VSL libraries also (especially the D, nothing alike a few that I’ve played myself). Probably has something to do on how soundwaves vibrates everything around them, something you don’t get with digital pianos and libraries, even with refined amplifier systems.

https://gearspace.com/board/attachme...-pink-room.mp3
Chopin Ballade No 3 Excerpt

Anyway, as for how it plays, I’d say it’s marvelous. There’s no strange reaction to velocity, the staccato samples actually feel like staccato, the half pedal simply works (I don’t have to adjust how I use the sustain pedal, unlike other libraries), all in all it is very expressive and close to what you get on the U1 and U3 in terms of tonal variation and color.

https://gearspace.com/board/attachme...lose-piano.mp3
Chopin Ballade No 3 Excerpt

The one thing that isn’t exactly as real is the noise from the body of a piano, for pedal and even other noises such as the wood noise on higher pitched notes. The resonance of the pedal (without any key pressed) is totally unrealistic and behaves kind of weirdly.

All this, of course, is related to how I’m using the thing. I don’t have a gigantic speaker system, and played it mainly thru headphones, which is a very good impression of how the sound of a U3 feels, but not the whole experience.

https://gearspace.com/board/attachme...-u-dynamic.mp3
Chopin Ballade No 1 Excerpt

Comparisons:
Have stated before that I searched for a piano VST to purchase for a long time, so I had to compare several stuff before actually choosing the Modern U as “the one”.

There are two different categories which I’ve first searched for: sampled and algorithmically generated ones. For the first, I’ve tried several, but for artificial ones I’ve went with Pianoteq, which allows a deep test drive ad eternum with a few keys omitted.

Pianoteq is actually a very interesting product in how it allows extensive editing for different pianos. I’ve enjoyed it a lot, but in the end, there were always a feeling of artificial, from pretty much everything, including attack of the sound and overall feeling of the “recording”. It isn’t the same as playing a piano from the player perspective, but rather listening to something recorded or being played farther from the musician, which seems to be a problem with all libraries (including sampled ones). Even so, it has its merits in terms of expressiveness, which is immense, and also the quality of sympathetic resonance – VSL can’t touch it.

Jumping to the sampled ones, there’s VSL Synchron Pianos… this is a very solid and professional library, with several pianos that I’ve just tried more recently (they’ve finally allowed a 30-day trial of all their pianos). For now, used just two of them – the Steinway D and Bosendorfer upright. Concentrating on the last one, I think it’s a matter of taste, but the Modern U sounds a bit better and more expressive. For the Bosendorfer I had to adjust several mics to get to where I needed. It is also WAY harder to keep control without artifacts, simply because it is a very high CPU hog when using several mics and high voice count, even with a decent enough PC. I thought that sound-wise the Bosendorfer was a bit boxey and muffled, and not exactly my thing, although beautiful. I still have to try a few others.

As for comparison with the Clavinova, and even a few other hardware digital pianos, I’d say that Modern U and VSL are more like the real thing. The Clavinova is good enough, and better than I anticipated, and the playability is better than several of the tested pianos, which might be a combination of how it is optimized as a single unit. For the upright sound, the Clavinova is simply unacceptable – the sample is horrible. Since I was expecting a better upright, I needed that before any concert grand, and the Modern U was a great choice. To me, Yamaha made a really good job with the playbility by using a mixed approach of sampling and modelling, but the only voices I’d use is the standard CFX and the occasionally the Bosendorfer, both binaural captures that are “good enough” for everyday practice.

There are some that I didn’t try myself, such as Ivory, East West, and a lot more. The one that got my attention the most was certainly the Garritan CFX, and I can see myself getting it in the future, since it seems to sound better than the one inside the CLP-745 (at least from recordings, it sounds better than all others, to be honest).

Conclusions:
Buying an expensive piano library isn’t something I would recommend the amateur player, or someone that only needs a simple piano sound for contemporary music in a non-classical environment. To appreciate all the work and subtleties on the recording one must really know what to expect.

I’ve searched for decent upright piano libraries, and being honest, Native Instruments with all their offers weren’t enough to please “my appetite”, so I was kind of limited between the Bosendorfer from VSL, the Modern U and the K4 inside Pianoteq.

I can tell you that I’m happy with my choice, specifically with CPU optimization coupled with a beautiful and expressive upright piano sound. Pianoteq was good, but not realistic enough, although I’m sure that I’d have a hard discerning it from a real piano on something well recorded/played. The Bosendorder, while beautiful, lacked in expressivity (the tone is somewhat limited to my taste), and the sympathetic resonance was non-existent – the sound was “too perfect” for me.

Modern U ticked all the boxes in my search, and I’m confident that it is the best upright piano library available. There are some critics on the noises for pedal and pedal resonance, but everything else feels right, the captured U3 is astonishing in sound, the interface is straightforward and clear. All in all, excellent.

In fact, my experience with the Modern U was so positive, that 20 days later I decided to also get the Ravenscroft 275 by VI Labs, and I’m quite happy with it. The overall resonance of both libraries feels like a real piano, and it’s kind of hard to go somewhere else after experimenting with both of these.

Pros:

• Realistic upright piano library with a detailed capture of a Yamaha U3, including una corda and sordino samples and several different mics
• Well optimized for CPU performance and disk space
• Excellent reverb algorithm to create necessary ambiences

Cons:

• Full price-tag might be hard for several users ($180)
• Lack of true standalone application
• Artificial noises from pedal and pedal resonance

Attached Thumbnails

       

Attached Files

Modern U - Close + Soundboard + Player - Music Room.mp3 (3.39 MB, 517 views)

Modern U - Close Mics - Cathedral.mp3 (2.89 MB, 502 views)

Modern U - Close Mics + Room - Close Piano Room.mp3 (5.91 MB, 493 views)

Modern U - Close PM40.mp3 (2.80 MB, 535 views)

Modern U - Player + PM40 + Room - Close Piano.mp3 (2.66 MB, 461 views)

Modern U - Player + PM40 + Room - Pink Room.mp3 (4.16 MB, 494 views)

Modern U - Room C414.mp3 (2.80 MB, 522 views)

Modern U - Sordino e Una Corda.mp3 (3.13 MB, 502 views)

Modern U - Soundboard + Room.mp3 (2.80 MB, 493 views)

Modern U -Dynamic.mp3 (10.37 MB, 484 views)