Best virtual piano for Nashville demos?

  Title says is all...I've been using a PMI Bosendorfer 290 for years which is 8 years old and no longer supported by EastWest. Recording mostly modern country (i.e. Lady Antebellum, etc.). Thoughts?

I think Synthogy's Ivory II Grands is the best package out there. It has a Steinway D, a Bosendorfer, and a Yamaha. I agree with peregrine on using the Yamaha for a bright Nashville sound, although I am personally a Steinway fan. Ivory II has built in EQ you can use to brighten up the Steinway or Bosendorfer, if you like.

I used the PMI Bosendorfer 290 for a few years.
But about a month ago i went for...
Cinesamples 'Piano In Blue' 
I find it real nice for anything. 
Great Value for around $100.00
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbwiErdgG8E

http://cinesamples.com/products/piano-in-blue/

Garry

As mentioned by Cecelius the PMI Bosendorfer 290 is availabe from Sampletekk in a few formats. If you particularly like this piano and have a host that is Kontakt, HALion, EXS24 and Gigastudio compatble you can pick it uo for $25 for the next few days.

http://www.sampletekk.com/proddetail.php?prod=PMIDELIVER-001-FORMAT

Re: peregine - Thanks so much man...I just pulled the trigger with your promo code without even hesitating. Downloading now. Can't wait to try it out! I'm tempted to buy ALL the pianos recommended in this thread!!! =)

 Yes, I have both. The Bosendorfer 290 is probably the better bet. I found the 'Old Lady' sample set had some disconcerting pedal thumps which I disliked and couldn't seem to get rid of. Having said that I've been running both of these through the rather archaic Kompakt sample player which sternly warns me that these sample sets 'may not play back as intended'. Kontakt 5 is currently being installed as we speak, since their crossgrade offer was so attractive (120 euros if you own a qualifying product, and to my surprise Garritan Personal Orchestra counts as a qualifying product). So it's possible I may get better results when I try K5. Do try the free Piano One VST, though. It's a rather nice Yamaha C7 which sounds surprisingly natural and is absolutely free, so worth a look. Very short load times, too.

 Actually now I have Kontakt 5 up and running I have to say the Old Lady sounds much better. I can control the body and pedal outputs separately and the result is much much nicer. She has an ethereal quality and lovely singing tone and a rich plummy bass whereas the Bosendorfer is somewhat brighter with a steelier bass. They're really both rather nice. The pianos that come with K5 are pretty crappy. I have to say at 25 each, now I've tried them in K5, really, both are worth having. I paid a lot more than that a few years ago. They are superb value especially as you get the raw WAV samples so you can do almost anything with them. (tip: run 'em all through the free R8Brain sample convertor and make a set of 16 bit 44.1KHz samples. They take less resource (and are a darn sight smaller), and since the instrument's already sampled, you're not losing any fidelity by so doing. PS: I really dislike TruePianos. A very odd 'plasticky' quality to the sound which I loathe. I know it's a modelled piano but it really does, to my ears, sound artificial. Some people really love it though and I'm told it does sit well in a mix. But since I mainly noodle around as a soloist, it just doesn't inspire me.

Re: AJ - Can you explain ONE MORE TIME for amateurs such as myself the pros/reasons for using r8brain? Are you implying that the load times are faster and use less system resources? I have a brand new Dell XPS with 16GB Ram that I can't wait to "challenge" - ha! Also - how do you all insert paragraph breaks so that your posts don't look like one long sentence (like mine...)?

peregrine


Just remembered Best Service has a promo going until 8/12. The code is promo2012 and gives you a euro30
discount at checkout. That makes the Galaxy D about $96, I think. An absolute steal deal.

Thank you for this peregrine,
 
I just picked up the Vindage D and it's pretty damn wonderful ... Half Pedalling - YeHaa.
 
I just set up my expression pedal on CC64, had a quick play and set the range - WOW.
 
This is one very nice package, it's going to get thrown in to some old projects to redo them.
 
Thanks man - I owe you one :-)
 
 
Cheers - Cliff

vintagevibe

g_randybrown


So the free True Piano in X1 wouldn't be worth trying?

True Pianos doesn't get the respect it deserves.  It lacks the sympathetic resonance that my Garritan Steinway and NI Alecia's Keys have but many (including my self) feel it's the best playing piano out there with the most realistic dynamics.  In the end it's all about how it sounds in the mix.

I'm tempted to the full version a try, the bundled module that came with producer didn't quite do it for me.
 
I'm sure it could be made to work for me in certain mixes. And you can be sure that you're not getting the best in a bundled module, they want to whet your appetite enough for you to head on over and grab the full monty.
 
 
There was a thread a wee while back ... found it here: http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2447517
where someone pointed out a Xmas special plus the "Cakewalk producer discount", bringing it in at $88 USD.
 
I'm tempted based on the content of that thread, and yours here too.
 
With the "Producer Discount" (see link in other thread) it's about $137.00.
 
 
Cheers - Cliff
 

Guitarhacker


NO NOT obsess over the piano.

If you are submitting songs to Nashville publishers, you should understand that in Nashville, more than any place else on the planet.... it is about the song. 

A nice, clean, well produced "demo" will work just fine..... from a full band production to a simple well recorded voice/guitar or voice/piano demo. 

No one is going to listen in Nashville and say, wow that is a really good song but that piano sample is a Bosendorf.... I wish they had used a Steinway, then I would have signed the song..... nope that is not going to happen. 

You want the song to be the best it can be. Because you don't want them saying wow, that is a really nice sounding piano but the song sucks...... next....

Wow them with the song. 


Personally, I don't even worry about the piano parts... I use the cakewalk steinburg collection.... I paid $20 for the samples.  So far in reviews of my music from Nashville's hit songwriters, not one has commented on the piano (good or bad) but they have made comments of the song itself.... because in Nashville............ It's all about the song. 

All  true but if the song is already the best it can be then dressing it in nice clothes is definitely a plus.   They are used to hearing great mixes and I don't think you can always count on peoples professional objectivity.   But, of course, a great mix won't make them think an average song is great.

Chris, I am not discounting one least bit the absolute need for a master quality demo.  Needless to say, the bar is extremely high in Nashville (and the music biz in general) not only for the song writing quality itself but also for the production of the song. The days of home demo's on cassette being accepted are long, long past. 

I was privileged to hear a "demo" for Rascal Flatts a few years ago at a songwriter's convention seminar. It was one of their #1 hits. The only way you could tell it wasn't RF was when the singer started... the voice was the only giveaway. 

Are you with NSAI? If not, that is a good organization to join to get feedback on writing and production for Nashville town. 

On piano tone..... Ivory sounds really good. I think Janet uses Ivory samples so look her up and have a listen to her piano. I was very impressed with the tracks tone she has sent me over the years of that sample. 

 I use several and the main one is Cake's Steinway. It is a reasonably good piano.  I think the piano sample quality matter more if the demo is a simple piano vocal demo.... then it is 50% of the song so yes, it needs to be the best it could be. If, on the other hand, it is a piano in a band performance, the need to use a top quality piano sample is not as critical since it is not the "star" of the song. I mostly do band production with piano adding fills and background. 

"vintagevibe"
It lacks the sympathetic resonance that my Garritan Steinway and NI Alecia's Keys have but many (including my self) feel it's the best playing piano out there with the most realistic dynamics.

Check out TruePianos "Options" page to activate sympathetic resonance. It's available (at the cost of a reasonable cpu hit). 

This is the tricky thing about Nashville.....depending on who the producer is, they may want to hear their own spin on a demo (which you would think a piano or guitar/vocal would suffice......) wrong.......it HAS to sound like a finished master