I've noticed that Acoustica's Pianissimo sounds great as a standalone instrument. But whenever I use the vst inside Cakewalk, Sonar, or even Mixcraft 8, it's built in reverb creates a distorted fuzz that's quite annoying. Are the DAWs to blame or is there a setting I can use to fix this?

You'd think the two should sound the same, given that they are exactly the same code under the hood. But however they may differ, I can't imagine any way the host could cause it.
 
What happens if you save a preset in the standalone version, record some MIDI and then play it back with the plugin after loading that preset?
 
I know I see a big difference between playing back MIDI that I've actually played on a keyboard versus hand-planting in the PRV. That comes down to velocity. I'm a heavy-handed keyboard player, so I very often have to back off velocities in the PRV after recording a part. For pianos especially, they tend to sound much better when played at lower velocities than what my angry fingers naturally produce.

Lol angry fingers

I hope you're right bit, but there's a clear difference here. I've asked about it on the MC forums so maybe there's a fix in the mix.
 
P.S. No angry fingers here.

Maybe there really is a binary difference between the plugin and standalone versions. It's not impossible. Compare the datestamps on the two files and see if there is a significant difference. That might tell you if they were both compiled around the same time, which I'd expect since there is almost certainly a common codebase. If there is a large difference, it may be that an installation has gone awry at some time in the past, resulting in the plugin and executable being different versions.
 
One way to test that would be to use a VST host wrapper such as SAVIHost to do an apples-to-apples comparison.

Good idea. Will try that. Thanks bit.

I downloaded and installed the standalone separately from the DLLs which installed with Mixcraft.
Also looks like there's 2 different installs. I may have to remove them and reinstall it.
 
The SaviHost DLL still has distorted reverb tho not as prevalent as in the DAW environment where you can hear subtle ambient noises resembling a person sliding & shifting on the piano bench making it creak. Very weird.

Hmm. The distortion is present inside SAVIHost, but not in the standalone. That suggests the DLL and EXE might indeed be fundamentally different software. Next step is to determine if the two are configured exactly the same way, by using a common preset.
 
Often, ambient noises are user-configurable, although for pianos that usually means pedal noises, not butt-slides. However, the bench creaking might be part of the pedal noise samples. A microphone aimed at the pedals might well pick up such extraneous noises that the mics inside the piano would not.
 
If there's a way to adjust pedal noises, turn them completely off when making your comparisons. Not all piano instruments let you do that easily, unfortunately.

Yup. I set them up exactly the same. These "ambient" noises are NOT supposed to be there but are artifacts from the distortion. All other user controllable effects are off. I'm at the point of removing and reinstalling everything and will let you know what happens.

This is in multiple hosts. Weird. I just tried it on my system and I don't hear any such artifacts. Pianissimo sounds just as great as ever.
 
I never use the built-in reverb myself, but I did just now to test it. How does it sound in your hosts without the reverb? Are your hosts picking up the 64-bit version or the 32-bit version?