Sampletekk 50% off sale this weekend

Thanks for the heads up.

I'm thinking about the White Grand Jr myself...I want a good pop/rock sound.  Are there any others that might do the trick?

I just downloading "Old Lady" and "The Emperor" now after receiving the scattergram for Sampletekk earlier today.  GAS is getting the better of me.

Thanks for that testimonial, Craig. I am seriously tempted to grab the "vertikal pop" for forty bucks. Apparently, it's the same piano as the "vertikal jazz", the difference being the latter is miked further away for more ambiance.

But I'd told myself I was done buying sample libraries!

The "Old Lady" is just beautiful, Bit!!  Thanks so much for the heads up.  I think she will love my studio:-)

No tech advice from me ol' pal, but Per has always been more than helpful if I've needed assistance.

No disparagement intended against Sampletekk, but I already own NI's Classic Piano Collection (Berlin Concert Grand, New York Concert Grand, Vienna Concert Grand, Upright Piano) and the TruePianos Amber module in Sonar, so do I really need another one? I listened to a few of the demos but couldn't tell much of a difference between them (granted, I'm half deaf). Or does it come down to playability?

ol' pal, since I started using a download manager the frequent frustrations of large downloads has become a thing of the past. I'm using one called "DownloadThemAll!" which runs as a Firefox plugin. I get far fewer corrupt or incomplete files now.

jma


No disparagement intended against Sampletekk, but I already own NI's Classic Piano Collection (Berlin Concert Grand, New York Concert Grand, Vienna Concert Grand, Upright Piano) and the TruePianos Amber module in Sonar, so do I really need another one? I listened to a few of the demos but couldn't tell much of a difference between them (granted, I'm half deaf). Or does it come down to playability?

FWIW JMA I have the NI stuff as well and I never use it. I know it's a matter of taste, but when I sit down with good headphones I can get lost playing the Emperor and Old Lady. The NI stuff is a huge step up from the days when I treasured my Korg SGrack, but I don't *enjoy* playing them nearly as much as I do the Sampletekk instruments.

They feel great to play, and they sound amazing. I bought the Old Lady years ago when it was full price and still distributed via PMI (this must be '04 ish I think) and thought it was a bargain then - $25 makes it an absolute steal. I can't play classical to save my life but when I hit the first chord and opening measures of Grieg's piano concerto #1, it makes me smile.

craigfowler

jma

No disparagement intended against Sampletekk, but I already own NI's Classic Piano Collection (Berlin Concert Grand, New York Concert Grand, Vienna Concert Grand, Upright Piano) and the TruePianos Amber module in Sonar, so do I really need another one? I listened to a few of the demos but couldn't tell much of a difference between them (granted, I'm half deaf). Or does it come down to playability?

FWIW JMA I have the NI stuff as well and I never use it. I know it's a matter of taste, but when I sit down with good headphones I can get lost playing the Emperor and Old Lady. The NI stuff is a huge step up from the days when I treasured my Korg SGrack, but I don't *enjoy* playing them nearly as much as I do the Sampletekk instruments.

They feel great to play, and they sound amazing. I bought the Old Lady years ago when it was full price and still distributed via PMI (this must be '04 ish I think) and thought it was a bargain then - $25 makes it an absolute steal. I can't play classical to save my life but when I hit the first chord and opening measures of Grieg's piano concerto #1, it makes me smile.

Thanks for the feedback, craig. I went back and auditioned all my pianos and after playing with TruePianos I was surprisingly disappointed in the entire NI collection, so much so that I'm thinking of uninstalling the whole thing to reclaim badly needed hard drive space. I ordered Old Lady because that seems to be a popular favorite with everyone. I still need a good upright so I also ordered Vertikal Pop. (I almost went with Rain but I noticed it's only 16 bit.)

sgotr


What do you guys think about the Harpsichord it's 12.00 and the sale price would be 6.00

demo
http://www.sampletekk.com...d/HarpsichordDemo1.mp3

BTW I think the Rain Piano sounds good
http://www.sampletekk.com...ano/RainPianoDemo5.mp3

The Harpsichord is the only thing I wished I hadn't got, but for $6, why not :-)

Rain Piano is a one trick pony, but it's a nice pony.

craigfowler

sgotr


What do you guys think about the Harpsichord it's 12.00 and the sale price would be 6.00

demo
http://www.sampletekk.com...d/HarpsichordDemo1.mp3

BTW I think the Rain Piano sounds good
http://www.sampletekk.com...ano/RainPianoDemo5.mp3

The Harpsichord is the only thing I wished I hadn't got, but for $6, why not :-)

Rain Piano is a one trick pony, but it's a nice pony.

thanks Craig

The "black grand close" sounds really good to me. Unfortunately I only have Kontakt player.

jma


I'm having problems with Old Lady and Virtikal Pop. Both the sound quality and the responsiveness of the keys are lacking. There is very little dynamic range, I have to really slam down on the keys to get any volume, and then the sound decays unnaturally, like it's being gated. All my other Kontakt pianos sound and play much better by comparison. Do the SampleTekk instruments require additional configuration in Kontakt? My instruments sound nothing like the demos. If I can't get these working properly I will never use them.

Some of the NKI files in the pack may sound like that as they are not designed to be used in isolation. You have to load the multis.
try the files  "Full old lady by clau67 v7_1.nkm"

craigfowler

jma

I'm having problems with Old Lady and Virtikal Pop. Both the sound quality and the responsiveness of the keys are lacking. There is very little dynamic range, I have to really slam down on the keys to get any volume, and then the sound decays unnaturally, like it's being gated. All my other Kontakt pianos sound and play much better by comparison. Do the SampleTekk instruments require additional configuration in Kontakt? My instruments sound nothing like the demos. If I can't get these working properly I will never use them.

Definitely not normal JMA - but I don't know how to fix it! The pop is not as responsive IMO, but there should be tons of dynamic range with the Old Lady and there are tons of layers IIRC.

When I got mine quite a while ago there were some great patches and some not great (or unloadable) ones. Might be well worth an email to Per about this because once you get them working I think you'll like them alot.

I sent him an e-mail last night. I'll update if we get it sorted out.

Glyn Barnes

Some of the NKI files in the pack may sound like that as they are not designed to be used in isolation. You have to load the multis.
try the files  "Full old lady by clau67 v7_1.nkm"

I tried all the instrument files in both packages. Everything sounds lackluster. Another way to describe it is like my PCR-M80 doesn't have enough "oomph". (If my other Kontakt pianos didn't sound so much better by comparison, I'd think it was a keyboard problem.) I even adjusted the velocity setting on the keyboard, but the key response is still poor. Also, the sound is definitely worse in the higher octaves, where the notes have an additional "hissing" sound that is very noticeable when the keys are stuck hard enough to get a decent volume.

I ran across an interesting tidbit...the Steinway D that originally came bundled with Kontakt 2 is in fact a stripped-down version of the PMI Old Lady. This according to one of the PMI devs.

This came as a surprise to me, because I never thought the Kontakt version was anything special . Looking at the mapping, it's clear why: The Old Lady's 10 velocity layers were cut down to just 3 layers for the Kontakt 2 version.