I'll pile on another +1 for TruePianos.

http://www.truepianos.com

Great sound, playability, expressiveness, and super-quick loading for a piano in this league! They have modeled the string resonance very well. I've had in-depth exchanges with Roel de Witt over there, and I can say that they are definitely with-it and forward-thinking.

Roel informed me (well, us) on another thread here that they have plans for further engine improvements, including enhancements for more modeling of real mechanisms and nuances. That, plus more piano models ("jewels") and presets. This product is already great and should expect it to continually get greater.

Another TruePianos user here. I don't really consider myslelf to be much of a piano player though so I might not be that credible. My pianist friends are all amazed by it so that's gotta count for something?

ORIGINAL: garrigus

Native Instruments Akoustik Piano
http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/newsinfo.asp?NewsID=2627

Scott

+1

ORIGINAL: Houndawg

... and have used NI Akoustic Piano for quite some time... really enjoy it. However, I've become less and less impressed with NI as a company overall ...

+1 again

ORIGINAL: mgh

i find it hard to find a decent piano sound too, but then i have a piano...

+1 Unlike some other sampled/emulated instruments, piano is tough. Good luck if your trying to find one that measures up to the one in the living room! Some are better/closer than others, but its really all relative.

ORIGINAL: davidvector
but for the most part it sounds pretty good and it's cool that it doesn't chew up a ton of RAM or stream samples from disk. During normal playing, I'm never going above 25% on one of my 4 cores (while the other 3 are at 10% or less).

I really love how fast it loads. It's really the right approach for today's processing power. It looks like your process load is already very manageable, but if needed, there is a setting to reduce max polyphony to save some CPU.

I've always found it hard to get piano sounds I like, because so many of them are better suited to classical music and sound too dark to cut through a mix of any density.

You may want to try the Diamond model with the Rock or Blues preset. For added brightness, follow it with an EQ plug (Sonitus is fine) with a high shelf at about 2-3K, boost to taste. You might also want to add a highpass at about 30-60 Hz, depending on the surrounding material.

It seems like EQ shaping works better on certain pianos, ones that feel like their harmonics are lined up properly (otherwise, it's just like boosting junk). I've found TruePianos to respond very well to EQ and other FX as well, like reverb. It's probably the same property that makes it sit so well in a mix.

Thanks for the tips on True Pianos - much appreciated. It's definitely enjoyable to play solo and I can see finding uses for it. It's probably going to be hard for it to supplant the Double Platinum Rock Piano as my favorite for rock/electronica mixes though, I think. The ILIO piano library may be ten years old now and only take up 128MB in Kontakt (rather paltry by today's standards), but it just seems to have a certain "magic" in a mix that I haven't quite heard yet from anything newer I've tried. The low notes don't just go "thud" like the low notes on so many other sampled/virtual pianos seem to...they go "BANG!" It cuts through great and the midrange isn't "boxy" and leaves ample room for other instruments. It's not a sound manufactured with EQ...that's just how the piano ILIO sampled for the library naturally sounded (it was the same Steinway that Elton John used to record many of his '70s hits). Not a sound you'd want to use for solo classical pieces, mind you. But it seems like I keep trying new things and then going back to it. It just seems to do something in a mix for me that nothing else does so far.

I don't know about Kontakt 3, but when I bought Kontakt 2, I was surprised by the quality of some of the instruments on the sample libary CD that came with it, including two really sweet sounding grand pianos (not lite or cut-down versions of instruments like many of them are) -a "Steinway D" at 500MB and an "August Foerster" at 1.4GB. Each with variations of FX such as convolution reverb. I'll admit I'm not a piano guy, but they both sound beautiful to me, so if you decide to buy Kontakt in order to load piano sample libraries, check out the included keys first. I wonder if the same pianos were included with Kontakt 3.

I use TruePianos a lot. It's versatile, quick and easy to find something that works, and sounds surprisingly good for the price, filesize and loading time. Friendly, personal and top-rate service to boot.

For work where piano is more prominent I tend to go with NI Akoustik Piano. It's the best I've personally used, very realistic to my ears and fingers (and I am a professional jazz pianist, if that counts for anything). Since I happen to own it as part of the Komplete bundle, I am unlikely to fork out for Ivory, though I understand it's glorious as well. Personally, if I want better than Akoustik, I will go Acoustic - i.e. the real thing (there's one in my living room, and it's lovely!).

Although, that Blüthner One has me intrigued, I'll admit that, mainly because I have a deep and abiding love for Blüthner pianos. Again, I'd rather have the real thing though...

ORIGINAL: Jim Roseberry
BTW, For those that don't know this, Akoustik and Elektric Piano both stream a LOT more efficiently when loaded into Kontakt 3. You can achieve far more polyphony without glitches.

... and there, I've learned something new and useful from the forum today. Good to know, thanks (again) Jim!

Got interested in Truepianos after reading this thread. I'm amazed! I always liked The Grand from Steinberg, but I must say that Truepianos isn't that different, but much more playable! I'm gonna buy it!

i Have tried them all, exept true piano... and my favorite one is Art Vista virtual grand piano without a doubt. I like the fact that it is not perfect. It has attitude !

Listen to this... Bluethner Digital One - Good luck, Shepl

http://www.proaudiovault.com/