If you are fine in budget, you can always turn a real piano, or set of piano keys and piano action, into a midi controller.

If you are interested, search about PNOscan. Pianotteq user have a 20% discount.

The perhaps most important limitation of an acoustic upright is the simpler action. This difference is completely eliminated by the digital instrument. The only limiting factor is common to both instruments: your own MIDI keyboard.

The remaining differences are no real limitations, the level of the simulated reality is more important, than the sound of an instrument, IMHO. An upright might sound more intimate and beautiful IMHO in a home, than a big grand designed for a large concert hall.

(I have the Blüthner, the upright have only demoed, but I will probably want to get it too for playing early classical music.)

Might get the upright as well if i have some spare $ in the future

I asked myself the same question recently. Listened to the demos on the Pianoteq website, played with the demo instruments a bit in Pianoteq itself. Both sound excellent, but the upright is much more of a 'specialty' instrument compared to the Blüthner, which is quite a versatile grand, and which you can get a lot more use out of.

I ended up going for the Blüthner, and I think the experience was somewhat similar to buying an expansion pack to a game after you've played it for a while: suddenly, you have a whole lot more to explore and work with. It was quite fun, by the time the initial euphoria of "goddamn, just LISTEN to this beautiful new piano" finally wore off, it had convinced me that my money was well spent. Very well spent, indeed.

I bought the Blüthner a couple of days ago and am very pleased. I had come to love the sound of the D4 through several projects (arrangements / compositions) but I'm quickly adapting to the Blüthner. As I do all my "playing" through the midi editor at present, it's been quite some fun. (Long ago I played on one of these - not sure what model it was. 4 comes to mind.) I'm sold on Pianoteq; can't think of any reason for sampled pianos....

In my opinion, the current version of the Blüthner represents Pianoteq's "masterpiece" in terms of classical music repertoire.  This is not to put down any other Pianoteq pianos -- far from it:  They are all very good to excellent instruments.

With that said, if I were forced to keep only one Pianoteq model, today (and of course my opinion might change in the future), I would personally choose the Blüthner.  I am proud to state that I have completely eliminated every SAMPLED piano library from my computer's four internal 10,000 RPM hard drives (2+ terabyte total storage capacity) for two reasons:  1) to free up hard disk space; and 2) for the past few years, I simply did not have the desire to play the piano via sampled piano libraries -- Pianoteq is THAT good.

Cheers,

Joe

"like"!

With that said, if I were forced to keep only one Pianoteq model, today (and of course my opinion might change in the future), I would personally choose the Blüthner.  I am proud to state that I have completely eliminated every SAMPLED piano library from my computer's four internal 10,000 RPM hard drives (2+ terabyte total storage capacity) for two reasons:  1) to free up hard disk space; and 2) for the past few years, I simply did not have the desire to play the piano via sampled piano libraries -- Pianoteq is THAT good.

Cheers,

Joe

That do not state that the upright it's a worse add-on. Indeed it's the best piano add-on of pianoteq in terms of recreate a given piano model/type with naturality.

The next grand piano for pianoteq will probably be breathtaking.

The next grand piano for pianoteq will probably be breathtaking.

For me it was clearly the Bluethner that made my decision to purchase pianoteq at all!