Stilli wrote:

yeq30 wrote:

I can't seem to understand what this "library" of "presets" is / does.
What is special about them ? the sound ? or the dynamic range ? How do they know what velocity curve to use for a given keyboard ??????? Do I have to go through that lengthy research loop myself with each one ?
.... How can I know whether the libraries of presets are any better than the ones I have come up with ?

Free trials are available from their website, have you not checked them out?
https://grand-artist.com/

No. They seem to be .dmg files and I don't use an Apple.

The developer of GA seems to have been considering a Windows version since at least 2018 and we're still waiting, so don't hold your breath! Sure, it would be nice to try the free presets, but I'm not gonna shell out for Apple gear just to do that.

yeq30 wrote:

I can't seem to understand what this "library" of "presets" is / does.
What is special about them ? the sound ? or the dynamic range ? How do they know what velocity curve to use for a given keyboard ??????? Do I have to go through that lengthy research loop myself with each one ?
.... How can I know whether the libraries of presets are any better than the ones I have come up with ?

Free trials are available from their website, have you not checked them out?
https://grand-artist.com/

No. They seem to be .dmg files and I don't use an Apple.

I can't seem to understand what this "library" of "presets" is / does.
What is special about them ? the sound ? or the dynamic range ? How do they know what velocity curve to use for a given keyboard ??????? Do I have to go through that lengthy research loop myself with each one ?
.... How can I know whether the libraries of presets are any better than the ones I have come up with ?

Free trials are available from their website, have you not checked them out?
https://grand-artist.com/

1) I am an ex-Pro classical pianist using Pianoteq pro as seriously as it will let me.
2) My main concern is to have a plain ordinary friendly good-quality modern grand piano simulation. Not intested in wacky / antique / space-age stuff.
3) The hardest thing is to get the FULL dynamic range of a friendly, normal acoustic piano.
3) I've got a Kawai NV10. It's taken me ages to get the keyboard velocity curve basically right but I now have
4) Pianoteq has got hundreds of presets but none of them offer anything for a serious user until they are heavily modified and the majority of the many I have experimented with are simply not tweakable enough to be serious (the main problem is usually the dynamic range).
5) I have found a few that ARE modifiable to the point of being excellent and very close approximations to the feel and sound of an acoustic piano. Hard work and very pleased with the results - at last

How can I know whether the libraries of presets are any better than the ones I have come up with ?

Their site is down for maintanence... must be changing prices and things

Hi, we are back again. Due to some issues, the site was unfortunately down. There is a new pricing for the libraries and a new webdesign.! Thank you all and best regards!

shill much?

I don't really understand your question but I'm guessing How much??

The Bundle 3 that I have is $98.35, checkout their website https://grand-artist.com/ for all current prices its all been updated since the original post.

Just wish to point out that at least some of our critical comments have been taken note of and addressed. Pricing has been modified to allow considerable discounts for multi library bundles, I bit the bullet and went for Library 3 which is affordably priced for all 7 of the main library sets and although I haven't had time to go through every preset I must say that I am not dissapointed, to my ears they are great and I am very happy.

Whilst playing around with multiple Library sets I found an advantage to having each library opening in it's own GrandArtist window .... you can open and play multiple presets at the same time and layer them to create even more sounds, this works with PT as well.

I would still like to see some flexibility in the preset browser (eg the ability to select favorites) but I can see that the creator is open to criticism and willing to make changes where possible so I am very optimistic with regard to future development. Also a little frustrated that all but one of the Library Apps refuse to show in Launchpad but that is a Mac issue and not the fault of the app although it might be overcome if all Libraires were able to be accessed from one instance of the app.

Happiness levels are rising.

I believe that sounds are in a great extent a matter of taste. The conceptors made the whole sound engine and left many parameters adjustable for us to play with, in my opinion an statement like this is not fair.

I am sorry if I offended someboby, especially the Pianoteq team. It was not my intention. Take into account that I don't understand perfectly english since it is not my main language.

Just to clarify my (and only my) point of view:

In general, if there is a market for third party material (in every area), that means that people are searching for something else or something better.
With Pianoteq, we all can do something else. But only few of us can make something better, because most of us are not sound designers nor piano technicians, or simply have no time to spend for that.

I personnaly have no problem with Dick and I wish him the best with his project even if at this time I am not really interested, but we will see...

I only wanted to say that if it appears in some weeks or months that a lot of people are ready to pay for Dick's app, or every other third party presets, despite all the fxp files available for free, this should trigger some thoughts.

Good evening,

SK

Stilli wrote:

PROS:
The sounds are mostly stunning.

Hello,

That's interesting and annoying (intriguing) at the same time...

Can you develop please? Can you describe what exactly do you find great in these sounds in comparison with the factory presets?

I say it's annoying because if the difference is huge, that would mean that the conceptors do not make the best use of their own soft. And with no possibility to record, no possibility to compare side by side

Well, all I can say really is that there is a lot of presets in each library and the full library that I tried contained presets that were different from the factory ones and almost all of them sounded good to me and were very useable as opposed to sounding good but not really seeing any practical use for it. I like different sounds and textures and these presets present plenty of them from just one instrument, I'm not a purist who likes only a clone of the original instrument which of course would sound different in various locations anyway. Basically more sounds for the palette, surely this is how Pianoteq is designed to be used and as I said, I don't have the time to do too much tweaking, I'd rather be playing.

stamkorg wrote:

Stilli wrote:

PROS:
The sounds are mostly stunning.

... that would mean that the conceptors do not make the best use of their own soft. ...

I believe that sounds are in a great extent a matter of taste. The conceptors made the whole sound engine and left many parameters adjustable for us to play with, in my opinion an statement like this is not fair.

Not fair to who? It's just an opinion and of course it's just a matter of taste. To be faced with so many presets and all but one or two were very useable for me is pretty stunning. Maybe I should have used different terms perhaps "Nice and Rosy" may have suited you better. I liked them ok? Was just trying to be helpful, maybe if you took the time to try you may find some better words to describe and you may not agree with mine, that's ok with me.
Someone has taken the time and skill to make libraries of very good (IMO) presets and has offered them for sale, what's wrong with that? I'm not asking anyone to buy them just stating 'my' opinion of them.
I do hope the "conceptors" come out with some more presets of their own, these are different to the factory presets and I think they are good, just not as flexible (cannot think of a better word) as the presets within PT.

Stilli wrote:

PROS:
The sounds are mostly stunning.

... that would mean that the conceptors do not make the best use of their own soft. ...

I believe that sounds are in a great extent a matter of taste. The conceptors made the whole sound engine and left many parameters adjustable for us to play with, in my opinion an statement like this is not fair.

PROS:
The sounds are mostly stunning.

Hello,

That's interesting and annoying (intriguing) at the same time...

Can you develop please? Can you describe what exactly do you find great in these sounds in comparison with the factory presets?

I say it's annoying because if the difference is huge, that would mean that the conceptors do not make the best use of their own soft. And with no possibility to record, no possibility to compare side by side

To set the playing field I am coming from - I am no concert pianist, in fact I'm what I would call an intermediate level player of mostly modern music and jazz. Apart from my playing limitations I am a professional singer and somewhat of a live sound engineer who does a little bit of studio work too so I like to think I know what sounds good and how useable those particular sounds are likely to be for me. I like presets, I don't have the time and the necessary skills to do too much tweaking or creating new presets. I much prefer to have some great sounding preset libraries that I can tweak just a little.

I have tested to the best of my ability both the free library and the Concert Grand Library 3 which is based on the Steinway D instrument in Pianoteq.

Now I shall get to the pros and the cons, to avoid anyone getting put off by the cons I will leave those until last and will begin by complementing the author on the quality of the presets in these libraries and to say that I believe anyone would be impressed by them and likely want to own them as a valuable addition to their Pianoteq library.

PROS:
The sounds are mostly 'good sounding to my ears'. ('stunning' removed to avoid upsetting readers)
There are a lot of presets in each library
There are very few unuseable sounds (for me) and the vast majority are really great, you are spoilt for choice.
During my short review I cannot imagine a situation that hasn't been accounted for within the library (unless you want weird).
Dick, the author, is very helpful with a friendly and approachable manner. He is fast to respond to questions and accordingly I would suspect that support for his work is going to be top rate.
The libraries are easy to download, simple to register and install with plenty of information available about them online.
The app doesn't drain a lot of resources and latency is no different to Pianoteq.

CONS:
Please understand that this is a new project for the Author and that a lot of what I list below may change accoding to demand, feedback is essential to progress.
It's not currently available for the PC platform but apparently that will soon be adressed.
There is no location option during installation, has to go on your system drive.
No VST or AU plug-in facility. This is a big downer for me as it will not integrate directly with my DAW.
No ability to record, third party software is required for this.
The above makes it useful for Live play only.
There is very limited facility to edit the presets or save them, Volume, Reverb and Dynamics are tweakable (one control for each), EQ is on or off only. Changes remain until reset to the original settings but cannot be saved as a new preset.
There is no facility to organise the presets, no favorites for example.
The Preset Browser is limited by the above and navigating through the presets is a two click process which is very tiresome when trying them all out sequentially. There are <> buttons next to the current preset window but they don't appear to work in any logical way on my copy randomly moving from one preset to another in no particular order. This may be a bug or maybe I don't understand how it should work.
There are no keyboard shortcuts for navigation and use of the cursor keys would be helpful, everything has to be done with the mouse.
The preset volumes are all set too high, some to distortion level. This makes it a lot louder than Pianoteq and is a lengthy task to adjust each preset individually, the app would benefit from a master level control and I believe the same applies to Pianoteq as it's difficult to balance when using alongside other sound sources.
Each library installs (on the Mac) as a seperate App so if you have more than one library you have to run several instances of GrandArtist to change instruments making preset selection even more long winded.
There is no integration with Pianoteq, again you have to have both open if you want to use presets from either and then you have to reduce the volume in one to use the other on it's own, not a good way to work. It would be nice to see all available preset libraries in one place.
Bearing in mind the above limitations the libraries are expensive (for me).

Having considered all of the above and knowing that some changes are likely as the project matures, I am very tempted to buy several of the libraries based on the quality of sounds alone especially if they are all as good and comprehensive as the one I have reviewed. If these libraries were presented as FXP for use in Pinaoteq I wouldn't hesitate in spite of the high price but they are too limiting for such a high cost (IMO). This is due I know to copyright protection and I sincerely hope there is some way of getting round this to make these fabulous libraries available inside Pianoteq, maybe some sort of deal for purchasing multiple libraries could be an option but that won't improve the lack of versatility in use.