OT: Kawai VPC1 with Ivory American Concert D

I think pianoworld.com is a better place to ask that question.

I can't speak on Ivory, since I personally don't like sampled libraries very much. I dislike the bulk and lacking flexibility, and nowadays (at least since Pianoteq 4.5, especially since Pianoteq 5) the differences in terms of quality between modelling and sampling are so subtle that there is really no need, especially when you are talking about a Steinway D. There are sampling libraries that offer niche instruments, of course those can still make sense.

That said, I can wholeheartedly recommend the VPC-1. It features one of the best piano actions Kawai has to offer (RM3 Grand II), and if you don't need a built-in sound generator there is simply nothing better on the market today.

I guess für 70 Euros the risk is not that high. Make sure you have a decent piano stand, though: the VPC-1 weighs nearly 30kg (about 65 pounds for those living in non-SI countries ) comparable with an MP-10 or MP-11. I personally recommend the K&M Omega (18810).

I have the American D, it's a good piano.
You can buy the vpc1 in bundle with the American D but I think you will open rarely your plug-in if you have Pianoteq 5.

Garritan CFX looks definitely promising but unfortunately they don't give us detailed specs what's inside: how much they've done pedal down/key release sampling, velocity layers or string resonance modeling. These features make sampled piano at least some way "alive".

Speaking of CFX: Few days ago I had chance to test Yamaha CP4 which has sampled CFX-grand. 'Basic sound' was great - close miced, very punchy, responsive and clear. In fact something which is still very difficult for PTQ model. (YC5 is unfortunately the most far from its target IMO...) But CP4 failed in all other dimensions: it was surprisingly "dead". Pedal down feeling was very dull compared to real thing. And there was no any kind of string resonance. A big disappointment for me from this company with a long history with APs and EPs. I'd really like to check Yamaha NU-1 which is based on Avant grand technology and which also use CFX-samples...

Yeah, good service! I played many pianos that I don't have Hope, they would expand the list of instruments.

Developers answers somewhere at their blog, that CFX has up to 20 layers (just like Ivory American). About other features:

But demos sound nice, except Bach Fuga.  Would be intresting to play it on Try-sound.

I personally would not buy products from Garritan again and this is only my opinion. I bought the "authorized" Steinway for 400 dollars for Pro version if I remember. I was on an official forum too a few years ago. The piano sample had problems and they did a minor upgrade or two including a chair sound in one of the samples. They did fix that with an overwrite in one of the folders. There was only one developer   . after it was released   .    apparently they had only one programmer  (I forget his name as he posted) who was promising a complete fix on the instrument I think he promised and worked on this for two years for a certain upgrade number like 1.5 or 1.7 (I forget) .  Posters were getting angry in posts on the official forum of the Authorized Steinway piano,  but again, they (customers) were promised with a post a month or two apart,  for years of him working on it. Then suddenly it was discontinued. Owners of the software were left high and dry with a sampled piano with issues after spending serious money.

I believe there is a new owner now so it may be possible things are different but I personally would not take the chance. Many times even with new owners companies keep the same system or lack thereof and apparently the customers of the Authorized Steinway were ignored by the new owners to not fix the instrument and continue the upgrade but go on to other ventures. Perhaps if they could not fix it or did not want too or it cost too much a complimentary other piano should have been provided. Actually amazed there was not class action on this. My opinion = stay away

I would (imho) put good money to good. With Pianoteq not only do you get (not affiliated obviously) a great product but you support continuing improvement on the piano model format. My view is the model is the premium way. A lot of these sampled pianos besides being huge installs will emerge with sample issues as they are discovered  (and they may not get fixed as they invest in yet another sampled piano release)

Phil

I made my own stand which is by far the best of any I've ever seen.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_77883-72596-SS-...%20-%20$25

You have to cut the legs down 3" and add 10" x 1.0” aluminum angle on each of the sides.  It's light, folds quickly and is stronger than any other stand I have.  It does not wobble or budge at all.  Though, it does take a few hours and some skill to modify it into a piano stand.

I made another stand using this saw horse from Harbor Freight:

http://www.harborfreight.com/foldable-a...69059.html

This one cost more initially, is much heavier, and more difficult to set up.  It does have the advantave of adjustible legs and raises high enough to play the piano while standing up, if that is something you want.  Again aluminum angel has to be added to each end to support the piano.  This one is strong, but  really not as solid as the lighter weight and easier to set up Ebco one.  I think it also weighs at least  twice as much if not more.  Also there are screws and braces to lose.  On the other hand the Harbor Freight one has more room for your knees.

The Harbor Freight was Model I, while the Ebco is the improved Model II.

I have as much love for Pianoteq running through my veins as the next man or woman — in fact, very likely a few gallons more — but what I have never understood nor will ever understand, is this weird, devotional Pianoteq fanaticism which invariably emerges here on the forum, every time someone inquires about sampled pianos.

A good sampled piano — and the AmericanD certainly qualifies, as does the Ravenscroft and a handful of others — has plenty to offer, some of which, like it or not, is still beyond the current capabilities of Pianoteq.

For starters: snapshot realism. To many musicians, if not most (and not all of them are discerning piano players), the sampled realism of a well-recorded real instrument — flawed, one-dimensional and shallow as this canned mock-realism may be — is still much preferable to the modeled sound of Pianoteq.
Soundiron’s Emotional, ArtVista’s VirtualGrand, Galaxy’s VintageD, … all of these instruments can bring something to a mix which Pianoteq just can’t. Not at the moment anyway. Even if these instruments are nowhere near as playable, or inspirational to play on, as Pianoteq is, their output — and I’m talking strictly timbre and sound here — is to many people much closer to what they hope to get from a virtual piano than anything that Pianoteq can generate.

The piano player in me is most definitely not a great fan of the Emotional and certainly not of any instrument produced by ImperfectSamples (which I consider among the most unplayable virtual pianos ever released), but in the right situation, these sampled instruments, the singular character and texture of their timbre, can bring a much more fitting and ultimately convincing pianosound to a production than Pianoteq can. I am sorry, but that’s how it is. And it is like that for many, many musicians.

Sure, Pianoteq reigns supreme where playability, subtlety and “connecting with the instrument” are concerned, but judged strictly from an “in-the-box” sonic and timbral perspective, it’s still samples which often bring the most believable AND most convenient simulation.

Deplorable as you may consider it to be, most musicians who work with virtual instruments aren’t much interested in the very thing which sets Pianoteq apart from the sampled competition. They don’t really care about “connecting with the instrument” or about all of the modeled detail and finesse which makes Pianoteq such a miraculous achievement, no, they simply want a believable pianosound coming out of their speakers whenever they press a key. And preferably without too much hassle, without needing to program or tweaking sounds, without needing to thoroughly study a pretty complex piece of modeling software first.

At the end of the day, when the moment has arrived that your virtual piano needs to perform its part in a mix, that the difficult illusion needs to be created of a real piano being present among your other instruments, that all considerations regarding playability and programming sophistication have become irrelevant — the moment, in other words, when nothing but the abstract pianosound matters —, that’s when the true value of good sampled pianos becomes apparent. And that is also, I fear, the moment when many musicians, myself often included, will opt for a sampled instrument instead of a modeled one.
I can produce tracks with the Ravenscroft or the AmericanD — or any of the other sampled instruments mentioned above, for that matter — that I just can’t produce with Pianoteq. Totally impossible. The opposite is also true, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are still many production situations where I am happier with the results I get from my sample-libraries than from Pianoteq.

Let’s also not forget that, due to its particular timbral make-up, a Pianoteq instrument is often more difficult to place in a mix convincingly than a sampled piano is. The lows and low-mids of a Pianoteq piano often require very careful (sometimes even drastic) multiband EQ'ing (or multiband compression) to avoid the instrument bringing too much weight to that particular (and very delicate) frequency range of the mix.
And if you want crystalline sparkling clarity, snappy punch and airy detail in a pianosound (not to mention: very close-up proximity) without the sound becoming harsh or piercing, I'd rather start with, say, the Galaxy VintageD than with the D4.
And I could also start talking about stereo-imaging and such, which is again an aspect of music production where Pianoteq is often the far more challenging choice when compared to sampled instruments.

Again, I love Pianoteq passionately, irrationally and unequivocally — there is no other virtual piano on which I can play and compose as satisfyingly, and my admiration, gratitude and sympathy for its makers knows no bounds — and I’m also convinced that the future looks much brighter and more exciting for modeling than it does for sampling, but for most people that future has no bearing on decisions which need to be made today. If you need a believable virtual pianosound tonight, or the coming weekend, or next week or even next month, only a complete idiot or an utter snob, it seems to me, would flatly ignore what good sampled instruments have to offer.

All this to say, to anyone who’s interested: if you happen to like the sound of the AmericanD, buy it. It’s a very good sampled piano, well-recorded, intelligently programmed and, in the right situation, capable of a very satisfying Steinway-simulation. And the same, except for the Steinway-simulation of course, applies to the Ravenscroft. A good sampled piano is still an irreplaceable tool.

_

Try to think Pianoteq like a Steinway in an anechoic chamber.
DON'T USE ANY INTEGRATED EQUALIZER OR EFFECTS AND SET ONLY STEREOPHONIC !
USE, instead a good EXTERNAL and programmable equalizer-echo-reverb-compressor-limiter-enhancer
(the sequence is very important)
After that, you can tell me ...

I think so far Pianoteq catches rather the raw sound when you stand next to or play the instrument whereas sample libraries are recorded and that's what they sound like: a more or less good recording. Maybe that's what Piet means. I'd say the sound in the video I posted is very unusual: It's not unprocessed but to me it sounds more natural than the average. On most recordings you hear a very focused sound (dark and strong with distinct treble and kicking pedal) which I guess is the result of special processing and/or mic positioning. Yes, I'd also like having presets sounding like that but in the meantime Pianoteq is still usable for recordings, for me at least.

Hopefully erased??? You seriously underestimate the strength, self-confidence, self-respect, pride and passion of the Modartt people, Optimist. This isn’t the EastWest forum or good old Northern Sounds you know, where everything that doesn’t — or didn’t, in NS’s case — fully qualify as praise or applause for the developer, or that even hints at criticism, is immediately erased (and its poster banned).
Modartt, take it from me, is made of much stronger and wiser stuff. (Unlike some of its customer base, it pains me to have to observe.)

And where, if I may ask, have I been "speaking for everybody”? I nowhere did. I merely regretted that haughty, dismissive attitude towards sampled pianos which all too often pops up on these forums and which ruins every thread that seeks to discuss these products.
And following that, I pointed out, over the course of a few paragraphs, that in my and many other musicans’ experience Pianoteq — today — is not always the only, let alone the best, answer in every possible situation where a virtual piano needs to pose and function as a real one.
Questioning mine and all these other people’s intelligence and/or musical ability to decide for ourselves what works best in our music, is a million times more presumptuous (and pretentious) than anything I ever said.

Steve, I appreciate your effort, but I don’t need any instructions telling me how I should think of Pianoteq or what I need to do to make it sound good, thank you very much. And as far as such instructions go, yours, I’m sorry to say, are actually among the worst I’ve ever come across. Thinking of Pianoteq as “Steinway in an anechoic room” is a shortcut to sonic disaster, if you don’t mind me saying so (at least, if you know what a well-recorded Steinway actually sounds like and hope to approximate some of that magic). And as for your rather convoluted string of external processors, well, if that works for you, fine, but it’s definitely not my way of getting the best out of Pianoteq.

As it happens, I know a thing or two about this software. Unlike Chopin87, who has only spent a few weeks with Pianoteq but apparently already feels qualified enough to question other people’s abilities regarding the use of this software, I have been a fully committed Pianoteq user and beta-tester ever since version 1 — was that 2006 or even earlier, I can’t remember, certainly longer than a few weeks ago anyway. I know how great Pianoteq is, and I know how to make it sound great, but I also know where its weaknesses lie. And this is the important bit: I love and respect the software (and its developer) enough to not ignore those weaknesses.

True dedication to a great piece of software is not only saying how fabulous it is. It’s also — and much more so, in my opinion — keeping an undiminished focus on its imperfections. It’s loving it enough to see and accept that it is flawed. And it’s wanting and contributing to see it improved.

If the developer and beta-testers thought about Pianoteq the way you guys do, considering the software almost beyond improvement and complacently refusing to even contemplate the idea that good sampled pianos might still have a few things to teach us, Pianoteq would never be where it is today, believe me.

In order for the next version of Pianoteq to be better than the current one, it doesn’t need yet more applause from its loyal users — even if I’m the first to say that no amount of applause can ever do justice to the sensational achievement which Pianoteq is —, and it certainly doesn’t need the mindless exclusivism which you guys advocate. No, what Pianoteq needs is insightful, experience-based, merciless (but always respectful) and passionate criticism. And if that criticism includes hearing that samples sometimes still have the edge, then let’s allow it to be said.
As long as I can come up with examples which illustrate situations where sampled pianos sound better than Pianoteq does, I’ll keep sending them to Philippe. And hopefully, one day (and I’m convinced that day will come), I won’t be able to come up with these examples anymore. But that day — and anyone who is genuinely serious and passionate about this software knows it — is not today.

And that’s what I’ve always loved about Modartt and that’s also the thing which sets it apart from most developers: instead of erasing threads and other such weak sillyness, they’ve always welcomed and embraced this type of criticism and even stimulated and invited it: helpful, forward-looking, inspirational criticism. And all along, during all those years, beta-test after beta-test full of such criticism, Pianoteq has only gotten better and better, and it will continue to do so.

Never hesitate to say that an ff F#5 on the AmericanD sounds better than it does on the D4. Philippe will listen and if he agrees with your findings, rest assured that it won’t be long before the F#5 on the D4 sounds every bit as good as it does on the Synthogy instrument, and probably better.

_

I guess the "apparently" should have been put here after "has" considering two basic flaws:
1. I have been playing with Pianoteq since the second version of the software;
2. We never had breakfast together.

I apologize if I came out as impolite but I never intended questioning anyone's ability. I underlined the fact that we all look for an ideal sound for our pieces which may not be the same for everybody so tweaking a little bit the software it's just the start to achieve this. The challenge is to build something that allows customization to the highest degree while retaining a core which is faithful to the original.
Pianoteq can do this more than any other piano libraries out there and that was the point of my post.
I don't think the sound is perfect, I think it is better than a static sample just like a footage of something is better than just a picture. I can sculpt the sound I want here far better than the few libraries I bought. Maybe it's just me...

Totally agree with Piet.

I'd say that if you have a serious real piano playing background and want to actually play some classical music or jazz on a 88 key weighted controller - Pianoteq is your toy. If you are a serious Techno/EDM/R-n-B/Rap/Pop producer used to program some arrangements in the sequencer, even with some playing from the MIDI keyboard, I'd recommend a sampled one more.

I have the MP10 Kawai, Pianoteq and American D
Since september I have a new PC.
Pianoteq work very fine with the touch of the Kawai.
This thread reminds me that I need to install the American D.