A new mic emulation program has arrived--Lava

So I've been experimenting with simply inserting Lava as an effect while using Pianoteq. Worth a try, I do believe:

Default NY Steinway Classical on Doug McKenzie's MIDI rendering of "Danny Boy": https://forum.modartt.com/uploads.php?f...cal%20.mp3

The same Pianoteq preset with Lava inserted, and set to render a U87A to an AKG C414: https://forum.modartt.com/uploads.php?f...effect.mp3

Doug McKenzie's wonderful MIDI file recording of "Danny Boy" :  https://forum.modartt.com/uploads.php?file=Dannyboy.mid
It is of course copyrighted and belongs to him. Please credit him when using this and his other files at https://bushgrafts.com/midi/

You may not want to listen to all of both recordings. My attempt here is just to provide a taste of what is possible.

Notes:
1. All of the Pianoteq settings were kept the same, including the effects.
2. There may be a way to replace each Pianoteq mic with a Lava mic, if one sent each mic to a separate Out in a DAW. I haven't gotten that far. All I've done here is load Pianoteq and add Lava as an effect in a single track in Harrison Mixbus. The Pianoteq preset includes 4 mics, and only the more distant mics are the U87's. (But they have more gain in the preset, to compensate for their distance.)
3. The only change I've made in Lava is to set oversampling to 1x, instead of the default setting of "Eco."
4. Does the result sound as though real U87's were changed to real C414's? Well, I doubt it, but I'm interested more in the variety of possible sounds than creating an exact simulation.

And:
1. Worth trying, if one experiments: In Lava, just leave the From box empty. Lava will still try to impose the "sound" of the target mic. Also try random mics in the From box and To box. The results can sometimes be overly-crisp, and sometimes good.
2. Listen particularly to the effect on the attack in the treble and upper treble. Some of these mics smooth out the transients, without losing the sense of a hammer, and sound musical in a way that may be appealing.

I believe I heard subtle differences that I suspect could largely be replicated in subtle changes to EQ, moving virtual microphones and making level adjustments to existing microphones.

Also transformer output emulating plugins and/or pre amplifier plugins can produce similar pleasing results.
Broadly a softening we associate with analogue recordings. Quite subtle really.

Pianoteq sounded more clinical here (in this specific case) without Lava. One man's clinical might be another man's clean.

I preferred the effort with Lava, the piano and playing sounded great on both versions.

I really like the sound of Lava on Pianoteq. Thanks for bringing this to our attention!