What are you using for Piano?

seguesam · Post by **seguesam** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 7:20 am

^^ heh heh

buzzcock · Post by **buzzcock** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 1:58 pm

Thanks for all the replies, especially rick-- your posts are very thorough.

I am planning on using whatever I get mainly as a practice tool in my apartment. For this purpose, it needs to be as real a solo piano sound as possible, as I get distracted easily. It will, of course, probably end up on a bunch of my recordings as well.

I will have to find someone or somewhere that has Ivory installed and try it there. The mp3 samples aren't cuttin' it.

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 2:03 pm

Whats wrong with the piano in the DLS audio-unit?
It's not a 50 000$ grand yamaha. But if you just need it to practive on anyway...
It's free. And you can load other piano soundfonts in it.

Cheers

buzzcock · Post by **buzzcock** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 2:20 pm

hoffman2k wrote: But if you just need it to practive on anyway...

To me, sound quality and responsiveness is most important while practicing... even more than performance or recording. I haven't practiced in earnest in over 10 years.

If it starts sounding too "fake" to me, my willpower dries up

I have been making do with inexpensive solutions fo a while, but I think I need to go to the next level.

I think what I'm liking about the Bardstown library is its perspective. It feels like I'm sitting in front of it. I suppose this is adjustable in Ivory but none of the audio demos specify this...

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 2:29 pm

buzzcock wrote:
hoffman2k wrote: But if you just need it to practive on anyway...
To me, sound quality and responsiveness is most important while practicing... even more than performance or recording. I haven't practiced in earnest in over 10 years. If it starts sounding too "fake" to me, my willpower dries up I have been making do with inexpensive solutions fo a while, but I think I need to go to the next level.

I think what I'm liking about the Bardstown library is its perspective. It feels like I'm sitting in front of it. I suppose this is adjustable in Ivory but none of the audio demos specify this...

Fair enough. If you're going to spend money on it anyway.
Look for the best library you can buy. I cant suggest any though. I have over 6Gb of piano soundfonts. And i'm pretty happy with them. But i cant find the cd's they came on anymore. I think it was a giorgo moroder sample collection.

You can load them in virtually any sample plugin. (battery, kontakt, freeware SF players, DLS musicdevice,...)

Cheers

neomodo · Post by **neomodo** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 3:25 am

I spent a bunch of time piecing together samples that would get me all the different qulities you would get from a real piano.. It took some doing.. I use reason sampler and usually I stack a couple of the sampler modules with reverb, chorus and a sustain pedal hooked up to my Oxygen 8 - One sample to to look for is called Wilton Piano - someone sampled their old piano at home and did a great job on it - If I don't stack I get an unsatisfactory sound...

You might also look into one of those nifty Yamaha digital pianos, not only do they sound great, the weighted keys make it a great midi controller too...