*Some corrections as pointed out by @TamirOrkobysPiano pretaining to NI Pianos: Check out Tamir's Video for demonstrations: ruclips.net/user/liveEjow0VKeS1A?si=euE3LEO55w_LW247 - Noire does in fact have Sympathetic Resonance - The Grandeur does in fact have Sympathetic Resonance, Real Pedalling and Silent Key - Alicia's Keys does in fact have Sympathetic Resonance and Silent Key. (I wouldn't count the Half Pedalling, could be argued that there should be a - instead of a x) The three NI Pianos were in my top 5 already, nice that they're even better than I thought.
Model D is sort of UVI's throwaway piano library... it would have been interesting if you had also compared this to their Austrian Grand, which is their premium option.
Very well made video Xantux.. very satisfying watch and very well edited.. 1 hour didn't feel like it at all.. My personal favourite is the Addictive Keys (free with Focusrite interfaces & Novation Keyboards) but i will try Hammersmith & Arturia once more..
Me increvi neste canal só por causa desse vídeo, achei o máximo essas análises tecnicas !!!!!! 🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚 não vi nemhum canal que faz isso !!!!!🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚
Awesome comparison my bro. The Noire & Meldway Grand takes the better sampled based pianos in my opinion (Pity You didnt put Keyscape & Ravenscroft on this list)...For Physical modelled based,... Pianoteq has no competition....keep up the good work., am a new subscriber.
Wow! Thanks so much for your analysis. Knowing that you are so well ready for this kind of analysis, why don't you gather half a dozen or even 10 to 12 of higher caliber libraries that companies are willing to lend you for testing and comparison? The ones that I hear being praised are Synthogy Ivory II C7 or American Grand, Garritan CFX, Embertone Walker Steinway Model D, Spectrasonics Keyscape Custom C7, Ravenscroft 275, East-West Gold, Production Voices 300 Grand, Production Grand 2, or Concert Grand, VSL piano, or even higher end versions of the ones you tried already like paid recent version of Hammersmith or Pianoteq 8, any further upgrade to XLN Audio Addictive Keys Studio Grand? I also see people sometimes pick another cost effective one like Sampletekk pianos.
Thank you! I'm probably going to make another video like this in a couple of months, and I'm indeed trying to get my hands on some of these libraries :) not all devs are equally as easy to contact and equally willing to hand out licenses sadly. So some of them seem a bit out of reach, but hopefully my sub count will gradually keep climbing and then I might get some more responses. Thanks for the comment, I'll see if I can get any of the libraries you mentioned :)
@@xantux Thanks for your response. Also I noticed you gave a few 3 stars. I'm trying to understand which ones of the 3 star ones are sitting on the top. I mean if you could reply the top 1, 2, 3 of the 3 stars choices perhaps would help. Thanks again.
Nearing the end of the video now … so I think it is no coincidence that the Arturia sounds like Pianoteq as I think they licensed it and either it’s an older version or just stripped down with less controls.
@@xantux I wanted to know it more exactly so I now checked the files installed by Arturia Piano V3. There is a file pianoProcessor.dll and it contains the string Pianoteq 6.0.3. So it is a good assumption that they are using this version (which is from like 5-6 yrs ago apparently).
It is true, someone looked at the hex values and it says multiple times modartt and pianoteq (it is in a thread on VI-Control with screenshots). I think they use version 2 or 3.
Very surprised Production Voices aren't on your list - as I understand it they are amongst the best sampled pianos out there. I also quite rate Spitfire's Intimate Grand. Great video. Thank you! I am not a piano player so this was a bit of an education.!
Wow this is a real epic comparison video. I especially like the part at the beginning where you explained all the parts of the piano sound that the plugins try to model (or not…). Regarding the UVI Model D, you can get it for free we some hardware or other plugins. Would it stay at 1 star for a free version, or would it go up to 2?
I actually also got Model D as a free gift with purchase - I think if it was actually free, probably it would deserve 2 stars. But even then I would prefer my mentioned top 3 free pianos
Well done and very thorough! I wonder how many viewers will watch this complete video like I did? Did you get free copies or trials of the paid VSTs? Or did you buy some? I’d really like to get a copy of your spreadsheet - if that’s possible? Finally, I use the Logic Bosendorfer, Steinway and Yamaha c3 pianos quite a bit. Not sure how they compare. Thanks for putting in the effort for this comparison 😃
Thank you! Very nice to hear that there's at least one person out there that watched the whole thing! I was a bit worried about that when the video got longer an longer 😅 Many of plugins I bought over the past couple of years without thinking of this video, the couple I mentioned at the end I got for free from the Devs :) I'm not sure what would be the best way to hand out the spreadsheet - it's all just in a powerpoint, feel free to reach out via instagram or e-mail so I could send that file through there 🤔 or maybe I could add a link to it in the description - I'll think about it!
i'm a bit sad that i like some of the sampled plugins' sounds more than the physical modelling approaches. but that's ok. i like physical modelling for other things
fantastic video I use addictive keys steinway, I like its sound and it came bundled with my audio interface free. I'm personally not keen on mini grand, which came with my midi keyboard. Curious what your thoughts are on reason's radical piano?
@@xantux I'm on the fence on whether i want to keep reason+ I like its instruments (synths especially), but don't like the pricing model and its limitations as a DAW.
Assessing software pianos just by listening without playing them seems difficult to me. What I can say is, that we should not be fooled by the fact, that The Granduer ist so cheap and maybe quite old. I would never play a concert or record tracks with Noir or Alicia Keys or pianotec (what sounds artificial especially in the high range) and many others including Keyscape Piano, VSL, Ravenscroft and so on. The only one that can pass my testing is The Grandeur. Thanks for testing so many that I have never heard of. It's time to try some of those. Update: I now have spent 40€ to get the MeldwayGrand. Too bad, it is crap. Like many others. Compared with the Grandure ridiculous. If anybody has trouble to find out, what plugin is nearest to the feel of playing a real Grand piano it could have several reasons. - you are not a pianist - you never played a big Grand Piano - you don't have a keyboard that is good enough. Most keyboards can not show you the structure of the velocity layers.
What don't you like about the Meldway Grand? My focus in the video was quite heavily on how you can adjust play feel in the different plugins, because my thinking is: if you can adjust the play feel in detail, it should be possible to get a good play feel on pretty much any controller. Of course only really realistic on fully weighted keys though. I honestly don't remember my opinions on all the pianos in detail, but I'd say that I don't have a huge preference of grandeur vs. Meldway in regards to realistic sound and play feel, but I do prefer the medlay for it's flexibility for e.g. mic positions.
@@xantux I think we pianists have just two things, it's timing and dynamic. We can't do anything after hitting the key. So dynamic truth should really fit inside the software. And of course the Masterkeyboard. The piano of my perception provides a quite bright sound appearance at the top end of the velocity scale. This is what a Steinway does really well, including a certain shimmer, like this it is lively , you can express yourself very good with this. For me this is a ver important aspect, in contrast to half pedaling for example. Very few software pianos offer his bright thing, for example Noir does not a good job under this aspect. I know that the owner of this piano (Nils Frahm) did never play the software version. Maybe if he would, he would not allow to sell it. Meldway sounds strange and the keys are far away from consistency. They all should behave the same way from 1 to 128 and from lowest to highest key. In Meldway is chaos. We can't say if the real piano was not in a good shape, or if it just the sampling process was not precise enough, or something else. Keyscape is bright in upper velocity range ,but it is only a short Yamaha and does not sound as noble and big as The Grandure. Some plugins have way too much reverb on even the closest mics. And so on... To the Grandure channelstrip I add a Studer 800 plugin from UAD, tweak the high EQ a bit, what gives it the final touch. What I need concerning different mic positions is just the closest stereo thing. Other positions don't matter. Also with recording my real grand piano.
I stand behind my test results. Sometimes with half damping, if it's implemented poorly, it will still feel like it doesn't really work. Same with silent key. But they definitely don't have the kind of sympathetic resonance I refer to in the video (see my tests, I don't mean string resonance). With the other two, they might have tried to implement them, but if so, they weren't successful (for some of the pianos)
@@xantux I did video that's proof your wrong about N.I Pianos. I Don't know why you deleted the respond. But I sent you privately the link thrue Instagram. Don't be too proud to admitted you was wrong. The thruth is more important then our ego.
*Some corrections as pointed out by @TamirOrkobysPiano pretaining to NI Pianos:
Check out Tamir's Video for demonstrations: ruclips.net/user/liveEjow0VKeS1A?si=euE3LEO55w_LW247
- Noire does in fact have Sympathetic Resonance
- The Grandeur does in fact have Sympathetic Resonance, Real Pedalling and Silent Key
- Alicia's Keys does in fact have Sympathetic Resonance and Silent Key. (I wouldn't count the Half Pedalling, could be argued that there should be a - instead of a x)
The three NI Pianos were in my top 5 already, nice that they're even better than I thought.
I had no idea piano vsts had a release sample. Now I want my ableton samples to have a release sample option now
Pretty cool tests.
Very informative, I learned a lot about pianos, sampling, and modeling.
Really an epic demo of these options, I came home from work and watched it, then went off to play some of them, then came back and watched the rest.
Model D is sort of UVI's throwaway piano library... it would have been interesting if you had also compared this to their Austrian Grand, which is their premium option.
Yeah, that's true - maybe I'll be able to get it in the future
Very well made video Xantux.. very satisfying watch and very well edited.. 1 hour didn't feel like it at all.. My personal favourite is the Addictive Keys (free with Focusrite interfaces & Novation Keyboards) but i will try Hammersmith & Arturia once more..
Me increvi neste canal só por causa desse vídeo, achei o máximo essas análises tecnicas !!!!!! 🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚 não vi nemhum canal que faz isso !!!!!🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚🤚
I can't believe you didn't include Vienna Symphonic Library, the only good pianos 😎
Great video, I know it took a lot of work!
Yeah there's many other missing as well, financial and time constraints 😅
Dude you have the best vst comparison videos by far! I love it :)
Thank you!
FINALLYYYYY
Awesome comparison my bro. The Noire & Meldway Grand takes the better sampled based pianos in my opinion (Pity You didnt put Keyscape & Ravenscroft on this list)...For Physical modelled based,... Pianoteq has no competition....keep up the good work., am a new subscriber.
I'm collecting more! An updated video will come probably within a year or so 😅
This video is pure gold
Danke!
Danke ebenfalls! Mein erstes Superthanks 🥳
Wow! Thanks so much for your analysis. Knowing that you are so well ready for this kind of analysis, why don't you gather half a dozen or even 10 to 12 of higher caliber libraries that companies are willing to lend you for testing and comparison? The ones that I hear being praised are Synthogy Ivory II C7 or American Grand, Garritan CFX, Embertone Walker Steinway Model D, Spectrasonics Keyscape Custom C7, Ravenscroft 275, East-West Gold, Production Voices 300 Grand, Production Grand 2, or Concert Grand, VSL piano, or even higher end versions of the ones you tried already like paid recent version of Hammersmith or Pianoteq 8, any further upgrade to XLN Audio Addictive Keys Studio Grand? I also see people sometimes pick another cost effective one like Sampletekk pianos.
Thank you! I'm probably going to make another video like this in a couple of months, and I'm indeed trying to get my hands on some of these libraries :) not all devs are equally as easy to contact and equally willing to hand out licenses sadly. So some of them seem a bit out of reach, but hopefully my sub count will gradually keep climbing and then I might get some more responses. Thanks for the comment, I'll see if I can get any of the libraries you mentioned :)
@@xantux Thanks for your response. Also I noticed you gave a few 3 stars. I'm trying to understand which ones of the 3 star ones are sitting on the top. I mean if you could reply the top 1, 2, 3 of the 3 stars choices perhaps would help. Thanks again.
Nearing the end of the video now … so I think it is no coincidence that the Arturia sounds like Pianoteq as I think they licensed it and either it’s an older version or just stripped down with less controls.
Really? That makes aot of sense, but is also a bit unbelievable 🤔 very interesting!
@@xantux I wanted to know it more exactly so I now checked the files installed by Arturia Piano V3. There is a file pianoProcessor.dll and it contains the string Pianoteq 6.0.3. So it is a good assumption that they are using this version (which is from like 5-6 yrs ago apparently).
It is true, someone looked at the hex values and it says multiple times modartt and pianoteq (it is in a thread on VI-Control with screenshots). I think they use version 2 or 3.
@@xantux Fiquei surpreso !! com o Piano Arturia, e mais impressionante é que tenho ele !!!!!!
There's also free Production Voices Estate Grand LE. It's sampled from a Kawai GS60.
Very surprised Production Voices aren't on your list - as I understand it they are amongst the best sampled pianos out there. I also quite rate Spitfire's Intimate Grand. Great video. Thank you! I am not a piano player so this was a bit of an education.!
Wow this is a real epic comparison video. I especially like the part at the beginning where you explained all the parts of the piano sound that the plugins try to model (or not…). Regarding the UVI Model D, you can get it for free we some hardware or other plugins. Would it stay at 1 star for a free version, or would it go up to 2?
I actually also got Model D as a free gift with purchase - I think if it was actually free, probably it would deserve 2 stars. But even then I would prefer my mentioned top 3 free pianos
Well done and very thorough! I wonder how many viewers will watch this complete video like I did? Did you get free copies or trials of the paid VSTs? Or did you buy some? I’d really like to get a copy of your spreadsheet - if that’s possible? Finally, I use the Logic Bosendorfer, Steinway and Yamaha c3 pianos quite a bit. Not sure how they compare. Thanks for putting in the effort for this comparison 😃
Thank you! Very nice to hear that there's at least one person out there that watched the whole thing! I was a bit worried about that when the video got longer an longer 😅
Many of plugins I bought over the past couple of years without thinking of this video, the couple I mentioned at the end I got for free from the Devs :)
I'm not sure what would be the best way to hand out the spreadsheet - it's all just in a powerpoint, feel free to reach out via instagram or e-mail so I could send that file through there 🤔 or maybe I could add a link to it in the description - I'll think about it!
i'm a bit sad that i like some of the sampled plugins' sounds more than the physical modelling approaches. but that's ok. i like physical modelling for other things
How is the sample length? Before it starts to loop the sample, making it feel synthetic .. (?)
As far as I know, none of these should have any loop points, just whole length sampled piano keystrokes with natural decay
Huh? What about LABS Autograph Grand?!?
😅 yep, it's not there, I prefer the Glass Grand over it
Xantux intentionally left it out to annoy you..
@@MreenalMams Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha, I knowwwwwww
@@MreenalMams I am now creating yet another Autograph Grand demo, just to annoy Xantux
@@matthijshebly 😂😂😂
fantastic video
I use addictive keys steinway, I like its sound and it came bundled with my audio interface free.
I'm personally not keen on mini grand, which came with my midi keyboard.
Curious what your thoughts are on reason's radical piano?
Hmm I don't have reason (anymore), I never tried it
@@xantux I'm on the fence on whether i want to keep reason+
I like its instruments (synths especially), but don't like the pricing model and its limitations as a DAW.
Assessing software pianos just by listening without playing them seems difficult to me. What I can say is, that we should not be fooled by the fact, that The Granduer ist so cheap and maybe quite old. I would never play a concert or record tracks with Noir or Alicia Keys or pianotec (what sounds artificial especially in the high range) and many others including Keyscape Piano, VSL, Ravenscroft and so on. The only one that can pass my testing is The Grandeur.
Thanks for testing so many that I have never heard of. It's time to try some of those.
Update: I now have spent 40€ to get the MeldwayGrand. Too bad, it is crap. Like many others. Compared with the Grandure ridiculous.
If anybody has trouble to find out, what plugin is nearest to the feel of playing a real Grand piano it could have several reasons.
- you are not a pianist
- you never played a big Grand Piano
- you don't have a keyboard that is good enough. Most keyboards can not show you the structure of the velocity layers.
What don't you like about the Meldway Grand? My focus in the video was quite heavily on how you can adjust play feel in the different plugins, because my thinking is: if you can adjust the play feel in detail, it should be possible to get a good play feel on pretty much any controller. Of course only really realistic on fully weighted keys though. I honestly don't remember my opinions on all the pianos in detail, but I'd say that I don't have a huge preference of grandeur vs. Meldway in regards to realistic sound and play feel, but I do prefer the medlay for it's flexibility for e.g. mic positions.
@@xantux I think we pianists have just two things, it's timing and dynamic. We can't do anything after hitting the key. So dynamic truth should really fit inside the software. And of course the Masterkeyboard. The piano of my perception provides a quite bright sound appearance at the top end of the velocity scale. This is what a Steinway does really well, including a certain shimmer, like this it is lively , you can express yourself very good with this. For me this is a ver important aspect, in contrast to half pedaling for example.
Very few software pianos offer his bright thing, for example Noir does not a good job under this aspect. I know that the owner of this piano (Nils Frahm) did never play the software version. Maybe if he would, he would not allow to sell it. Meldway sounds strange and the keys are far away from consistency. They all should behave the same way from 1 to 128 and from lowest to highest key. In Meldway is chaos. We can't say if the real piano was not in a good shape, or if it just the sampling process was not precise enough, or something else.
Keyscape is bright in upper velocity range ,but it is only a short Yamaha and does not sound as noble and big as The Grandure.
Some plugins have way too much reverb on even the closest mics. And so on...
To the Grandure channelstrip I add a Studer 800 plugin from UAD, tweak the high EQ a bit, what gives it the final touch.
What I need concerning different mic positions is just the closest stereo thing. Other positions don't matter. Also with recording my real grand piano.
nice thumbnail
Thanks!
Your getting it wrong. All of NI pianos. Got half dumping silent keys. And sympathetic resonance.
ruclips.net/user/liveEjow0VKeS1A?si=euE3LEO55w_LW247
I stand behind my test results. Sometimes with half damping, if it's implemented poorly, it will still feel like it doesn't really work. Same with silent key. But they definitely don't have the kind of sympathetic resonance I refer to in the video (see my tests, I don't mean string resonance). With the other two, they might have tried to implement them, but if so, they weren't successful (for some of the pianos)
@@xantux I did video that's proof your wrong about N.I Pianos. I Don't know why you deleted the respond. But I sent you privately the link thrue Instagram. Don't be too proud to admitted you was wrong. The thruth is more important then our ego.
muze is a scam lol
Also, Arturia's Piano V - which has one free preset (American Home Grand) in Analog Lab Play - is literally based on Pianoteq technology.