Here's a quick video to discuss ambient acoustic piano samples and whether those recorded 24 years ago are still any good or are only fit for the rubbish heap!
Tim wanted say your videos are an inspiration... Well made and just a joy for me when I see new ones pop up. Just wanted to say that coz i know you put a lot of time and effort in them. Thanks a lot!
I was going to upgrade my Nord stage for exactly the same reason I think it becomes very subjective in the end, put a great reverb on a piano sample It always sounds amazing ❤
Fantastic content Tim. This kind of information is invaluable to others when looking at what to purchase. Please can we have more of these comparisons?
i use a yamaha MO8 as a main keyboard for years. the piano action is wonderful and it has all the basic starting points that i can turn into anything with affects. I love it, a key went wonky and of course I was crushed. Im sold on Osmosis so Im starting a fund to get one. I adore ambient piano and love building them from the ground up.I appreciate your channel very much. Thank you
I like the pianos in UVI for Falcon. I use falcon for a lot of filler and other sounds in mixing when I have finished with my hardware recording.UVI has many options for piano samples and sounds.
All sound really great. I agree with your conclusion. As long as the keyboard is mechanically functioning to your satisfaction then no need to upgrade. I play a lot of piano for my own enjoyment and my favorite piano is my Yamaha Clavinova. I love the many piano samples on it which are easy to switch depending on style of music I'm playing. Also feels like real piano to play. I can also choose to play from other sample libraries using MIDI.
You really need to do this using PianoTeq’s physically modelled piano, not only is it super versatile (you can position microphones around the piano) but it’s also got a fantastic sympathetic resonance that sampled pianos have trouble capturing, and it uses no disk space.
This video is very special to me because last summer I asked myself the same question! Should I keep my trusted and underrated Gem Promega 3 or buy a modern digital piano for a future project? I decided to buy a new one and gave the Promega to my younger brother,, who was very happy with it. I had bought the Roland Integra 7, which contains the expansion board piano of your video. It sounds great but velocity switching is audible so I looked furher. After trying out some Kawai and cheaper Roland pianos I went for the Roland RD-2000. It was the only digital piano in its price range with balanced outputs and with both sampled and virtual pianos. The keyboard action is fantastic. One cool feature that perhaps makes it suitable for experimental music is that it allows you to change some modeling parameters on the fly, from let's say a Wurlitzer to a Rhodes. It shares many sounds with the Integra 7 but one of the last sounds in the nearly endless list is a guiro like Korg Minipops sound that I had been looking for for many years and that I would not have expected to find in a digital piano. On the downside, the panel is hard to read in poor lighting conditions and midi management is cumbersome. I realise buying a stage piano just for ambient sounds is overkill but I would recommend a piano with both great keyboard action and a wide range of quality piano sounds to anyone as a source of inspiration.
Funny, I was drawn to the Kawaii somehow. Maybe because I've heard it in some of your music before. I have a few Spitfire Audio ones myself (from the Originals series) and some from Arturia. Spitfire has some cool free ones in their LABS range worth checking out.
Of all 5, the least piano-like to these ears was Olafur Arnalds', but the damping made it more characterful and strangely it turned out to be my favourite of all 5. If I could, I would use the lower notes from Hans' piano, as they have a bit of heft even when played delicately, then I'd be very happy. The oomph of the lower frequencies of a piano are ear candy for me. Nice video Tim, many thanks for producing it.
Tim, sometimes I Wonder if our search for perfection defeats our purpose! There are times when I can spend hours listening and then attempting to perfect that sound. In a way it's madness in itself!
That was interesting. The only thing I have with piano samples is my old Roland XP-30 and I’ve always been dissatisfied with the piano sounds and just assumed its a sampling thing and that all piano samples will have basically the same limitations. This was an eye opener. Thanks!
Nice video! I am wondering how many velocity layers the last patch has. It seems to be that the midi velocities are very close together, but they are triggering 2 layers that sound too different.
They were all good, in different ways. My favourite was #1... consequently I took advantage of the Spitfire Audio Winter sale and bought Heirloom - going to regret that in the morning, so I'll be blaming you in my head 😆
#3 and #6 are my favorites comparing with real piano sounds. I like the mood of #2 as well, although the piano sound itself sounds soft without to much overtones, The reverb pushes it in the right way.
5, 4, and 2 were my favs, but my ears (and speakers) are garbage. I don't currently have a need for a piano vst, but when I saw that Sampleson MetaPiano on sale recently, I at least looked into it (no affiliation). Spectral Synthesis + physical modeling instead of gigabytes of samples. I wondered how good is good enough.. (Made me recall the list of things I have wanted my Synclavier ios app to do - lol) Sadly, I think I prefer the sound samples from v1.0 better than v1.5 (assuming all things equal) - so I passed on it - but added it to my list of interesting vsts. Curious if the consensus is still that samples are better than synthesized, when trying to reproduce acoustic instruments. Thanks for this content. It is always interesting to see how someone evaluates what works for their needs, and gives examples of what they are evaluating. Always a good learning moment.
Hi Tim, I don't suppose you have done a side-by-side comparison of the piano sounds from the XV-5080 and the same sounds in the Jupiter-Xm? I really liked you Jupiter-Xm video from a while back and ended up buying one to use as a module.
Piano 2 has some sort of artifact at the beginning of each note. None of the others had that. Other than that, they all sounded perfectly usable to me.
I really liked the Hans Zimmer VST, but that last Roland preset was my fav, it was stunning! Roland hardware was some of the best sounding gear back in the day. Personally, I have some VST and iOS pianos, they’re good, but none of them can top my Ensoniq sampler Steinway grand piano. Never doubt the old gear, lol
I love the sounds on my Korg SV-2, but if I’m completely honest, the sounds on my 20 year old Yamaha S90 sound pretty nice too! The basic sounds in Logic Pro X are more than usable too anyway. All 6 of those sounded nice to me!
I think that every piano I've used always came from the same library: UVI Model D, which is a German concert grand. It came for free with... something I bought years ago, don't remember what, but of all the sampled pianos I've tested, it's the one I liked the most. To be honest, I'm not a piano expert, so I can't tell you why, but it seems very easy to sit in a mix, and it doesn't have any harmonics that I (personally) find annoying. It takes every kind of effect very easily too, so it's not hard to make it sound good even after heavily processing the result. I also have the Arturia one, which works with physical modeling instead of a sampled library, but there's something in it that doesn't sound quite right to me, and I've never been able to adjust it the way I would like to. I've seen people say it uses a licensed version from the Pianoteq engine, so if that's true, it should sound very good (I love Pianoteq, but it's very expensive), but maybe I just don't how to work with that engine.
I wonder what these samples would sound like if played with the Osmose, given that it is pretty sensitive with its velocity. I know the MPE would not work and you would not want that on piano samples but strictly the velocity of the Osmose. I guess what you have there with the hammer action keybed is the best way to play. I am not a pianist so really have no experience with this sort of play style. Thx for the upload Tim, was good to see your experiences.
Hi Tim. It could be good to do a similar comparison demo but as opposed to doing a piano 'sample' walk through, do similar demo from piano 'modelling' software. I use Modartts Pianoteq 7 and it is absolutely phenomenal. Thoughts?
I use digi piano about as opposite from "realistic" as can be (it's a hobby of mine). And for what I like to do to the digital piano, I think your old Kawai would be the best test subject out of the pianos you demonstrated. If it wasn't for my need for portability, I'd have something like that. I'm not sure what you mostly use piano for (aside from this channel) but if you use software pianos for "realistic" needs, and the Kawai has great key action, and you don't need something easier to carry around often, then why change?
#2 and #5 were my favorite sounds. I personally use grand piano selections from Yamaha Motif as my piano with about -20 points of cutoff most of the time to mellow it out. I love Yamaha pianos and by extension I love their piano samples. They tend to be a little too bright by default for my taste, but as I said, it’s nothing a little cutoff adjustment won’t fix. I feel very comfortable with the Motif sound library, having grown up playing Nintendo games during the 2000’s where its use was most prevalent.. They are such crisp, convincing samples, but at the same time they’re blatantly artificial in the most endearing way. Sort of uncanny. I still think they hold up by today’s standards, though it really does depend on the kind of music you’re making.
I usually use the Yamaha CFX "Grand Piano 1" that seems to have a variant in almost all their boards. Mostly I mangle the heck out of it, but even when I play it straight, I like it because it's so familiar. It's been used in so many places over the years, records, stage, churches, lessons, everywhere... It's not as massively sampled as some software pianos, but it "sounds like a piano" to me, there's that familiarity... it's become a classic digital piano, in the sense that the Minimoog, Juno and Prophet 5 are classic sounding synths - so ubiquitous that they define the sound, in peoples' minds.
As a Nord owner and Pianoteq user I’ve actually been nicely surprised by the MPC Piano plugin. Once you start moving into ambient territory they hold up well. Dry not so much :)
Very interesting video! I always wondered how much little difference we got since the 90's workstations. My Yamaha motif piano sound which is if I recal corectly is based on 20mb waveforms. Compare it with 10-30 gb of kontact piano librery... and the diffetence is like 10%-20% better in qulity? Sure the 80's machines was really bad mimic real instrumens, you can't do much with 2mb rom. But when memory became cheaper and all ropmlers/samplers moved to 16bit, they were able to get it real close. All we can get nowdays is more velocity layers, hammer like effects... and better reverbs. Anyway I liked the 5080 sound the most 👍
I have the Roland Fantom and the pianos sound pretty damned good! And I'm not going to tell you about reverts or they're use! I think you know what your talking about so I really don't have to give you advise or suggestions. That would make me impertinent!
My favourite pianos in order are: 1. Chroma - Sonuscore 2. Noire - Native Instruments 3. Alt Piano - Westwood Instruments If you ever get a chance to try them, do yourself a favour and please do
I'm weird in that I love artificial sounding pianos. I usually record with Addictive Keys, but my Juno DS has an array of lofi/artificial sounds that I adore.
Sometimes you can spend for spendings sake,if you are happy with what you have keep your hard earned in your pocket ,no doubt something else will catch your eye ,great comparisons though ,thanks for sharing ,????
I guess it‘s all a matter of taste and this time I don‘t agree with yours. #3 is my least favorite one. There‘s a slight wabble in the higher frequency which I don‘t like. I think #2 is my favorite. Have you ever tried Hammers + Waves? I really like them but then again, we might defere here too. Thanks for the video!
Good show, Tim!! Oliver…own it. H Z piano…own it! Gorgeous. And…your ‘ancient’ hardware unit fights toe to toe with ‘em. I admit it, I’m a Roland hater…I just am. I can’t even love the Jup 8, but I do love Softube’s JUNO…Model 84. And I adore my D50 software that. John Skippy led me to-Irish Acts (you have to suffer mightily to unlock its secret passcode to enter, but then bliss ensues) Anyway, your ancient one proves the point: they’ll spend ALL your money if you let them seduce you. Probably best to get off the GOTTA HAVE next Gen Ferris-wheel. It’s a damn piano…in a big mix, they’re all perfect! “…23 year old sounds just as good.” BINGO & Amen (he says after just having [finally] just succumbed to Spitfire’s Chamber Strings). And even then, Spitfire won’t let it Alone: chamber strings PRO ‘with articulations modern day directors INSIST upon.!’ Oh…Great…my $700 product i just purchased is immediately inadequate! I go to the back of the film scorers line, having an inferior sample set. ‘Yeah mmm…sorry mare…mate, what was your name again? Yeah, Mark…right! Stand right over there, behind the guys with the Cool samples. We’ll be to you shortly.’ There’s always more and better Heroin in the next syringe! Last remark, speaking KAWAI: remember their SO COOL additive synth keyboard? I owned it, maybe you did too.
I have been a pianist for 55 years, played the best and worst pianos on stage from unknown piano's to Steinways finest Concert D....but.....at home when I practice in my tiny apartment (for the love of my neighbors) I must play a digital with headphones. For 35 years I keep hoping that the next generation of Dpiano's will be "the one". ALL Dpianos for the last 35 years have been horrible to play and listen to, and record. Sampling was the first breakthrough, and obviously the standard today. But even the best sample is worthless if the connection between human and keys and sound engine isn't controllable or controlled simulated like a good acoustic grand. We have 1) the mechanical action 2) the touch control 3) the velocity levels 4) number of samples and crossfade 5) and does it all work together to give us expressive control? Then there is the actual sound produced according to the articulation of the performer, there is more than one way to touch a key and produce a sound, there are hundreds of different ways to activate sound on a real acoustic piano. Does the Dpiano have this today? Been on a quest for a great Dpiano for decades, but only about once every 10 years do I take advantage of new tech because there is little difference between any Dpiano across all manufactures for a decade. One exception Roland introduced the V-Piano, a modeled (no samples) piano about 10 years ago, but I did not buy one until a few weeks ago. Being EXTREMELY critical of Dpianos I have been testing pianos because it has been 10 years since my last purchase. Today there are only two Pianos to consider, the Roland RD2000 and the Yamaha DGX670. Curiously opposite ends of the cost spectrum, at $3000 and $850. My friend bought the DGX670 and I own the RD2000, so I have many hours on both pianos. A great Dpiano MUST have extensive editing of sound, just like a good synthesizer; these do. Editing because we all have our own idea of what a great acoustic piano sounds like and we want to sound design this on the Dpiano, and obviously we have to compensate for choices in headphones, monitor speakers or sound re-enforcement. My friend and I were watching a piano concert that she loved, the performer was playing an acoustic upright grand with very soft felt, and between the gentle performance and the voicing of the piano it was very ambient. My friend said she loved this sound, so the next morning I designed that sound on her DGX670 and it came out near perfect, it was gorgeous (that never happens). THAT is how much control I had over this "cheap" Dpiano! To make a bright sounding Dpiano go way down into the soft felt ambient realm! Including the effects! So, YES I am excited about today's Dpianos FOR THE FIRST TIME EXCITED! Waited a long time to have incredible tone control, excellent action and touch, great sound and finally the sympathetic resonance missing for decades. So, Tim if you want to spend a measly $850 bucks on a piano that can make any sound you desire and play it with a beautifully controlled touch, it is time for you too. With your tech knowledge of synths, you will find the DGX670 very easy to voice (sound design) to anything you desire. I will continue to work with my RD2000 because I have per-key control (each of the 88 keys can be edited with different parameters). But I am also going to buy the Yamaha DGX670 because it just sounds different and quick to make any piano voicing I desire. So my tiny apartment will have a Modeled and a Sampled piano, both makes this old guy's search finally over after 35 years :)
![Ambient Piano Music - Peaceful Relaxing Music, meditative, focus, relax, enjoy [#1913]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/V7m4vlFAJ4Q/mqdefault.jpg)
![Eminem - Houdini [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/22tVWwmTie8/mqdefault.jpg)
Like so many things, (cameras come to mind), the best is the one you have at hand.
Tim wanted say your videos are an inspiration... Well made and just a joy for me when I see new ones pop up. Just wanted to say that coz i know you put a lot of time and effort in them. Thanks a lot!
Pianoteq software is incredible, they have particular ambient sounds as presets.
I was going to upgrade my Nord stage for exactly the same reason
I think it becomes very subjective in the end, put a great reverb on a piano sample
It always sounds amazing ❤
Super comparison, Tim, love your detail. Yeah. we really don't need to succumb to any more marketing hyoe... 👍
Fantastic content Tim. This kind of information is invaluable to others when looking at what to purchase. Please can we have more of these comparisons?
i have a Roland A90-EX and love piano sounds sampled about 25 years ago
i use a yamaha MO8 as a main keyboard for years. the piano action is wonderful and it has all the basic starting points that i can turn into anything with affects. I love it, a key went wonky and of course I was crushed. Im sold on Osmosis so Im starting a fund to get one. I adore ambient piano and love building them from the ground up.I appreciate your channel very much. Thank you
I like the pianos in UVI for Falcon. I use falcon for a lot of filler and other sounds in mixing when I have finished with my hardware recording.UVI has many options for piano samples and sounds.
This is incredibly useful info. Thank you.
All sound really great. I agree with your conclusion. As long as the keyboard is mechanically functioning to your satisfaction then no need to upgrade. I play a lot of piano for my own enjoyment and my favorite piano is my Yamaha Clavinova. I love the many piano samples on it which are easy to switch depending on style of music I'm playing. Also feels like real piano to play. I can also choose to play from other sample libraries using MIDI.
You really need to do this using PianoTeq’s physically modelled piano, not only is it super versatile (you can position microphones around the piano) but it’s also got a fantastic sympathetic resonance that sampled pianos have trouble capturing, and it uses no disk space.
This video is very special to me because last summer I asked myself the same question! Should I keep my trusted and underrated Gem Promega 3 or buy a modern digital piano for a future project? I decided to buy a new one and gave the Promega to my younger brother,, who was very happy with it. I had bought the Roland Integra 7, which contains the expansion board piano of your video. It sounds great but velocity switching is audible so I looked furher. After trying out some Kawai and cheaper Roland pianos I went for the Roland RD-2000. It was the only digital piano in its price range with balanced outputs and with both sampled and virtual pianos. The keyboard action is fantastic. One cool feature that perhaps makes it suitable for experimental music is that it allows you to change some modeling parameters on the fly, from let's say a Wurlitzer to a Rhodes. It shares many sounds with the Integra 7 but one of the last sounds in the nearly endless list is a guiro like Korg Minipops sound that I had been looking for for many years and that I would not have expected to find in a digital piano. On the downside, the panel is hard to read in poor lighting conditions and midi management is cumbersome. I realise buying a stage piano just for ambient sounds is overkill but I would recommend a piano with both great keyboard action and a wide range of quality piano sounds to anyone as a source of inspiration.
Funny, I was drawn to the Kawaii somehow. Maybe because I've heard it in some of your music before. I have a few Spitfire Audio ones myself (from the Originals series) and some from Arturia. Spitfire has some cool free ones in their LABS range worth checking out.
Of all 5, the least piano-like to these ears was Olafur Arnalds', but the damping made it more characterful and strangely it turned out to be my favourite of all 5. If I could, I would use the lower notes from Hans' piano, as they have a bit of heft even when played delicately, then I'd be very happy. The oomph of the lower frequencies of a piano are ear candy for me. Nice video Tim, many thanks for producing it.
Tim, sometimes I Wonder if our search for perfection defeats our purpose! There are times when I can spend hours listening and then attempting to perfect that sound. In a way it's madness in itself!
That was interesting. The only thing I have with piano samples is my old Roland XP-30 and I’ve always been dissatisfied with the piano
sounds and just assumed its a sampling thing and that all piano samples will have basically the same limitations. This was an eye opener. Thanks!
I love the XV Pianos I find them most expressive (with care)... Great vid Time
Nice video! I am wondering how many velocity layers the last patch has. It seems to be that the midi velocities are very close together, but they are triggering 2 layers that sound too different.
I liked piano 4 the most out of these. Your Kawaii sounded very nice too.
They were all good, in different ways. My favourite was #1... consequently I took advantage of the Spitfire Audio Winter sale and bought Heirloom - going to regret that in the morning, so I'll be blaming you in my head 😆
#3 and #6 are my favorites comparing with real piano sounds. I like the mood of #2 as well, although the piano sound itself sounds soft without to much overtones, The reverb pushes it in the right way.
As a Yamaha C5 grand piano owner, 3 was my favorite. I did like Olaf's piano because the of hammered felt sound in the higher registers.
5, 4, and 2 were my favs, but my ears (and speakers) are garbage.
I don't currently have a need for a piano vst, but when I saw that Sampleson MetaPiano on sale recently, I at least looked into it (no affiliation). Spectral Synthesis + physical modeling instead of gigabytes of samples. I wondered how good is good enough.. (Made me recall the list of things I have wanted my Synclavier ios app to do - lol) Sadly, I think I prefer the sound samples from v1.0 better than v1.5 (assuming all things equal) - so I passed on it - but added it to my list of interesting vsts.
Curious if the consensus is still that samples are better than synthesized, when trying to reproduce acoustic instruments.
Thanks for this content. It is always interesting to see how someone evaluates what works for their needs, and gives examples of what they are evaluating. Always a good learning moment.
Hi Tim, I don't suppose you have done a side-by-side comparison of the piano sounds from the XV-5080 and the same sounds in the Jupiter-Xm? I really liked you Jupiter-Xm video from a while back and ended up buying one to use as a module.
Piano 2 has some sort of artifact at the beginning of each note. None of the others had that. Other than that, they all sounded perfectly usable to me.
I really liked the Hans Zimmer VST, but that last Roland preset was my fav, it was stunning! Roland hardware was some of the best sounding gear back in the day. Personally, I have some VST and iOS pianos, they’re good, but none of them can top my Ensoniq sampler Steinway grand piano. Never doubt the old gear, lol
very nice and thoughtful video - the Roland pianos are available as plugins too, btw.
I love the sounds on my Korg SV-2, but if I’m completely honest, the sounds on my 20 year old Yamaha S90 sound pretty nice too! The basic sounds in Logic Pro X are more than usable too anyway.
All 6 of those sounded nice to me!
I loved #4 for sure. Nice exercise.
I think that every piano I've used always came from the same library: UVI Model D, which is a German concert grand. It came for free with... something I bought years ago, don't remember what, but of all the sampled pianos I've tested, it's the one I liked the most.
To be honest, I'm not a piano expert, so I can't tell you why, but it seems very easy to sit in a mix, and it doesn't have any harmonics that I (personally) find annoying. It takes every kind of effect very easily too, so it's not hard to make it sound good even after heavily processing the result.
I also have the Arturia one, which works with physical modeling instead of a sampled library, but there's something in it that doesn't sound quite right to me, and I've never been able to adjust it the way I would like to. I've seen people say it uses a licensed version from the Pianoteq engine, so if that's true, it should sound very good (I love Pianoteq, but it's very expensive), but maybe I just don't how to work with that engine.
I actually picked the MP 9000 as my favorite. I do love the Olafur Arnalds sound though..
I wonder what these samples would sound like if played with the Osmose, given that it is pretty sensitive with its velocity.
I know the MPE would not work and you would not want that on piano samples but strictly the velocity of the Osmose.
I guess what you have there with the hammer action keybed is the best way to play.
I am not a pianist so really have no experience with this sort of play style.
Thx for the upload Tim, was good to see your experiences.
Hi Tim. It could be good to do a similar comparison demo but as opposed to doing a piano 'sample' walk through, do similar demo from piano 'modelling' software. I use Modartts Pianoteq 7 and it is absolutely phenomenal. Thoughts?
really enjoyed this. as demonstrated new is not necessarily better. 🎶👍
Have you tried Una Corda by Native Instruments? That’s another great intimate piano.
I use digi piano about as opposite from "realistic" as can be (it's a hobby of mine). And for what I like to do to the digital piano, I think your old Kawai would be the best test subject out of the pianos you demonstrated. If it wasn't for my need for portability, I'd have something like that. I'm not sure what you mostly use piano for (aside from this channel) but if you use software pianos for "realistic" needs, and the Kawai has great key action, and you don't need something easier to carry around often, then why change?
The last one is the one I liked the most.
#2 and #5 were my favorite sounds. I personally use grand piano selections from Yamaha Motif as my piano with about -20 points of cutoff most of the time to mellow it out. I love Yamaha pianos and by extension I love their piano samples. They tend to be a little too bright by default for my taste, but as I said, it’s nothing a little cutoff adjustment won’t fix.
I feel very comfortable with the Motif sound library, having grown up playing Nintendo games during the 2000’s where its use was most prevalent.. They are such crisp, convincing samples, but at the same time they’re blatantly artificial in the most endearing way. Sort of uncanny. I still think they hold up by today’s standards, though it really does depend on the kind of music you’re making.
Is that a CXM 1978 behind u? 😆I love mine.
Pianoteq is a superb piano plugin, one of the best. It's modelled rather than sampled so fast and very low cpu. A Montage or MODX8+ fits the bill?
I usually use the Yamaha CFX "Grand Piano 1" that seems to have a variant in almost all their boards. Mostly I mangle the heck out of it, but even when I play it straight, I like it because it's so familiar. It's been used in so many places over the years, records, stage, churches, lessons, everywhere... It's not as massively sampled as some software pianos, but it "sounds like a piano" to me, there's that familiarity... it's become a classic digital piano, in the sense that the Minimoog, Juno and Prophet 5 are classic sounding synths - so ubiquitous that they define the sound, in peoples' minds.
As a Nord owner and Pianoteq user I’ve actually been nicely surprised by the MPC Piano plugin. Once you start moving into ambient territory they hold up well. Dry not so much :)
agree, i was shocked how good the Atmos ones are
i chose red as my favorite sounding.and light yellow second. very interesting topic.
I love the sixth sound. I think more dynamic sound is important to me.
What camera and light are you using if I may ask?
Very interesting video! I always wondered how much little difference we got since the 90's workstations. My Yamaha motif piano sound which is if I recal corectly is based on 20mb waveforms. Compare it with 10-30 gb of kontact piano librery... and the diffetence is like 10%-20% better in qulity? Sure the 80's machines was really bad mimic real instrumens, you can't do much with 2mb rom. But when memory became cheaper and all ropmlers/samplers moved to 16bit, they were able to get it real close. All we can get nowdays is more velocity layers, hammer like effects... and better reverbs.
Anyway I liked the 5080 sound the most 👍
I think the bigger leaps have been in the clonewheel organ space, though I couldn’t say for certain.
Best ambient piano for me, wavestate iceland piano preset. I have keyscape and lots of others but there is something about the wavestate
I have the Roland Fantom and the pianos sound pretty damned good! And I'm not going to tell you about reverts or they're use! I think you know what your talking about so I really don't have to give you advise or suggestions. That would make me impertinent!
My favourite pianos in order are:
1. Chroma - Sonuscore
2. Noire - Native Instruments
3. Alt Piano - Westwood Instruments
If you ever get a chance to try them, do yourself a favour and please do
Ooh, what's 'hidden' beneath that Moog branded cover?! Are you beta-testing something interesting, Tim? 😀
I'm weird in that I love artificial sounding pianos. I usually record with Addictive Keys, but my Juno DS has an array of lofi/artificial sounds that I adore.
Sometimes you can spend for spendings sake,if you are happy with what you have keep your hard earned in your pocket ,no doubt something else will catch your eye ,great comparisons though ,thanks for sharing ,????
i would say it shows the quality of spitfire audio. as i chose by ear and no knowledge of these pianos.
I guess it‘s all a matter of taste and this time I don‘t agree with yours. #3 is my least favorite one. There‘s a slight wabble in the higher frequency which I don‘t like. I think #2 is my favorite. Have you ever tried Hammers + Waves? I really like them but then again, we might defere here too. Thanks for the video!
They all sound good to my broken ears.
5, 6 & 3 👌
Good show, Tim!! Oliver…own it. H Z piano…own it! Gorgeous.
And…your ‘ancient’ hardware unit fights toe to toe with ‘em. I admit it, I’m a Roland hater…I just am. I can’t even love the Jup 8, but I do love Softube’s JUNO…Model 84. And I adore my D50 software that. John Skippy led me to-Irish Acts (you have to suffer mightily to unlock its secret passcode to enter, but then bliss ensues)
Anyway, your ancient one proves the point: they’ll spend ALL your money if you let them seduce you.
Probably best to get off the GOTTA HAVE next Gen Ferris-wheel. It’s a damn piano…in a big mix, they’re all perfect!
“…23 year old sounds just as good.” BINGO & Amen (he says after just having [finally] just succumbed to Spitfire’s Chamber Strings). And even then, Spitfire won’t let it Alone: chamber strings PRO ‘with articulations modern day directors INSIST upon.!’ Oh…Great…my $700 product i just purchased is immediately inadequate! I go to the back of the film scorers line, having an inferior sample set. ‘Yeah mmm…sorry mare…mate, what was your name again? Yeah, Mark…right! Stand right over there, behind the guys with the Cool samples. We’ll be to you shortly.’
There’s always more and better Heroin in the next syringe!
Last remark, speaking KAWAI: remember their SO COOL additive synth keyboard? I owned it, maybe you did too.
I would highly recommend you to check out Sound Iron's Emotional Piano 👌🏻
3 and 6 for me
the SRX-02 sounds best to me.... good concept for a video
I have been a pianist for 55 years, played the best and worst pianos on stage from unknown piano's to Steinways finest Concert D....but.....at home when I practice in my tiny apartment (for the love of my neighbors) I must play a digital with headphones. For 35 years I keep hoping that the next generation of Dpiano's will be "the one". ALL Dpianos for the last 35 years have been horrible to play and listen to, and record. Sampling was the first breakthrough, and obviously the standard today. But even the best sample is worthless if the connection between human and keys and sound engine isn't controllable or controlled simulated like a good acoustic grand. We have 1) the mechanical action 2) the touch control 3) the velocity levels 4) number of samples and crossfade 5) and does it all work together to give us expressive control? Then there is the actual sound produced according to the articulation of the performer, there is more than one way to touch a key and produce a sound, there are hundreds of different ways to activate sound on a real acoustic piano. Does the Dpiano have this today?
Been on a quest for a great Dpiano for decades, but only about once every 10 years do I take advantage of new tech because there is little difference between any Dpiano across all manufactures for a decade. One exception Roland introduced the V-Piano, a modeled (no samples) piano about 10 years ago, but I did not buy one until a few weeks ago. Being EXTREMELY critical of Dpianos I have been testing pianos because it has been 10 years since my last purchase. Today there are only two Pianos to consider, the Roland RD2000 and the Yamaha DGX670. Curiously opposite ends of the cost spectrum, at $3000 and $850. My friend bought the DGX670 and I own the RD2000, so I have many hours on both pianos. A great Dpiano MUST have extensive editing of sound, just like a good synthesizer; these do. Editing because we all have our own idea of what a great acoustic piano sounds like and we want to sound design this on the Dpiano, and obviously we have to compensate for choices in headphones, monitor speakers or sound re-enforcement.
My friend and I were watching a piano concert that she loved, the performer was playing an acoustic upright grand with very soft felt, and between the gentle performance and the voicing of the piano it was very ambient. My friend said she loved this sound, so the next morning I designed that sound on her DGX670 and it came out near perfect, it was gorgeous (that never happens). THAT is how much control I had over this "cheap" Dpiano! To make a bright sounding Dpiano go way down into the soft felt ambient realm! Including the effects!
So, YES I am excited about today's Dpianos FOR THE FIRST TIME EXCITED! Waited a long time to have incredible tone control, excellent action and touch, great sound and finally the sympathetic resonance missing for decades. So, Tim if you want to spend a measly $850 bucks on a piano that can make any sound you desire and play it with a beautifully controlled touch, it is time for you too. With your tech knowledge of synths, you will find the DGX670 very easy to voice (sound design) to anything you desire. I will continue to work with my RD2000 because I have per-key control (each of the 88 keys can be edited with different parameters). But I am also going to buy the Yamaha DGX670 because it just sounds different and quick to make any piano voicing I desire. So my tiny apartment will have a Modeled and a Sampled piano, both makes this old guy's search finally over after 35 years :)
#3 for me
3 or 5 best, 2 worst
I’d like to hear #2 and #5 combined.