Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Ravenscroft by VI Labs… First Look and Sound

Here is the link for the new virtual piano introduced this week at NAMM:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LNSWORhW-o

Play On!

Sounds good. Would love to see something on the specs and the price.

I imagine the specs and the price will be similiar to the other pianos offered by VI Labs.
http://vilabsaudio.com/

I personally think they should offer a special introductory price for anyone who pre-orders.

Anyone noticed the muted notes feature assigned to MIDI CC 70 on the screenshot:



What's behind that?

Will we finally be able to play Dodge the Dodo and the like on a virtual piano !?!?

The pre-order page is up, and they ARE doing a pre-order discount. I already have their American and Italian Grand, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to pre-order this too as I'm going to buy it eventually anyways.

http://vilabsaudio.com/Ravenscroft-By-VI-Labs

Check out Ruslan Sirota playing it at NAMM. Sounds great!

Goodness me, this chap can play!

Indeed!

And what a great way to grab demos for your product (having some pros at NAMM play it for you).

Nice style mix, I want to play like him.
Who can teach me this?

Brief from wiki:
By the age of 16, he was the "wunderkind" keyboardist for the then-popular Israeli jazz fusion band, "Confusion". With Confusion, he toured Israel and made several appearances at the Red Sea Jazz Festival.[3]
At 18, Ruslan auditioned for the Berklee College of Music, where he received full tuition scholarship, and moved to Boston in January 2000. During his studies at Berklee, Ruslan displayed growing interest in R&B, funk and soul music, playing with local artists and eventually becoming the resident keyboardist in a club called "Wally's Jazz Café".[3] Circa 2004, Ruslan joined the Stanley Clarke band[4][5] and moved to Los Angeles, thus marking the beginning of his professional career.[6][7][8]
Since then, Ruslan has been touring, performing and recording with major artists (in addition to Clarke), such as Seal, Josh Groban, Ne-Yo, Chick Corea, Eric Benét, Marcus Miller, Dennis Chambers, Rachelle Ferrell, Diane Warren, Los Angeles Philharmonic and countless others. Ruslan released his self-titled debut album, featuring Clarke, Corea and George Duke as special guests, on October 24, 2011.

Sounds great overall, but the middle registers sound a bit bright & harsh to me. I like bright, but a "silvery" bright - not a harsh bright. But, this problem goes away when I listen on cheapie headpones. What a fantastic demo though.

Just as an aside, it seems to me that real grand pianos have a rather slow release in the very low notes, making that "twang" sound as the dampers come to rest on the strings, and I hate that sound - I like crisp releases. I like the fact that this can be dialled out on emulated pianos. (I haven't noticed the twang in this demo)

Greg.

No question.

He might need a little help with his hair, though.

Great playing by Ruslan Sirota indeed! The two recordings (Yesterday and "Nearness of You") on VI Labs' website also give a nice impression on the sound with fewer notes per minute

However, still no indications regarding the new features "muted notes" and "silent strike"...

Agreed - he's no Franz Liszt!

Sounds great! Will Kawai be working on a velocity curve for VI Labs?

As the OP for this thread, I posted because I am interested in purchasing the Ravenscroft software. Before doing that though, I would love to hear from somone in the forums who has actually purchased the product, and can give us an honest evaluation. I realize that this may require some time and patience, and I am willing to wait for that evaluation. I noticed in the demo the VST was paired with the VPC1. I would be interested in hearing from users how it performs when paired with keyboards other than the VPC1. The pre-release promotion was well done, and the screen shots look amazing. I'm waiting for one of you to tell me, "I've played, I like it, here's why; or I've played it and here are the issues I have." Thanks in advance…
H.K.

They're working on it:
"The Ravenscroft also added new features such as Silent Strikes and Muted Notes. We’ll demo these features in an upcoming video."

The product hasn't been released yet, so you'll have to wait until around February 14th for impressions.

Chicolm, because I have been following the release of Ravenscroft religiously… I wrote this line in my prior post: "I realize this may take some time and patience, and I am willing to wait for that evaluation."

Hearing a demo by VI labs may be different from someone who has "hands on" experience with the new VST. I'll wait patiently to hear the forum evaluations, but do wish to encourage anyone who buys and tries to let us know what you think!

Cheers!

Wow, very impressive playing! I'll also be curious to opinions on this software, and how it compares to Pianoteq and Galaxy.

... and Ivory II.

I'll throw that one in too. This is kind of like buying a piano by shopping on how it sounds to you and an emotional connection.

I gather that we are in talks with a number of different software piano developers to prepare touch curves for new and existing packages. However, I'm afraid I cannot provide any concrete details at this moment.

I expect we will make any such announcement via the kawaivpc.com website and VPC facebook page (which is a great source for other VPC news by the way [/plug]) in due course.

Cheers,
James
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