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

I pre-ordered the Ravenscroft a few days ago, and I'm looking forward to it.

I already have the VI Labs American grand (Steinway D) and Italian Grand (Fazioli F308), and I'm pleased with them and find them nicely playable. I also have a handful of other virtual pianos, including the Galaxy Vintage D, but I prefer using the VI labs pianos. The Vintage D has always sounded a bit artificial and unrealistic to me in a few areas. The tone in the middle register sounds a bit sterile and overly uniform/clean to me, making it sound strangely artificial and digital. Something about the attack also sounds a off to me, and the resonance can occasionally sounds a bit synthetic.

I think I prefer the multiple mic perspective route over the single mic perspective with extra velocity layers. I almost bought the Ivory American D a few times, but I could never pull the trigger as the single mic perspective they chose always sounded a bit distant and sterile to me - like your listening to a recording of a piano instead of actually sitting in front of one playing it. The mic perspectives that VI Labs uses do a better job at capturing that sitting-at-the-piano feeling for me, and you pick up more little things like hammer attack and as a result I get more drawn into the playing (and end up playing longer). I can hear more of the piano's character and it plays more smoothly and lyrically from note-to-note for me. On the Ivory and Vintage D, I find some notes can sound good isolated on their own, but can sound a little artificially detached from one another during playing, for whatever reason. Overall I do think the Ivory D sound better than the Vintage D, but I think the Ravenscroft sounds better than both.

I think VI Labs does a good job with release samples. They sound better to me than on the Vintage D. Releases samples are very important as they allow the piano to still sound believable when playing short/staccato notes. This is where most onboard DP sounds fail miserably, and you need to use a lot of pedal in order to hide the "digital". Even some software pianos have trouble getting it to sound right. With the VI Labs' pianos and I find I can get away with playing a bit more "naked" and exposed (without the pedal covering things up) and still have it come out sounding pretty good.

When it comes time to pedal, their pianos support all the latest pedal techniques (half-pedal, re-pedal, una corda, sostenuto). The use of real half-pedal and pedal resonance samples (as opposed to simulated) is an interesting one, although I can't comment too much on them as I don't listen to them isolated off from all the other samples. The bottom line for me though is that I find the pedals to behave pretty realistically in-use, and I don't get distracted or pulled out of playing because the pedals did something abnormal compared to what a real piano would do. Anyone who has used digital pianos for a while knows the feeling when your playing along and suddenly the damper pedal cuts the sound off in a place where it shouldn't have (or sustains when it shouldn't have), and you pause for a moment with a confused look on your face...

As for the sound of the VI labs pianos themselves, I find the American Grand to sound pretty even and inoffensive across the scale and with a bit of that "american" warmth and intimacy. It's probably the most versatile sounding grand out of the "True Keys" package, and it's currently my go-to piano. It might be slightly too mellow at fff and ppp volumes, and some of the lowest bass notes on the American sound a little bit twangy. The Italian grand has a greater dynamic range, and the bass sounds very powerful and clean (as it should on a 10' piano!). It also has a particularly nice sounding una corda, perhaps the best I've heard in a software piano. The piano has a glass-like purity and brilliance to it - perhaps too brilliant as it can sound a little thin, bright, and even a bit strident at times in some of the upper registers. This can be alleviated some by tweaking the controls.

The Ravenscroft sounds like it falls somewhere in between the two, having better bass, dynamics, and clarity than the American grand, but sounding warmer and less brilliant than the Italian grand. This isn't too surprising, given that the actual Ravenscroft pianos strive to combine some of best the traits of American and European grands into a single piano. It's sort of a "best of" sound, which should hopefully make it nice and versatile. On top of that it has a some new technical perks, like more velocity layers, an extra perspective, and a few more controls to the interface. VI labs' overall sampling/recording process sounds (to my ears) like it has improved a little for the Ravenscroft. I think dialing in a bit of the new "room" mic perspective will add some nice depth and dimensionality to the sound. I'm not sure yet how the "silent strike" and "muted note" features are going to work, but we'll find out soon enough.

I expect the Ravenscroft to be my default go-to piano for the near future.

It sounds like the doctoring was more than just a customized velocity curve. I wonder if they might release the information/instructions on how they doctored the VPC1. While it might be warranty-voiding, it would be really interesting to know, for someone who bought this VI, how someone could hook it up with the controller configured in such a way that they felt it best duplicated the response/feel of the original acoustic.

chicolom, Thanks for sharing your experiences with the various software. I too bite the bullet and prepaid yesterday. I really enjoyed the audio samples just posted. And I was curious about their other products. I guess the German grand was just too warm for your tastes?

I'd love to know how to doctor a DP to make it almost perfectly match a grand. Count me in!

You're welcome.

And yeah, when looking at True Keys I preferred the demos for the American and Italian and I found something about the German grand to sound a bit too dark or mellow, so I held off on that one.



Maybe Kawai should hire Michael Spreeman to help design the VPC2.

Excellent points and very eloquently stated Anotherscott.

Just to speculate for the FUN of it;
I'm wondering if the VPC-1 had what racing mechanics call a "Blue print job" done on it.
i.e. nothing radical, just dis assembly, careful measuring and matching of parts, perhaps a little "easing" of any slightly stiff parts, careful reassembly, etc.

I had a rubics cube that I took apart DECADES ago so that I could SPEED solve it in one hand.
Removed all molding flash, then 600 grit paper on all the sliding surfaces.
A tiny bit sloppy, but SO FAST !

Michael Spreeman builds extremely fine pianos so the customization could have been well beyond anything a layman could duplicate.

Still, it would be interesting to know exactly what was done.

have never played, and know next to nothing about SW pianos.
I am fascinated by them though. and am thinking about taking the plunge, and getting the VI Labs Ravenscroft.

this is pleasant, not sure if y'all saw this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WEsL4Lpmas

WHAT have they got in their heads? Love to play like that . . . I reckon whatever they played on would sound good. Music of the city, I call it. Wonderful stuff!

Urban cool, eh? So What!

Yup. Personally, I just don't buy from developers who use draconian hardware copy protection. The Native Instruments challenge-response style is as far as I'm willing to go. VI Labs clearly makes some great stuff, and I just want to go on record as saying they will most likely have another customer if they ever decide to reassess their iLok-based CP schemes.

Please read their web site CAREFULLY on this, they say they can authorize it on your hard drive, which I took to mean the challenge/response thing similar to NI and Modarrt(Pianoteq) .
(maybe it is "Modartt")

As I said earlier, I move around a LOT between PC, Linux and Mac, both physical and virtual, so that may not work for me.
I am not convinced that a dongle would merely "pass through" as a virtual USB device.

In any case I have decided that there are better spending opportunities for $150 (for ME) to improve my end result - lesson, master class, etc.
Heck, even METHOD BOOKS & CDs/DVDs

I would like to try this one (or imperfect fazioli). I have uber PCs stacked to the ceiling. What do I need exactly to get going? One copy of this software, and some sort of USB thingy?

I would not start with this one.

I would start with the FREE Pianoteq software just to get your feet wet.

I agree, though they finally recently relented and allowed authorization to the hard drive instead of a physical ilok, which is a step better. Though if your hard drive goes down apparently you still need to call them to work it out or something.

Synthogy, on the other hand, won't budge on the issue, which is why they are still not on my list of possibilities.

Funny, ditto. I sent them an email too letting them know I won't be buying their software with iLok. No reply lol

there's a video on their website. 19 minutes long.
just watched it. you need to jump through some hoops.
I think you just need to download a TK piano, have an iLok and an iLok account, download iLok license manager, download the UVI Workstation. register....minimal configuring for starters.
its quite a good instructional video. the guy takes his time and explains the steps good.

You don't need an iLok, so no need to buy one if you don't have it already, you can authorize to your PC with Ilok lincence manager

thank you for the correction.
I do have an iLok for like 1 plug in. I got it a couple years ago.
can you advise me on whether or not to even use it, now when I get Ravenscroft, please?