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

Comparation: RAvenscroft vs. Vintage D
Ravenscroft vs.
Vintage D

A quick update.

I checked the release dates for UVI Workstation and, sure enough, I had an old version. So deinstalled the old version and downloaded and installed the new UVI Workstation (version 2.20 x64 bit). Worked like a champ!

So I was able to play my first few notes with the Ravenscroft sampled piano and my first impression was very positive. There is a distinctive clarity to the sound, especially in the mid to high range of the keyboard. I guess I am responding to what I am hearing as a very pure sound. I have heard it called "silky" and "silvery" and I can go along with those adjectives.

It does seem admirably suited to jazz. I play primarily classical so I will withhold judgement for now on how suitable the Ravenscroft is for classical. There are still a lot of knobs to twist and tweak!

But - kudos to VI LABS for what appears to be a very fine instrument.

More later.

Responding to some things that Voxpops said:

"The gradations between ppp and fff are smooth, along with a realistic/natural change in timbre. "

This is noticable to me as well. I like the dynamics of this piano.

"I would describe the sound as veering toward the "metallic" rather than the "woody" end of the spectrum - but not overly so. "

Again, I agree.

Guys, I followed the install instructions without problems, macbook 10.7.5. I hear the dp being played thru phones, but pressing a single key, and hold it down, it produces multiple key strikes rapidly, and the tone of the keys are too high, not at all like a piano.

I've changed nothing from all presets.

Any quick ideas to help me get this going? Btw, I have zero experience with any virtual software.
Thanks
Chris

Chris:

Check a setting in UVI Workstation.

I produced an effect like what you are describing by:

Clicking on the two eight notes (top right) and enabling that screen, then hitting a few notes.

To turn it off, click the highlighted ENABLE button.

Give it a try!?

Download the Pianoteq demo and see if you can get that to work.

Then you will know more.

Fantastic! That did it Az Astro!! Thank You Very Much!

Thanks!
For me Ravenscroft hands down wins, however it has very unique sound character

More one Demo with Ravenscroft exploring the basses...very good...
Ravenscroft exploring the basses...

That sounds really good. Which Ravenscroft mic setup were you using?

I'm using close in the max volume, and room mic one trait down of the max volume. More or less this configuration.

Well, I finally have it and have it all installed and working! I was a little concerned having read some of the others experiences, but my experience was great. First off let me explain that I work in a PC environment, and and have a pretty stout machine. 8 core processor, 32 GB Ram, 250GB SSD boot-primary drive, and a 2 TB drive for Tracks from my DAW (SONAR) and anything else. I also have a 50Mbs internet connection which did help drastically with the downloads. I used WINRAR to extract the first RAR file then after installing the UVI engine and the iLok management software (Which is free!), I activated my license within iLok and ran the install. WinRar is smart enough to handle the other files, so I just sat back and let it do its thing.

VI Labs have made some improvements since NAMM for sure. The first change I noticed was in some of the graphics. Probably not of much interest to most, but it did show they had done additional work on it after NAMM.

Initially I had to make some changes to my settings. I had to actually back them down. I ended up with my buffers set to 64 and lowered the sample rate as well. Frankly that seemed a little counter intuitive, but in the end that is what worked for me.

Once I had it dialed in then it was fun time! It was even better than I had remembered it, plus I am sure VI Labs did some tweaking after getting feedback at NAMM.

All in all, I stand by my earlier statements, I still think this is the best thing on the market period. Not everyone is going to agree, that's why we have multiple manufacturers making the same thing, everyone does it just a little different, and we each choose what set of differences we each one individually prefer. Yep, I think VI Labs hit one out of the park with the Ravenscroft!

Oh one more thing, going to the YouTube page and watching the installation video was a help. You can find it here:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ5ghbukCo_TjzZE4spxDGg

IMO the Vintage D sounds dated and unnatural compared the modern modern sampled pianos. Vintage D sounds a bit artificial and when I go back to it now it reminds me in some ways of an onbard DP sound. I haven't used it in a long time, and I probably won't really ever use it again.

So I personally feel there's not much comparison.

I can't speak for the Ivory.

Here's a couple more of my thoughts on the Vintage D :
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2220054/3.html

- thanks for that! Nice harmonies, very impressive contrasts!

Thank you for posting this comparison. The Vintage D sounded better than I have generally given it credit for, and the two pianos had distinctive (and very different) voices.

I tried hosting UVI inside a DAW and I can confirm that this works much better than trying to get UVI to work standalone. UVI standalone has got some serious ASIO output problems, but hosting it inside the DAW seems to bypass that and let the DAW handle the ASIO output.

So: If you're having issues with UVI and ASIO...TRY USING IT INSIDE A DAW

Looks like I'll be using UVI inside a DAW from now on, unless UVI gets updated with a fix for its ASIO problems.

Well - that is pretty spectacular and the demo shows off the Ravenscroft sampled piano in a very positive light.

Well, let's be careful not to mislead others ...

I am not using it inside of a DAW and everything works perfectly. Maybe the issue is not ASIO.

It's damn close to a real thing!
but, what I am loosing still, is the lack of air in all the sampled pianos.. don't know how to call it properly, but I know that you know what I tam talking about

dmd…

I asked earlier why you thought your downloading, setup, and playing went smoothly while several others had problems. Perhaps that post got lost in the shuffle. Care to comment?

Thanks in advance…