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I shall post here once I have installed Keyscape. I have a good system os it should be OK and I can max out voices

This video is heaven - I am drooling more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3q_UNqKiW4

That's what we want to know! How far can you go before it goes pfffft.

Not if you don't already own a beautiful Pianet library!
And if you do, is it as beautiful as this one? (if the Mrs. asks, you don't - regardless of if you do).
Now - get it!

OK so its installed.


Pre-amble:
I have a very fast X99 Win 10 64 PC system and I decided to move windows to a new SSD and then use the old smaller SSD drive for Keyscape. I have Omnisphere 1, Trillian and RMX. Spectrasonics uses a folder called 'Steam' to store the sound files. It can be very fussy about its location and can be huge. What I should have (apparently) done is move this folder from it's current HHD folder to the SSD before installing Keyscape. So, I have a task ahead of me to put it on the SSD. The only glitch I have found is that Keyscape wants to update, but the updates are not available to me on the site - strange. I think its a glitch it their update pages. The only other thing that as happened is that some cotrols did not work until I reloaded the first instance after installation (In Cubase 8.5)


My ears
I write this so you understand how fussy I am. I have been playing for eight years - coming from sax. I have good ears. I have a lot of VSTs including True Pianos, Addictive Keys, The Grand 3. I have a Roland RD700NX. I have always played electrical piano emulations. The only other instrument I play is my (real) Hammond A100 (AKA B3). The only piano that gets daily airtime is the Concert Grand in my RD700NX. This is the goto sound for me. I even find the other two on board pianos - the Studio and the Bright, not up to ear standard - a compromise - like they are the Concert Grand dumbed down. I don't own any of the really big piano VSTs - mine are mid to high ranking but not top level (except the RD700NX Concert Grand). I don't own the Ravenscroft

Bear in mind I have only scratched the surface yet of the myriads of sounds. this is my initial verdict

Do you get a usable piano? Well yes and no. If you are a beginner, or a intermediate piano player this could be your goto app. If you are pro then it won't be your goto piano, but it WILL be for studio mix type pianos and electric painos (see below). It's a sound engineers type piano, heavily sampled and of very high quality, but my ears tell me that this is a studio engineers piano, rather than a solo piano many sounds are great but niche. Sometimes the sounds reach the level of a solo piano but overall, personally, I want more wood in the base. That said these are very very very high quality studio type sounds.
There is some depth to the sounds, I can hear the round robin working so as not every note is the same, there are some nuances that come by ppp or fff velocities - these give character, but they are a bit off/on rather than curved in or out - I think.... after playing for only a short time. Would I migrate from my RD700NX Concernt Grand Sound - no. Would I use these sounds in a mix - well the heck YES!!!! Many of the pianos have real character and bring with them what is needed for various genres of music.

Electric pianos - now your talking|!!!!

Bear in Mind, I have never owned the real stuff and I have only scratched the surface but these are my thoughts. Firstly everything is very high quality and usueable. Lets take the Rhodes LA custom as an example
Well, this is truly excellent. It has bags of character, true tweakability and a luxurious chocolaty gorgeousness with diamond sprinkles. I could spend days, even a career on this instrument. It has the glitchy-ness that I assume the original instrument had shining through. When I played those first Rhodes chords a shock went from my ears down my spine and an OOOOOOH! rippled through my veins. It outclasses the electic painos on my RD700NX, which I find 'OKish'.

It's obvious to me that I will be spending as lot of time on the electric pianos.

Why the toy pianos? (for those that wonder)
I have spent a lot of time with synths. Omnisphere is the best IMO. When you create a sound with a basic algorithm it has a certain predictability, a two dimensionality. Each time a note is played with the same velocity, it is an exact replica of the last time. For me, I grow tired of this rapidly. I believe listeners also grow tired of these sounds quickly. When you bang a gong, hit a drum, triangle, shake a maraca etc, every single time you do this the sound is different, this makes the brain recognize the sound as a 'sound world' rather than the same sound again. You may think that you can't hear this, because you have not noticed it, but you can hear it - everyone hears this.
Toy pianos are real world instruments and although you would not play the Emperor Piano Concerto on them, mixed with other sounds that can give an incredible realism to the higher partials of the sound world.
Eric Persing also uses other effects like rolling marbles on a tin tray, to create upper partials in his hybrid instruments. The chaos and unpredictability brings with it a wonderful appeal. It makes the sound real. This is key to the quality of the sounds, they are real, authentic, and unpredictably nuanced.

Current Conclusion
I have explored one percent. I would pay the price for the Rhodes alone. Everything Electric Keyboards wise has depth and is 3d. Its obvious class - world class. There will be something for you. Buy it for your studio work. You could gig with the electric pianos too but it needs a host such as Logic/Cubase to run. Product needs a standalone function.


Feel free to ask questions



Zero

Your last words sounds like commercial, no I will not buy it. I want only piano for solo playing but this is not stuff for that. Thanks for review.

slabajudge - of course, see edit

Your benchmark needs to be borne in mind.

The RD has a main piano sound that is flawed in my view. Harsh and abrupt transitions to metallic twanging sound in the mid-range with rising velocity. They just got the curve wrong in certain clusters of notes. It's probably the only reason why I don't own a modern Roland because from the advent of Supernatural all the piano sounds did it.

That said, purely from demos I've watched/heard I think it looks and sounds to me like they may have finally fixed it with the new fully modelled sounds.

As far as EPs are concerned I always found them to be a weak link on the RD. Supernatural they may be but I found they lack fullness and character. Legend has it that they respond well to some very deep tweaking but I couldn't be bothered. Out of the box they are small and grainy to my ears and very inferior to Yamaha CP1, Nord Piano, Korg SV1 etc.

I'm glad you're happy with this new software and I accept you have fussy ears but the obvious comparator to me (your RD) is not really any particularly wonderful benchmark against which to compare.

Cheers,

Steve

Steve: I agree with your analysis of the RD700NX, it can be a bit hard and mettalic, but after serious playing this can be enjoyed. I acknowledge my lack of experience on real pianos

Thanks for taking the time to share. Very much what I suspected from the example videos that are popping up like wildfire now. But here's what I really want to know...

Load up the C7, hold the sustain pedal down and gliss the entire length of the keyboard repeatedly. Does the Steam Player control polyphony and use an algorithm to release notes in the background as they become softer of does it produce obvious abrupt ends of notes aka cutoffs? Or worse than that, does it not manage polyphony and allows system resources to become taxed/max-out and fail resulting in digital distortion, pops and clicks and such?.

This is really important when deciding if Keyscape/Omnisphere is viable as a live instrument like your RD700.

Thanks for the detailed review.

A few questions remain:

1. Can you be a bit more specific about your computer system specs? How much Ram? At what speed does the processor run? How long does it take for a Keyscape piano to load on your system?

2. What about playability? Any latency? How is the keyboard "feel"? - ie How tweakable is the velocity curve?

Thanks again!

Asus X99/usb 316 gig RAM CPU 17 5820K. Currently experiencing issues after moving my STEAM folder. Will post back when solved

Its an X99 with a 5820 processor and has 16 gig of RAM. I currently have issues after trying to move my Steam folders after install - this is always tricky. I wanted to move the Steam folder to a newly free SSD (from HDD) and now the VST cant find it in either place. It's currently seraching through 5 large disks, I hope it find it....
Z

Zero - please please do my test. I can't get anyone to test and push the polyphony to see how the Steam Engine/Keyscape is handling things.

Will do, but at present the move has messed up the system pretty good. I have the shortcuts right (for those in the know)
but its not working.

Hopes die last, instead piano library that will shine above others, in 2016 they make 64 polyphony limit and cpu problems to handle it. In the end it will be average (piano). As I see, the only way to make sample piano library better then what we have to play till now, is to pray for some individual hobbyist who have top grand piano in his house, top equipment and lots of free time (read years) to put heart and soul to make it right. Raise a hand if such a man lives in this forum.

Is note stealing still an issue in software instruments? Digital piano hardware perfected it more than a decade ago.

I think its not an issue, its a rule. Only some of proven top libraries doesnt have that problem.

Yes, it is. Some software pianos allow you to set a polyphony limit that is viable within the capabilities of your host system (what your PC can handle). Some do a better job than others at managing what happens when you hit your polyphony limit. Even some of the favorites on the forum exhibit some note stealing/cutoff like behavior on heavy polyphony demands. In that respect, a low end Yamaha or a Nord Stage do a better job of hiding the limitation.

A forum member at musicplayer.com's keyboard corner was nice enough to share a gliss with pedal down, polyphony on Keyscape set to 32. I don't yet know the spec's on his PC yet.

Keyscape-C7_Gliss_pedal_down_poly32

I've asked if he would be kind enough to set the poly to 64 and pedal down during repeated glisses up and down the keyboard to solidify for me that their software player is using a decent algorithm to handle cutoff and note sustain.

Unless Zero-Zero is willing to jump into the fray and go the distance. 128 and 256 note poly settings in the software and repeated glisses with pedal down. Has the software been designed to handle the most demanding situations smoothly. Or does it let resources tap out and fail?