Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Garritan CFX Lite $59.95

So I also purchased the product because of the deal. Here is a quick sample I did noodling on some chords. There is no reverb, the room/release decay and volume knobs are turned all the way down, the pedal noises are off, the sustain resonance is turned off, and the sympathetic resonance is turned off.

Hopefully this can give you an idea what it sounds like as raw as I could make it.

Saved as 320kbps mp3

https://clyp.it/dxrwonrm?token=b1a28d0f2de6faf74fdcc5fd0ebace9b

That.... Was perfect! Thankyou!

It shows the dynamic range of the library very well, impressing.

As a bit of a counterpoint to the thread, I initially purchased a CFX Lite version myself, but I found the sound too "digital" to my ears. After about a week of fiddling around with the settings, I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to the CFX Full version, and the difference for me was like night and day.

Here's what the Full version sounds like: https://youtu.be/fHncfQhmWi8
As I recall, I did adjust the default settings a little bit, so there is room/release decay, for instance. However, I did not apply any additional effects from other programs, so I imagine most other owners' CFX Full's sound pretty similar to mine.

Very nice. And thank you for your input.

Very nice playing!

Can I ask what was "digital" about Lite? Assuming the classic mic, the only difference I see is that full includes ambient mics. Does that mean the tone is fundamentally different between the two?

https://www.garritan.com/products/cfx-concert-grand-virtual-piano/compare-cfx-lite/

Thanks! Yes, the CFX Full version includes ambient mics, which certainly adds to the realism. However, I feel that sound library of the CFX Lite version has also been compressed to save space, which appears to have compromised the quality as well. It was enough to take me out of the experience and look for an alternative.

You can also listen to Tyruke's Lite clip above, in which you compare the difference. Although, it actually sounds pretty good for more modern/pop stuff.

Ok, me too, I bit the bullet. As a frame of reference, I've owned a lot of sampled libraries, not excluding the great Vienna Imperial, imperfect samples, Alicias keys, American Concert D, Piano in Blue, Galaxy D, oh man several more I just don't remember them all. So anyway just some random thoughts.

This is what I wanted out of American concert d. A little more meat.

Has a nice "growl" to it.

Very well balanced.

Perhaps a bit of bloom to the tone? Notes seem to enhance a bit after being struck instead of dying off.

Responsive cat. Gotta be careful it'll bite you but in a good way.

A little pop in the tone.

Highs are bell like, nice pop to the tone.

Bass isn't round like I would expect. Reminds me more of a Steinway but more beef to it.

Chords are beautifully rendered. Close my eyes and just listen to the bell like tones.

Wow.

I also have the free sfz version of the Salamander Yamaha C7 piano. Makes me appreciate just how good this free sample is. Nice round woody bass.

Playability feel so less responsive than ACD. Perhaps I need to fine tune my action. Still very very good. This is one area where I really appreciate ACD.

Tonally the finest sampled piano I've ever owned? Without question. This is not your grandfathers Yamaha.

Would I prefer a Yamaha C7 at Abbey Road? Perhaps. I've always liked a nice round bass, scooped midrange, and clear highs. The CFX seems to move the bass end to the midrange.

Extremely adjustable sounds and presets. Sounds like a different piano with some adjustments.

Very happy to say the least.

Well, the sound library of the lite version on my hard-drive takes up 19.2 gigabytes of space. According to the website the full version contains 6 mic perspectives and has a minimum system requirement of 133 gigabytes for a full installation.

The minimum system requirements for the lite version is listed on the website as 22 gigabytes. 22x6=132. They may be giving us some head room on the numbers.

So based on that I believe the lite version is indeed getting the full uncompressed samples of one mic perspective.

I'm liking the tone, but it's snap crackle and pop city trying to play the thing. Seems to start well but get worse the longer I play.

Does it make any difference whether I use the 32-bit or 64-bit version? I'm on 64-bit Windows but 32-bit seemed less crackly.

Also what exactly is the difference between the Full and Compact presets? Fewer layers? Shorter sustain?

Lolatu, is your computer system fairly spec'd? At least i5 processor, SSD, and 8 GB RAM? What you say you're experiencing, is one of the reasons, why I'm still living in Few-gigabytes-samples city.

I have't used the full version but as far as I know it always maintains two sets of samples (close mic and far mic) that you balance with sliders. This doubles the RAM and SSD usage compared to Lite which only uses the close mic sample set.

Then, you need to really review your computer settings. Especially if you're on Windows. There was a link somewhere on Focusrite website with Windows tweak you need to do in order to improve your low latency audio stuff.

Then you need to play with your ASIO driver latency and choose the lowest one where there are no crackles. People sometimes try to set to small a buffer which isn't really necessary. A size of 128 or 256 is more than enough.

Furthermore, on the CFX advanced page (OTOH) there's a setting about how much RAM to use for prefetch, meaning how much memory to use for loading the beginning portion of each sample into memory, while the rest is being read from the disk. By default it's 2GB but you can increase it to 4GB if you have 8GB memory, etc.

Then, make sure the master volume slider on your CFX is left at where it's by default. I tried to increase it initially and while it works most of the time with no problems, on some very fierce Chopin fortissimos I managed to clip it and it sounded like latency crackles though, so took me some time to realize is clipping and not latency issues.

BTW, I had to restart the CFX when changing latency settings on Windows.

Gave all those a try.

System requirements are, from garritan.com:

Microsoft Windows 7 or later -- yes, Windows 10
Audio interface compatible with ASIO -- yes, UR22
Multi-core processor required -- yes, quad-core Q9550
4 GB RAM minimum required -- yes, 4 GB
22 GB of free hard drive space required -- yes
A dedicated hard drive for CFX samples is recommended, but not required -- no
Drive speed of 7200 RPM recommended; SSD is preferred -- yes, SSD

I had it on my secondary 7200 rpm HDD to start with, but then moved it to the SSD after clearing some space. Seemed to improve things a bit, but didn't completely fix.

I'd upgrade the RAM and processor if I could, but I'd need a new motherboard, so it would essentially be a whole new computer - mucho dinero. I don't really need higher specs for anything else I do, and Pianoteq and Vintage D run fine.

I do have an i5 4GB laptop which I haven't tried yet, though I'd rather stick with the desktop since the laptop doesn't "live" by the piano.

If you get the Lite version, is there an upgrade option, and if you go that route, do you end up spending more overall? I think the extra mic positions would have a huge impact of the overall impression of the sound.

Morodiene, the upgrade is possible. On timespace.com it's £86.95, about 113 US$. Sweetwater actually has the full CFX at $159, so now is the time to cut cost, for those who want this VSTi, Lite or full.

Morodiene,
I have full. (I don't know anything about the Lite version.)
I highly recommend getting full CFX. well worth it. I think its my favorite piano program. there are some great presets. and I tried adjusting the Timbre knob. really cool.

Yeah I notice that on the Garritan store it's $200 for the full package, $80 for lite, and $100 for an upgrade. So cheaper to buy lite then upgrade.

Cybergene - thanks for the suggestions. I will continue to experiment.

I can definitely feel the difference between 64 and 128 sample buffer. Unfortunately also it's a global setting that I have to set within the Windows Control Panel so affects other VSTs. So would like to keep it at 64.

Funny thing - I don't know if it the same for other people, so please let me know. When loading a Full preset for the first time, it takes 62 s. I noticed the Antimalware Service Executable was running at 15% during this time. I turned off Real-time protection, and it took 16 s. Repeated the experiment and it was similar: 62 s and 12 s. (It doesn't seem to be the root cause of the problem though, since I still get the popping problem with it turned off.) How can I get Windows Defender to not scan these files every time I load CFX?

I have a hunch that the popping might have something to do with Windows memory management, since I have Max Engine RAM Allocation set to 1.25 GB, and currently CFX lite is telling me that it's using 1285 MB, but Task Manager says Aria is using 534 GB. I think Windows 10 automatically compresses RAM when it's running short, so maybe it's taking time to decompress it.

Start with doubling your RAM to 8GB. Relatively cheap and a decent chance of helping significantly with a RAM hungry application.

4GB is REALLY anemic by modern standards, particularly for a hundred-GB sample library. Are you sure you can't upgrade this? Upgrading to 8GB would be more in line with modern entry-level systems (even a new $500 Dell laptop is configured with 8GB default). I think this would make a huge difference not only for VSTs, but also general purpose computing.

Lolatu, I remebered it - you are right, it was Windows Defender messing with my system, hijacking my computer after 5 minutes of inactivity or something! Unfortunately I don't remember what I did to stop it but it was far from trivial and I had to do some registry hacks, etc. in order to completely stop it. Windows sucks great time! It was only that I had a spare Windows laptop that I dedicated to CFX and hidden in a drawer, otherwise I would have used a Mac.