I downloaded it as well for curiosity I install tomorrow hopefully

ca ching... very nice, I'm sure the full version will be even more impressive.

Okay, rapid first impressions based on 30 minutes playing. It's another Production Voices piano, and it sounds like another Production Voices piano. Whether or not you think that's a good thing will depend on your opinion of their previous products. It has far more common in with the Production Grand Compact (and Yamaha C7 they did) than any other Steinway D sample I have. That's not to say it doesn't sound like a Steinway D - it clearly does and that's good - but the style of recording is the dominant feature. It's distant, which is partly because it's the outside mic perspective of course, but partly also the house style judging from their other instruments.

The good:-
(1) It sounds like a Steinway D.
(2) There is, always with their instruments, good clarity of individual tones i.e. minimal smudging; this and the distinctive timbre is sign of a good attack sample.
(3) It more or less works out of the box without any *huge* flaws (but see below).

The bad:-
(1) It sounds distant and veiled; it feels much more like playing a recording of a piano than playing an actual piano.
(2) The upper register is hugely underpowered; more generally there are significant balance issues across the keyboard which undermine dynamic control and clarity. Some areas are audibly louder than others.
(3) There seems to be an issue with pedal on/off samples, such that when releasing pedal and keys more or less simultaneously, you get a sudden increase in volume (presumably when the pedal off release samples kick in, and indicating that they are significantly louder for the same velocity layers, which is a significant flaw. Dialling down the release samples seems to help a bit.

I'll give more detailed impressions when I've had time to play it a lot more, but that's the initial impression. £13.79 (which is what I paid) is less than I've paid for a pizza in the past, so I can't complain. If I'd spent $99 on it, I wouldn't be too happy.

If you're thinking of buying it, ask yourself if you like their previous offerings. If you do, and you like a Steinway D sound, you'll probably like this. If you don't, then you probably won't.

Absolutely right! Me too, I paid £13.79, less than today's shopping in The Morrisons
...but !!!
I read on email from PV, that this version expiry on 1st February 2018

Hopefully, more reviews will come in tonight. $19 is ridiculously cheap, but if I won't use it? ...

Probably a silly question, but I'm guessing I can get this and the free player and use it similar to Pianoteq?

The player is free, so you are only playing $19 today for the Concert Grand Compact, that's it. Now Pianoteq has way more adjustability, but is a lot more expensive.

Quick first impression - generally very playable and responsive. Nice value @ 19$ if you would like to sample a well-recorded Steinway D.

Concert Grand Compact mid-mics (M149) respond a bit like the Garritan CFX with close-mics only (M49/KM184). Concert Grand Compact sounds a bit more distant (probably due to outside placement) and a bit more rogue. The pianos, prep, recording and room are rather different (obviously, I suppose).

Concert Grand Compact loads quickly and seems to run efficiently (say 44.1khz with a buffer of 48 on my mid-tier laptop). Unselecting the yellow lights under "key noise", "pedal noise" etc. (Controls tab) might boost performance if you have dropouts.

I tested with two good headphones and some consumer monitors/with a sub. Tomorrow, I will try a bit of reverb etc. in Reaper DAW.

Technical note - Concert Grand Compact has 96khz recordings downsampled to 44.1khz. Sforzando Free might have a minor quirk so running sample rate at 44.1khz might provide best sound quality / lowest noise.

I took the plunge.

I don't like it. There's some seriously jarring velocity switching going on; one or two are utterly bizarre in soft playing.

No half pedal so I just turned the noises down.

Latency. Small but certainly very noticeable and I felt quite disconnected from it. I'm no VST veteran but I do have PianoTeq, which tonally I have come to truly hate. But it just worked utterly intuitively from the outset and the sense of connection is entirely comparable to playing a DP's native sounds. I use a Macbook Pro, 8GB RAM with SSD. So I can't imagine the computer is the issue. I used all their recommended settings.

The actual sound of the piano is nice although it is a bit brighter than I expected it to be. I think the sustain and resonances are rather good but I'll never fire it up again due mainly to the latency.

What does it mean "Expires - 1 February 2018"?
https://m.imgur.com/gallery/mIrr3ZP

The file will no longer be available for download after that date.

Thanks toddy

This is exactly what happens with PV Kawai Estate Grand for Sforzando, and I've talked about it before. A bit irritating, that twirp which barks at you when releasing pedal and keys. This does not happen in the Kontakt versions of PV Studio Grand LE, and not in Prod. Grand 2 Gold, which leads me to conclude this is a Sforzando related problem, in the PV scripting.


The similarity is also that you can load MIDI files into Sforzando, and record as audio (not MIDI like in Pianoteq) what you play. Apart from Pianoteq, Sforzando libraries and Garritan CFX, which is based on the same Aria engine as Sforzando, are the only VSTis I know of, in which you can record audio and play MIDI files.

I also thought the overall sound was good. I didn't find it quite so jarring but hear a bit of mic phasing which is tough to address with only a mic pair just outside the piano. Plus there are no ambient mics to mix in some room smoothness. I will run this in my DAW and add some reverb or room effects and see how that helps...



Funny, I thought the latency performance was quite good and aided by very little dead space at the beginning of the samples.

The recommended settings are rubbish. Please open Sforzando again, click on TOOLS>PREFERENCES.

-- Set "sample rate" to 44.100KHz

-- Set "buffer size" as low as you can get

--Click OK

** You may need to exit Sforzando a few times to reset and lower "buffer size". After a few tries I got it to 48 on a good but not great laptop.

Okay, many thanks. I'll have a go. My experience with software instruments is almost non-existent.

Depends on which note, and how hard you're playing it. C#2 played forte (but not p or ff) is way behind its neighbours. That is disconcerting and there are other slight inconsistencies - some characterful, others annoying. Apart that, it's got a nice presence this piano, and it is a good companion to the Yamaha C7. Good for €15.

EssBrace - ask any questions here or feel free to PM me. Sforzando is good software and easy to use.

Jason incorporated some nice "effects" in the player that are worth checking out. Just click on "snapshot" and pick something like "Classical Recital". (Update to latest Sforzando player if they don't work). Won't do any more tweaking until / unless Jason sends some script updates.

Does Sforzando work with other VSTs?

What do you mean ?

Sforzando is a VST, and the DAW can load many VST, but this is a characteristic of the DAW, not Sforzando which won’t be aware of the other VSTs.

That's correct, but just to be clear in case the meaning of the question was slightly different, Sforzando can load some other software pianos - essentially anything in aria format. Some old soundfont-based pianos (going back to the early 2000s) can also be converted and used in it. So, for example, the Garritan CFX actually works fine in it, because it's also based on Plogue's aria player. By contrast, you can't load anything that uses UVI Workstation or Kontakt Player, because they're in a different format.