Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Arturia releases Piano V2

Just got an email from Arturia that they have updated their Piano V to version 2 and trying out the demo now. This is a modeled piano with quite substantial improvements over the first version. Not a Pianoteq competitor just yet, but would be interesting to get peoples opinions. They now have 12 models including American, German, and Japanese grands, half pedaling, true re-pedaling, more mic options, and quite a bit of adjustability. The current intro price is $99 or $19 for current Arturia V Collection 5 owners. Link to info page and demo below. You can install just the standalone demo which runs for 20 minutes.


https://www.arturia.com/products/analog-classics/piano-v/overview

FWIW - I had a quick 20-30 minute play with the demo (standalone version).

Overall, I thought that it was pretty good (although I admittedly don't have a very discerning ear). Initial set up was easy and there is LOTS of configurability available. However, I noticed a few things that may be missing (or perhaps I just haven't found them?):

a) Is there any way to save a setting, where piano, customized velocity curve, mic position, etc can be saved for use at a later time? (Perhaps that's just missing from the demo?)

b) Is there a "record" function built-in?

c) Can the sustain pedal feel be adjusted in any way?

Finally, is this $99 price the regular price or a limited-time introduction price?

Thanks!

Since this is a demo, it won't allow you to save a custom program with your settings. These are grayed out in the menu. No record function unfortunately. As far as the sustain pedal, you can adjust the velocity curve to suit your taste and the pedal noise volume, but again can't be saved in the demo.

I believe the $99 is listed as an intro price since I see the older version costing $199 at various online sites. The email they sent me mentioned offers good thru Jan 10th. There are frequent sales on their products throughout the year.

Personally, I won't buy this new version, but rather update my full collection from version 5 to 6 next year sometime when there is a sale which does include the updated piano. It does seem to need a lot of eq adjustment to get the sound in balance. As I said, they have made great strides, but still not at the Pianoteq level. Maybe a couple more versions will make them a worthy competitor. Playability is quite good though in this version.

Playability great, software not so great (replicable crash on attempt to switch to Classical Upright; not exactly an uncommon situation), piano sounds poor. As I'm not convinced by the Pianoteq sounds, I didn't really expect to be convinced by these either, and sure enough I wasn't; they're actually worse than Pianoteq. Definitely not for me. Uninstalled the demo after 10 minutes.

Thanks Karvala. I expected the sound wouldn't work for you given your feelings toward PT. I'm in same camp and prefer my sample based libraries soundwise. Glad you thought the playability was at least good. I was able to get it to crash once going to the Classical Upright, but not since. If I can figure a way to make this happen consistently I'll report it.

This is still leaps and bounds better than the first version. Hope they continue on this tragectory. Thought it was whimsical that they include 88 presets. I see this library having utility at least for me in providing some stylized pianos for recording and occasional practice since it's light on the resources.

I just tried it myself.

Initially, I sort of liked what I felt was a soft (not hard) sound but the more I used it the more distortions I detected.

It has potential but I uninstalled it immediately, also.

No problems on my system here, it ran flawlessly.

I like it way more than pianoteq.

I found it very thin. After using many of the premium VSTs this one is disappointing.
Credit them, though, for offering a demo.

I've only listened to the demo recordings so far, and I'm actually pretty impressed. In particular, I'm hearing more of the steely/wirey sound (that I intuitively associate with the steel strings) that I generally find lacking in Pianoteq. I have little doubt that I'll find Pianoteq to be more authentic overall, but this aspect is very important to me.

Greg

It crashes if you try to browse through the pianos too fast. So be gentle...

The soft and sostenuto pedals are swapped. Well, that's an obvious bug to fix. I wonder how nobody (at Arturia) noticed.