The title says it all. I'm currently using the Kawai EX-Pro (which is fantastic btw), but I would like to add another piano to my VST library. I'm considering either the Ivory II American Concert D or the Ravenscroft 275. Both sound fantastic, but I don't have enough money for both. Which do you guys prefer, and why? Thanks in advance!

I assume you already know this, but just in case, Ravenscroft 275 is currently on 30% off sale from VI Labs through December 31st.

And the TrueKeys bundle is on sale for 4 more hours (which includes an excellent American Steinway D too)

I have neither of those, so I can't comment as to which I prefer, and hopefully someone who has both, will chime in. There are a few PW members who do.

Just going by technical specifications, I'd say the pros for Ravenscroft 275, are four microphone positions, as opposed to only one in the American Concert D, and smaller sample size in gigabytes, roughly 5GB, as opposed to a 46GB size of the Ivory II American. The latter can actually be counted as a con, and subsequently a pro for the Ivory II library, since a huge file size of a piano library is an indication it's deeply sampled.

Then there's this thing about iLok, and frankly, I'm not sure it's needed for the Ivory II American Concert D. In my opinion, information given about this by Synthogy, on one hand, and Best Service on the other, is misleading and unclear. On the Synthogy website, it says word by word, that an iLok key is optional with Ivory 2.5, the engine in which all their libraries run. Best Service says this:


However, further down their webpage, they say:


I've been meaning to contact Best Service about this, but since the Synthogy's products are not on my to buy list as it is, I've put it off. If someone here knows the truth in this matter, it could be helpful to know, since all Ivory II libraries, are on sale right now. The American goes for €125 on Best Service, which is cheaper than Ravenscroft 275, assuming the iLok key is unnecessary for the former.

From what I know, the Ivory II Pianos support machine authorization if you install the update 2.5. (they don't in previous versions) That means you can use your computer hard drive as an iLok authentication device. Same goes for the VI Labs pianos. So both pianos use the iLok ecosystem but they give you a choice: You can either use an iLok dongle or your computer hard drive. What's notable is that ACD allows for two activations at the same time while VI Labs allows for three.

As for the piano VSTs themselves, the ACD has no sustain resonance samples. But the Ravenscroft does (I think?). So the Ravenscroft will have more realistic sustain pedal sound, which IMHO is very lacking on the ACD. On the other hand, the ACD is very playable, I'd say much more so than the Ravenscroft. The Ivory II engine is solid.

Bottom line, both VSTs use iLok but allow you to avoid using a dongle, ACD is more playable, Ravenscroft sounds better. If I got any information wrong then please correct me.

Actually, the difference in terms of the total size of the two sample sets is not so great. The VI Ravenscroft, along with their other pianos was reissued using FLAC in 2014. The uncompressed size of Ravenscroft is 35 gigabytes.

As for ilok, I have an idea that you do have to use the ilok system to activate products that use the system, but you are no longer obliged to buy a physical key. I think you can opt to register with their online system only.

Thanks toddy, actually I was just re-reading the 74% off VILabs thread, and was about to correct myself, but glad you beat me to it.

Grazilerimba, thanks for clearing up the iLok issue. This was also my understanding, and yes, I realize you have to use iLok system one way or another, with the key (costs money) or without it (no extra fee) but that last bit of information on the Best Service webpage, was confusing to me. Maybe they just forgot to take it out. Two installations are not a deal-breaker for me, if I were to get the ACD.

Hmmm. So what I'm hearing is that you guys think that the Ravenscroft sounds better in recording, but the Ivory II responds better live?

I've got both of these and I use both .All depends if I want a brighter sound I go for ravenscroft and for a mellowed sound it's the ivory .
The ravenscroft is more computer hungry especially if I layer 2 mic positions resulting in crackling .Both these pianos are on ssd drive .No problem with Ivorys American .If I was to choose 1 over the other the Ivory wins but I would miss my ravenscroft

I've got both.
The Ivory II American D Steinway is basically one stereo multi-sample set. That's it.
You can tweak it: brighter vs darker, harder vs softer, dry & clean or wet & resonant, shape the EQ, bias your touch curve, etc., etc., etc., but it's all basically just re-moulding the behaviour of the same recorded multi-samples from one stereo microphone characteristic.

The Ravenscroft has 4 different recorded multisamples, 4 different stereo mic perspectives, and 4 slightly different mic responses / acoustic path tonalities, 4 different fidelities of impulse transient capture, 4 different mic-to-instrument location distances, 4 different sonic soundscapes to play with or mix together. Besides also providing you the similar EQ and fine-tune adjustments anyway that you'd get from Ivory, once you've got your basic touch curve, overall EQ, brilliance, bass / treble ratio dialed in to your liking, which pretty much either never changes (for all piano VSTs you play) or is context dependent on the style of piano music you're trying to make, but is in all cases merely the broader brush-strokes, before the real subjective artistic piano-phile business of finding a piano timbre you're 95% satisfied with - which is a process of lengthy experiment and discovery with Ravenscroft and its 4 mic perspective mix sliders, whereas Ivory is a straight take-it-or-leave-it deal.
Neither will give you 100% satisfaction. Neither is amazingly perfect. Both are somewhat sonically flawed and frustrating, but the Ravenscroft software gives you more freedom to blend the ideal piano timbre of your personal preference. The Ivory is more of a factory preset someone else has presented you with, which if you don't like it straightaway, on the default settings, you probably still won't, even after an afternoon of fiddling around with the menu parameters.

Does anyone have trouble getting zero velocity with ACD? I can't do this with my FP-90, no matter how gingerly I press down, and the lightest note shows ppp on the interface's velocity curve, it sounds more pp to me.