Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Which VSTi for classical music?

Which makes your list of VSTs and how you rate them (found that in another thread) very interesting. And yes, I know that my taste could be completely different.

You didn't try/buy Garritan CFX yet, though? Didn't see that in your list.

No one but your ears can tell you what sounds good to you. Others can point out general characteristics (harsh/bright/mellow/neutral etc) but in the end it is the same as it is with headphones: YOU have to put them on and try them.

I absolutely feel you when it comes to "no demo available". In fact, that is one reason why I am not buying Garritan CFX straight away because I fear that I might not like it when >I< "play" it (beginner here).
Ofc it sounds superb when played by experienced folks. What doesn't?

I filled out the survey for Pianoteq and commended them on having the courtesy of providing ab test version. Such a rare thing in this day and age.

Personally, at this point of time I am only interested in setup which is best for practicing, with headphones.(Once a week I'll turn on monitors for 1 hour lesson). My internal piano sound is crap (sorry Casio) - it was selected as a best option for its keyboard action within my budget at that time and I do not regret it - thanks PW again!
When I'll reach level of playing for others and (OMG) publish my recordings - I think by that time there will be many other options that I don't have today.

In an ideal world I would love to test all the VSTs, but when it's not possible (because there's no evaluation version available), the next best thing is to ask other users which VSTs they like for classical music. It's a far less useless question than you make it sound. Obviously, some users will recommend one thing, others another. But if the "crowd" often mentioned maybe 2 or 3 specific VSTs and if they don't mention (or even discredit) some other VSTs, then that's all useful information. Granted, it's not perfect, and there's no guarantee that the crowd's favorites will please me, but it's the best information I can get without buying all the VSTs myself, so I'll gladly make do with that imperfect information.

Practically, the proof is in the pudding: Asking for recommendations worked very well for me. I'm really happy with Garritan CFX, and I wouldn't have bought it, if I hadn't started this thread.

Pianoteq has a small footprint and is easier to redistribute as a demo. Not so much with multigigabyte libs. BTW, Vintage D used to work in demo mode if not registered. Although wrong, you could download it from a pirated site and install in a legally downloaded Kontakt player and it would work in demo mode. Why that was not officially allowed is not clear. When I purchased it later it turned out the officially downloaded Vintsge D distribution was bit-identical to the pirated one. So I only obtained a license to use it. On pirated websites what they do is to give you a cracked Kontakt app so that you can use the samples not just in demo mode. I believe that might be the reason why Kontakt libs are not given as demos although in practice they work like that. Because with a single pirated Kontakt you would be able to access multiple libs at once.

Honestly,. I don't buy the logistics argument. This is 2018 not 1995. Bandwidth is hardly an issue any longer.

MMORPGs like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV are around 50GB in client size. These companies offer demos that DL the entire client.

There are infinitely more people downloading these huge mainstream games compared to a few folks that would DL big and honkin', highly specialized VST libraries.

Also, they could cut out mic perspectives for the demo version to trim it down.

Exactly, Compact Classic Grand and CFX Lite were around 2.5 GB downloads each. That's really small by today's standards.

My Production Grand 2 Gold was 54GB. It was available for download, in 30 zip files. The PV webpage says 58GB, but when I look at my maps for it in Windows Explorer, it's 54GB. Possibly a difference between binary and decimal measuring, but still well over 50GB.

Edit The full Production Grand 2, 207GB compressed, is available for download at purchase. Of course, it's one thing to offer the VSTi for download when bought, and another to offer such a gigantic library as a demo, since that would mean a lot more people would download it, or want to download it.

Edit2 Isn't the CFX Lite 22GB, or 25GB, in download size?

I'm sure there are ways to cut down on size for a demo version w/o having to compromise the instrument. You could probably delete half the velocity layers w/o people even realizing.

CFX Lite is 25GB on harddisk (uncompressed), but compressed download is only 2.5GB.

There's a difference between File-size and Disk-size for Windows based systems. The difference usually depends on the cluster size created when the disk was formatted.

Production Grand is a beast, but you can cut the "full" version down by just offloading the version you don't use. I use the max version (Platinum) and just moved off the other ones off disk to backup.

@Granyala Just apply probability theory here and you will see that if one starts their search from those 2 or 3 specific VSTs and puts those others at the end of "buy to try" queue (de-facto the only option, pirated sites aside) then chances to pick right ball are much better than if they built that queue randomly or (even worse) following marketing attacks (number of ads appearing on their web pages)
Look, OP of this thread was satisfied with his very first purchase (of current round) following "crowd" suggestions. What are chances that without asking this this question he could achieve the same result? There are very small. I was a bit less lucky and (almost) found what I need after ~8th purchase, but still, when I am looking on my initial list I see that without asking questions I could easily make ~25-30 purchases (wasted)
Of course everyone here agree that BUYER has to put them on and try them. The whole meaning of such questions here is "in what order to try them"

No, I haven't tried the CFX. I think that's a Yamaha, so I wouldn't like the sound.And I won't likely be buying any more VSTs. I have more than I need.

Yes, downloads are fast. At 100 Mbps you can download 1 GB in about a minute and a half ... assuming the other guy's server can spit it out as fast as you can take it.

I remember the dial-up days ... when I'd think twice about trying to download something as "big" as a couple of MB. How quaint that seems now.

The CFX is a Yamaha, but not a C7. I think its more of a match with a Ravenscroft because they are "balanced pianos."

After purchasing the Production Grand, I don't think I'll be getting any others; other than PV's Steinway (maybe) but also Hans Zimmer's piano (maybe).

And thinking "Do I really need to go to that image-heavy website right now?" because you paid by the minute.

@michaelvi & @madshi: I am sorry if I came across as "your question is nonsensical". That is not what I meant. What I meant is that asking for us for "what sounds best" is misguided because there is no such thing.

Asking other pianists what they like, why and how it plays is different from asking "what is the best sound" and I completely agree that it is useful. I stumbled upon Pianoteq in this forum because a member praised it and I got curious. I doubt that I would ever have learned of VSTi if I hadn't researched my DP purchase here for the past few months. I also see that Garritan CFX, Vintage D, Ravenscroft and Ivory II seem to be liked around here and that @Mac likes the Kawai EX pro VST. That is all valuable information to cut down on the list of unknowns.

PS: 8 purchases... at 100€+ a pop? Ouch. I'm waay too poor for that kind of Trial and Error. >.<

Fortunately I didn't pay such amounts . Except my very first purchase (Vintage D) for all following I caught sales (bundle of 3 TrueKeys pianos was 74% off, Ravenscroft 50% off, PV pianos were from 55% to 75% off during Black Friday, even CFX Lite I got for 50$ instead of 60 ) But still yes, big money were spent here.. ((

May be this is good idea for a start-up that will develop a new protection method that would work in library layer?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gear_Acquisition_Syndrome

Time to visit my psychotherapist again?...

I guess sometimes it's good to be poor. makes you buy less and play more with what you have.