Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Ivory II series on sale until 15/04/2018

Received their email , for existing owners, you can get a 50/100 USD off for purchasing the next one; if you do not have one, you can buy one first at normal rate and then do the same.

eg I currently own Ivory II grand pianos, so I can have their studio grands with 100 usd off.

FYI their distributors normally sell these products at discounted price, with this offer it is even better, maybe worth waiting until Easter to see if there is a price drop from the distributors.

https://synthogy.com/index.php/news/item/47-loyalty-promo-2018

Thanks for this. Some of the distributors are offering the rebate up front, e.g. Time+Space are offering a crossgrade version with £70 (=$100) off the price, which is convenient.

I've been playing the Ivory II American Concert D a bit more recently, and finding it better than I previously remember (not without its flaws, for sure, but good playability). I've been looking for a Bosendorfer sound for some time, and I'm also lacking any intermediate grands in my libraries (they're all either concert grands or uprights), so I've taken the plunge with their recent(ish) Studio Grands.

Quick comments in case anyone else is thinking of doing so: from a very brief preliminary play around, they're more or less what I expected, except possibly even more muffled. Smaller grands generally sound less bright and clear, and ideally good sampling would try to mitigate that, but in this case Synthogy have gone full-on veiled. This has benefits as well as drawbacks; Sythogy's warts-and-all approach to sampling, in which the instrument flaws in the ACD for example are all too apparent, is still apparent, but the smaller flaws are smoothed over.

The end result - for both instruments which are actually quite similar to each other in these samples (more so than in real life) due to the Synthogy house style - is that it's rather like playing that slightly tired sounding instrument in your teacher's practice room, with the lid half down. It's a bit muffled, but quite real sounds, and quite playable. An interesting purchase; not suitable as a main instrument but good to have in the locker. If you're after something that sounds like that piano you heard in a recital, though, or on a recording - look elsewhere.

Agreed, I didn't like the Studio Grands either... and doubt I will ever use them... I bought them as I love the German and the American, with the Italian as a distant but still quite nice third... but I should have waited for some reviews...

Thanks for your insights, karvala and Digitalguy. If I hadn't piled up on piano VSTs as I have, I'd be looking at this offer, but there is one thing that keeps me from the Ivory pianos, even if you guys would have given them more praise.

Their huge sample sizes. Garritan CFX, and Production Grand 2 Gold, together, take up about one SSD size-wise, though they're on different disks. That's where I draw the line. I may get a few small footprint virtual piano instruments, but not another SSD-hog.

Hello sir, it's good that you evoke the subject, myself having a kawai es 110 with an unbearable sound, I buy ivory 2 american concert D, but here's what I do as a setting, I always have one or 2 notes that will completely mess !! does the problem come from sampling or piano ???? I love ivory, but having a note next to the plate is very frustrating, can someone help me? Thank you

Indeed, I commented on that probably more than anything else in an earlier review of Ivory II American Concert D. I think it's actually a problem with both the instrument and the sampling. The instrument has some noticeably flawed notes (e.g. some mistuned strings), which are the most obvious problems and quite characteristic of an aged Steinway (you see the same type of flaws in the Steinway B in their Studio Grands collection, in fact). There are also sampling problems in my view, with some notes popping out somewhat.

If you're after a less flawed version, the True Keys American Grand (also a Steinway D, but a brand new one) is free of the first type of flaw, though it does have some slightly popping out notes still. The timbre is quite different, however, and less of a characteristic Steinway D, so it's not an ideal solution.

If you want a piano free of instrument and sampling flaws, the Garritan CFX is probably the only one that nearly meets that criterion in my view.

True Keys is not free of flaws. I can hear a distinct click on some piano (american, italian). The clics are quite low, but bother me when playing with a pair of headphone. Some of them are on the attack, but one of them 1s later, which is very disturbing.

The hotline did hear this clicks but named them « quick chiff », and was too busy with NAMM 2015 to correct them.

I do really prefer Ivory to True Keys.

To be honest one or 2 notes very slightly out of tune do not bother me at all. It's hardly noticeable. The VSL Vienna Imperial has the same issue but it's fine in my opinion, real pianos are rarely perfectly in tune.... And I can't hear the sampling flaws you mention.... Having said that, the True Keys sounds boring to me, I have tried it with different headphones and speakers, nothing makes it sound appealing to me... The cheaper Addictive Keys Studio Grand (Steinway D) sounds much better, especially with some headphones that have a decent bass, like the HD598 (with headphones and speakers that have a weak bass it lacks in the low end instead).
The CFX is the only one missing in my collection but I will probably soon buy the lite version, as so many people praise this piano... even if yamaha pianos are not my favorite in general (I tend to prefer Steinways and Kawais, even in acoustic pianos...)

Oh indeed, as I mentioned there are sampling flaws in True Keys, but the instrument itself was in much better shape, apart from the fact that the hammers were not properly cut in when they did the recording, so it's all rather cloudy and veiled (seems to be a theme for me in this thread). I hear the clicks as well, but then I also hear the much louder clicks from my CA67 with every virtual instrument, so I've learned to more or less ignore clicks at this point.

I'm on the fence in regard to Ivory vs True Keys; I tend to oscillate between the two somewhat. At the moment I'm definitely more in favour of Ivory, but I know that other times I've preferred True Keys. It's difficult to decide because the two house styles are so distinct and different to each other that it ends up being more about "what style I do feel like today?" for me.

Yes, I've previously described the True Keys pianos as over-processed; they are made a bit too perfect and in the process lose some of their character, so I can entirely understanding them sounding a bit boring.

The Addictive Keys Studio Grand is interesting, not least because of the variety of mic options and customisation options, and the fact that it's sampled surprisingly well. I was one of a number of people who wrote to them to ask them to add support for partial pedalling, but they have refused and because of that, and the poor pedal implementation as it stands, it is unfortunately essentially unusable for me, which is a real pity.

Of all my VSTs, the Garritan CFX is the only one I would never get rid of. If you find True Keys boring, you might find the CFX lite version boring as well just to warn you, as it is a flawless instrument superbly sampled but as a result is really very even across the whole range of the keyboard, with no flaws to give it "character". The full version, with the ambient mics and the three different perspectives, is a lot more interesting. I can understand your reservation about Yamaha pianos, but the CFX is completely atypical of the Yamaha style (and was designed from the ground up by a completely new team), with a much warmer and less percussive sound than a C7. Stylistically it's somewhere in between a Steinway D and a Bosendorfer 275 to my ears.

ha gentlemen,

you reassure me because I tried by all means to solve the problem, I never managed to have all the perfect notes, there is always between 1 and 4 notes completely wrong, I find its damage, to have software like ivory with defaults? it is shameful, for example when I play the first sonata movement of beethovenn clari of the moon, all the keys are perfect except: the 2nd Re diese who makes (clap) it is awful and breaks all the amibiance, so there is no solution ??

Thank you

No solution I'm afraid. You'll find almost all sampled VSTs have a similar problem, and in many cases substantially worse (the Acoustic Samples C7, for example, has many problems of this type, and the Waves Grand Rhapsody is absolutely full of flawed notes making it completely unplayable for me). Even the Garritan CFX is not entirely flawless, but it is as evenly sampled as reasonably possible and there are no flaws so large as to distract you when normally playing.

While I'm here, I wanted to follow-up my previous comment with a rather startling finding in regard to the veiled/muffled nature of the Studio Grands. Ivory pianos ship with a number of "keysets" which vary in the number of dynamics layers they have (the default for the Studio Grands is 24, but you can also have 20, 16, 12 etc.). My understanding of these keysets from Synthogy's description is that they are just a subset of dynamic layers, still covering the entire dynamic range, and therefore only really useful if you have resource problems with the full set (which I don't). The implication is that the velocity mapping still covers the full input range, i.e. midi value of 1 will trigger the lowest velocity layer, and midi value of 127 will still trigger the highest, and that velocity layer 12 in the 12-layer set will be the same as velocity layer 24 in a 24-layer set; it's just that in the 12-layer set, every other layer is effectively missing and the existing layers are stretched to cover them, i.e. you simply have a reduced dynamic resolution.

Well, it turns out that something in that explanation is incorrect, though I'm not entirely sure what, because reducing the number of dynamic layers substantially increases the brightness in both Studio Grands instruments, and reduces the muffled/veiled character quite substantially. From Synthogy's description of these keysets, that should not be the case, but it very clearly is, so something is wrong somewhere. Either (1) the velocity mapping is not correctly updated for the reduced number of layers, and instead sending key presses to only the louder layers;; or (2) the layer reduction is achieved by simply cutting out the lowest dynamics layers (which would be pretty dumb); or (3) multiple dynamics layers are being used simultaneously for each note and the cumulative effect of too many layers is to low-pass filter the sound resulting in rather muffled tone.

Of those explanations, (1) and (2) don't really stack up to me (a) because the sound is not noticeably louder with a reduced number of layers and (b) because playing around with velocity mapping with 24 layers to force it to use only the upper layers still doesn't really remove the veil. It looks like (3) to me, which in some ways makes sense; we know other instruments (e.g. Garritan) combine velocity layers in producing sounds and summing multiple slightly varied and noisy signals does have a smoothing effect which could reduce higher frequencies more giving a more veiled sound. If this is the case, it's an interesting demonstration of the limits of the number of velocity layers that can be used in a given instrument. Meanwhile, I'll be using 16 velocity layers when playing these, and for any other owners, if you haven't already tried it, definitely do so. It's not a great solution, but it does improve it a bit.

According to the Synthogy specifications, the layers are blended in order to avoid a velocity gap. Then the hypothesis (3) is claimed to be applyed.

Thanks, that's useful to know, and good to know I'm not going crazy. Looks like they might have overcooked it a bit then.

Hello people, I have a last question concerning the vst, can the final sound can vary from one piano to another? because as my defaults are, and if you have it, if I change the piano, the problem will be solved and it will not change anything? Because it really annoys me, thank you

Would like to try and answer, but your question is a bit unclear. Are you asking if the different pianos in Ivory II Grand Pianos, or Ivory II Studio Grands, can vary in sound, under the same (or similar) settings for each of them?

Or do you mean, you want to have certain settings, as default, and save those settings, so the settings are not changed when you change from a new piano, like for example from the Bösendorfer to Steinway B, in Ivory II Studio Grands?

Actually, I can't answer either question, but it would help if you explained better what you mean. I can understand if it's a language barrier, and I don't mean to be disrespectful.

I don't have any of the Ivory pianos, but I know they all use the Ivory engine (interface). It's possible there is a way to have a default settings across all pianos, so it doesn't change when switching between pianos. In Pianoteq, you can save (or freeze) certain (or all?) parameters, so they stay the same when switching between the various models.

Time+Space has a walkthrough video for the Ivory II Studio Grands, and consequently the Ivory II interface. Maybe there are some hints there. Worth checking it out, it's only about nine minutes long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8ZDlFB-oKU

I didn’t realy understand. The Ivory player has multiple settings and one of them is the piano type (American Concert Grand, Bösendorfer Imperial...) of course, the sound is rather different between them. I propose you to test them with try-sound.com.

You can save presets with specific settings tuned for a given piano, but I am not used with this function (I prefer to save them with my DAW, Reaper).

I must say that the German D is the only Ivory piano that pleased me as far as the sound goes. The American Concert D feels a lot more playable to me but the notes, or rather, the resonances decay a lot faster than the ones from the German D. This is a shame because it's so much more playable than the German D. I had the same experience with the Italian, so I assume that this will be the case with the Studio Grands as well which would be the package I had been considering to buy, but I'll pass on this offer. There must be some issue with their resonance modeling engine or something.

Synthogy need to up their game if you ask me. If they release Ivory III at some point, they should just sample the grands from scratch and produce real pedal down samples as well and find a way to make half pedal and repedal work properly with pedal down samples. If they don't do this, they'll be left behind by other companies. Already the Garritan CFX is superior to Ivory II IMHO, although I gotta say the German D still has a magical sound to it that I frequently go back to. But then I always return to the CFX.

So....is it safe to say that i don't need the American D if i already own the CFX and Ravenscroft ? Because that thing has been in my cart for a week now and i'm debating whether to buy it or not. As far as playability is concerned, the CFX and Ravenscroft have been serving me very well. As far as Steinway sound, my trusty Korg Kronos Steinway has been serving me well too but we're talking about only 8 layers here even though it's surprisingly wonderful to play (i made an entire album with it).

My wallet would appreciate an honest answer