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Thanks Max Forte, but this is really not something I want to get into as the dollars are pretty insignificant here and probably would come across as very petty on my part if not already. I understand Jason's position that he has to recoup the money spent on developing CGC and that the intro price was very cheap, but I think myself and others are getting to the point where we buy many products from a developer and expect some acknowledgement of our loyalty. Not looking for a freebie, just some way of saying thanks for supporting us over the years. There have been some discussions over at vi-control on this topic. Just venting my frustration here which I probably shouldn't.

Hi bsntn99,

Did you perhaps buy PV Concert Grand Compact back when it was crazy cheap at launch like $19....?
If so, I think you've probably already had all the discount you're ever gonna get - more than most people!!! Remember many other people will have paid the full $99 retail price for Compact in the later inbetween months, before it went back on sale again, so PV has to maybe compensate those people some money back to tempt them to upgrade. Especially because their pricing has fluctuated down and up and down so much even 80% discount in a short space of time, and customers will feel a bit ripped off if they've paid far more than others, then see it back on sale again afterwards. Annoying.

I myself paid $44 (= £ 34.65 GBP ) sale price recently (end of July) and am pretty happy with it as a Steinway D multisample for that price. Can't complain, except for those two aforementioned issues...

1. Cannot depress a key silently, no matter how slowly I move the key.
2. Sympathetic string resonance doesn't work for notes below, only for notes above.

Thank you for confirming those two issues DO exist in the full Kontakt version.
And obviously you understand, like I do, why these unrealistic behaviour bugs are a serious issue which would bother a pianist, if they're used to acoustic pianos or other nice stage pianos / software libraries that work right - and indeed, many do; it's one of the first basic quality tests I'll do with any new digital piano I try.

I think the Soundcloud factory demos sounded okay - not blown away - but not sure if I need dozens of mic perspectives at a 300GB size. Storage is expensive when you're running Samsung 960 Pro NVMe SSD drives!
I'm normally suck a sucker for Steinway D libraries I would have jumped in head first and bought the max spec version, but having downloaded the free Compact demo first, then being promised a financially fair upgrade route, I just decided to start at the cheapest option first this time, as I've bought three or four software libraries this year already which I've been far less than 100% impressed with.

Is it possible to resell Production Voices' VSTis? If I don't like it, what can I do? Is there license transfer policy? I know EU laws force all vendors to allow license transfers, but what if they refuse?

Yeah the upgrade policy isn't what you would expect as a long time customer, but on the other hand I can also kind of understand it. As ProPianist said, getting the Concert Grand Compact for 20$ is more of a discount than the introductory price for the LE edition would grant its buyer. I think the developer just wants to avoid giving away too much for a way too low price.

From what I understand, the upgrade policy is that, as an owner of Concert Grand Compact, you get a discount for the price you paid for it, minus 20$. These 20$ are conveniently just the amount that the Compact Edition cost on its first day release special sale. When I first saw that I was a bit mad, but then I understood that, had I actually paid or would I pay the full price for both the Compact and LE/Gold editions, I would have paid twice the full full retail price. So that made it easier to accept.

I have only seen a couple of short videos from the developer, and he doesn't come off maliciously in any way to me. He rather seems a bit reserved. I don't know, it doesn't seem like he is trying to mislead people. In his case, I'd personally give him the benefit of the doubt but I also don't know much about him either.

@Max Forte
I don't know about the license transfer policy, but you might want to consider this (from the terms and conditions page):

"Production Voices samples have been watermarked with a unique ID code identifying you as the user. Any illegal copying and distribution of these files will result in legal action."
https://www.productionvoices.com/terms-and-conditions/

On the product page of the Concert Grand it says that you have to backup your files on your own. I assume that you won't be given more download codes in the future. Considering the section quoted above it makes sense: The samples must probably be rendered or produced every time for each individual buyer, and then served to him.
So if you ever transfered your license, and if he would refuse to render new sample files (for the simple reason that it said so on the product page), your buyer would have your ID Code in the files, tieing you to those files. That doesn't seem like a good idea to me because then you have no more control over what happens with that and that would open the door for a lot of unpleasant possibilities.

Sure,
That's why I asked about the legal license transfer.

But I think some vendors force users to act as they think they are right.

Thanks for the first impressions review, Cinjero. Quick question: how similar is the overall sound/feel of this to the Compact version? Obviously this will be more flexible with the different mic settings, but would you say the Concert Grand Compact is representative of the full versions?

Looking forward to reading more reviews here. The demos sound more or less okay, if nothing particularly special, but we all know that sound demos can be highly misleading so I'm not putting much store by them. I'm not generally a fan of the PV style, so I'm not sure this is for me, but I'm somewhat curious. I picked up the Concert Grand Compact dirt cheap for $19 (so no upgrade discount for me either!), which was fine for the money but had some serious flaws that I described much earlier in the thread. If the full versions are similar, but with more mic settings, then I might take a pass. If they're significantly better, though, it might be worth a punt for the LE verison.

I would say the compact version is just that---- maybe a tease, a sample of the beast beneath while the full version is the beast in all its glory. The sound is simply louder, rich and full--- em, like a piano. :-)

Unfortunately, I would have to review this like some pre-Production Grands (C7) I have---- this is really good---- to wow, now that is some power. hehe, Eh, the Prius was nice, but the Mustang Shelby---- yeah. lol

I agree.

As a compact owner, I was also embarrassed about the rationality of pricing upgrades to LE. It is technically the price is not an "upgrade" price. I inquired of him, but his answer was obvious. Especially I waited for a year for PV's Concert Grand launch though the release is delayed continuously. On account of my great expectations of the release, disappointment is also big regardless of the quality of Concert Grand.
I'll buy a full version of Embertone like you, maybe.

I may be unfair to throw Jason under the bus, especially when he's not the driver, just the sound engineer who works for a company; which in turn needs to make currency.

I'd agree that some of the "promises" fell short; for instance a discount to Production Grand owners---- I don't recall being asked/contacted with any discount, yet it was probably in the fine print: contact customer support (yet oddly it appears only to be Jason).

I had a chance to play around a bit tonight with CGC. For #1, I was able to set a silent key by setting the minimum velocity to 2 for every appropriate sample in the script. This means a light touch equals a velocity of 1 and no sample plays. But, if you hit a correct harmonic, you will get the sympathetic resonance. The problem with Product Grand Compact is when this was set up like this and you released the key, the sympathetic resonance would continue to play. This does not seem to be an issue with the Concert Grand Compact.

I checked for #2 and sympathetic resonance is set up to play at 1x8va, 1x8va+fifth, 2x8va, 2x8va+fifth, and 3x8va above the note. So five resonances per note possible. I checked my CA-95 and the resonances trigger at one adjacent note above and below, octaves above and below, and some mixture of thirds, fourths, and fifths It is possible to add this programming, but is quite a bit of work. Not sure how the Kontakt version will be set up.

Thank you bsntn99.

Re: number 1.
I don't suppose you could elaborate, or walk us through exactly what you did editing the script, or where we find the relevant line entry to edit? Do you mean edit the sfz file in a text editor like notepad?
I'd like to have a little play around with it for myself - out of curiosity.

Re: number 2
Yes, my Kawai MP8 does the same, above and below and immediate chromatic neighbours. Actually the chromatic notes are rather annoying - real piano's don't do that!!!!
But obviously if you're hold a big juicy right hand chord and playing some bouncy staccato bass notes underneath it, you want each bass note to excite a bunch of resonant harmonics from the held chord, which PV Concert Grand is NOT doing, so it sounds unrealistic to me.
I could maybe forgive the cut-price Compact version, in Sforzando, because I know it's meant to be a limited, streamlined version without all the features, possible to lure you to pay for full-price version, but if even the main Kontakt version can't do it properly, I think it's a pretty poor show from P.V. and they need to fix it ASAP. I won't buy it otherwise, that's for sure.

That upgrade scheme from Production Voices Compact Grand was rather misleading.

But Jason is a music guy without corporate infrastructure so I will give him some leeway relating to areas outside his core skills, including: marketing, customer service, and finance.

I can understand how some people may be upset but I don't think Jason did this with any bad intentions or malice. This is a minor blunder which could (and probably should) be remedied easily. Regardless, my $20 CGC "investment" gave me a good "feel" for the piano; it is an unexpected sunk cost but I'm not going to hold a grudge there and just move on.

At the end of the day, I find the $99 introductory price for a 16/44.1 piano which I have tested (and quite liked in early beta form) a compelling offer.

Yes, I am talking about editing the sfz file in the programs folder. First, back this file up somewhere safe. Then, open in a text editor. I just use wordpad in windows usually. Globally replace lovel=0 with lovel=2. This affects all the lowest velocity samples which I think is the right way to go. Now save the file back. Do not use "save as" since this will change the file format potentially to something other than sfz and cannot then be read. Now, open in Sforzando and test. As always make sure you have a back up of your install package in case things go horribly wrong. If you have problems, PM me so as to not take up too much space here.

I'm sure you're both aware, but as an alternative in case you don't want to change the instrument files (which is probably the most elegant solution), it is very quick and straightforward (=30 seconds), if you don't mind using an intermediary host such as Savihost, to remap input values below your choice of lowest sounding input velocity (e.g. 3) to an output of 'off', which will have the same effect.

In the strictest sense of the word, the upgrade scheme was indeed misleading, as it implied that customers would get the price of the Compact subtracted when upgrading to the full version.

Then it can be said that the first $20 of the price paid for the Compact, not being subtractable towards the full Concert Grand, is not a big deal, excluding customers buying it for $19 from the additional discount.

That includes myself (in that exclusion!) since I got the Compact at the lowest $19, which was in and of itself a good deal, and I don't regret going for it.

Maybe Jason can say - or meant - that the price for Compact would qualify as discount for the full version, at it's full price.

If we see it that way, Jason has actually delivered more than he promised. Concert Grand LE is discounted $50, and Gold is down $100. I don't see any info on the biggest full version.

Then you can subtract [price paid for Compact - $20] = up to $79 more discount. I hope I don't owe Jason one dollar.

just felt like chiming in.
let me first say that I like reading all of what you guys post.
so not meaning anything negative against any of you at all.
ok, that said:
I bought a library from Jason last year.
he was extremely nice.
he went the extra mile and then some to help me.
also, I too bought Concert Grand Compact for $19.
and would not get any discount on upgrading to the newly released full library.
(I could have got 5% off on the first day, but I didn't.)
and thats all I have to say. which I'll repeat.
I think Jason is a super cool, very good guy.
and I'm guessing that I will be buying Concert Grand Gold soon.

Unfortunately it's not that easy if you want to have silent key functionality and still have the resonances respond appropriately. You really need to get under the hood and do what I outlined. It only took me a couple of seconds using global replace. Currently the vst treats any velocity as a note on and plays the note. If you set certain velocities to note off with remapping, then the resonances will not respond as the sound engine sees the note as off.

You need the sound engine to see the note as on, but not play the sample. Having the sample only play with a velocity of 2 or higher means with a velocity of 1 (very light touch), the sound engine sees the note as on, so resonances play, but the sample on that key will not play, thus silent key.

Yeah, that's a good point about the resonances; they wouldn't work with velocity remapped to 'off'. Your method is definitely preferable.

Changing the preset to Authentic Dynamic or changing the touch response to 100 fixes that, at least on my kit. Don't know if it helps with the resonance issue that's been raised. Maybe you'd still need to change the velocity to 2.

As for the upgrade discussion. I paid $19! At that price I'm not complaining about anything. I did assume that the $19 would go towards an upgrade should I chose that path, but as I don't have Kontakt and won't be buying it - sooner put the money towards a real piano - it would have to be a sforzando upgrade. Add a mic or two to that and I would pay for it.

I don't understand why everyone here describes "Upgrade" as a separate purchase of a second product. Why not implement a "sacrifice license" of Sforzando based product for a Kontakt based one? In that case, those who paid 19USD will pay 99USD - 19USD = 80USD for "Concert Grand Lite" - for Kontakt and will not be able to use Sforzando product. I think it is a fair upgrade path!

Last year I bought an audio interface and got with it for free two awesome VST plugins: Eventide - Ultrareverb and Eventide - Ultrachannel. During the Eventide spring sale got an offer to upgrade my these products to Eventide "Ultra Essentials" bundle [url=https://www.eventideaudio.com/products/plugins/bundle/ultra-essentials-bundle]Link[/urthe l] for only 49USD which was listed for 99USD ( normal price is 299USD). Nobody said: Hey Max you got your items for free there is NO upgrade for you!!! They think so: "Yes we gave them to Max for free, but now we can get another 49USD and make him feel he is very important customer for us. Who knows, maybe he will buy anything else in the future... " And they were right! Love Eventide very much!

It's all about attitude to your customers, nothing more and nothing less.