Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards What is the best sampled VST for classical piano?

I have Ivory 2.5 Grands (Hamburg Steinway D, Bosendorfer 290, Yamaha C7) as well as the American Concert D. I also have Garritan Yamaha CFX full edition. I purchased the first release of Ivory Grands many years ago (paid a fortune for it compared to the current RRP) and have upgraded through 1.5, 1.7, 2.0 & 2.5 so I know it well. For some time it raised the bar for sampled pianos, but after countless hours playing it over the years, and dozens of recordings with it (mainly the Steinway) I always felt let down with the results. I've grown up playing, performing and recording on acoustic pianos, everything from basic uprights to old & new Steinway Model Ds & Bosendorfers etc., so my reference point was a tough one to try and emulate with sampled pianos.

Anyway, the breakthrough for me came when I discovered what was missing with the Ivory Pianos sound:
True, full-length damper pedal down samples.

Synthogy and many other developers sample keys with the damper pedal up, and then sample/record separate damper pedal down resonances of the undamped strings (some at multiple velocities and for each key, some just as a smaller series of resonance samples) and combine this with some clever Digital Signal Processing & modelling. The reason for this is it allows for the resonances to be triggered and re-triggered with the damper pedal after a key is struck with the damper pedal up, and also in some products allows for half pedalling. This works really well for playability, but it just doesn't sound natural, or anywhere near as full and complex as an acoustic piano with undampened strings ringing out across a resonating piano soundboard, frame & body.

Garritan sampled all 88 keys pedal up & pedal down, to the full natural decay of the note, at 20 velocity levels. They somehow managed to program the virtual instrument to respond to re-pedalling & half pedalling, as well as a fairly convincing emulation of repetitions of an undampened string. Also, they recorded true una corda samples, and numerous release samples at multiple velocities. All captured in the lovely acoustic ambience of Abbey Roads Studio A.

All that adds up to a level of realism and depth of sound from the Garritan Yamaha CFX that in my opinion Ivory Pianos (and a large percentage of other sampled piano) just can match. Oh, and and messing around with the Ivory Engine controls and throwing some reverb on it just doesn't get you there. Believe me, I've tried!

The recently released Embertone Walker Concert D (of which I have the Lite version) was sampled in a similar method to the Garritan Yamaha CFX, although they are yet to refine the re-pedal & half pedal functions, which have been promised in a yet to be released update. Even in its current form, the depth of tone & natural resonances of music played with it really trump Ivory also.

FYI, I have no affiliation with Garritan. Their Yamaha CFX is a top tier sampled piano, and an impressive achievement.

I like Garritan CFX full also.

After endless tweaking, I have settled on out of the box "Full> Classic> Default". This seems to be the most popular setting here. Clearly the engineers put a lot of time and effort on the default. I don't love the CFX lite or other mic perspectives for live practice/playing but YMMV so give them a try. Caveat I am beginning piano player but have played several other instruments

My only tweaks are:

- lowering the "volume" slightly on the ambient mics slider, as the upper keys have a somewhat irritating boomy wooden mechanical sound (woosh that rises and falls in less than a second) I only hear in the ambient mics. I haven't seen others complain about this.

- Advanced tab - boosting the "dynamic range" dial a bit to say 70% (ironic)

- Piano tab - set all 6 dials to 12 O'Clock position

- CyberGene pedal mod linked above

- Advanced tab- Adjust to "taste" polophony, pedaling, RAM/CACHING

A few other observations:

* You can run multiple instances of Garritan CFX to mix and match mics.

* I set the velocity curves on the Garritan CFX & Kawai to "default". my Kawai es100 and several other models do not allow full access to 0-127 midi steps in default (I can probably reach just above 100). Changing the Kawai's onboard touch to "light" opens all 128 velocity steps but it feels very non-linear. So I have about 100 MIDI steps (lost about 25) but that does not bother me as I play gently and don't particularly like the Garritan CFX samples at higher velocities. You can see MIDI output on your digital piano with free MIDI-OX software or similar.

* Based on karvala's recent observations on VSL Steinway, I tried running multiple instances of Garritan CFX with different mics & different velocity curves. For example close at default velocity & ambient mic at heavy velocity; sounded disjointed.

* The samples have a bit of a noise floor. Do a search here for more discussion and pictures.

* Maybe need a relatively modern CPU (maybe not "u" model). Given size of VI, SSD makes sense for fast loading time. I got a good interface for low latency.

Thanks for the detailed answer. It leaves me with a few questions.

First, I am a bit confused about sampling with the damper down. Wouldn't this result in the damper resonance unnaturally layering over itself repeatedly? For example, if I depress the pedal and then play a Middle C, I'll get a sample of the note played with all of the resonance. If I then, keeping the pedal down, hit the C an octave up, I'll get not only the note but a very similar resonance layering on top of the previous one. On a real piano, that second C would certainly add energy to those resonating strings, but it wouldn't literally act like you had a second whole piano resonating at the same time. How do you not wind up with a giant muddled mess of sound when you play a few bars with the pedal down?

Second, I am uncertain about whether I'd want ambiance baked into the samples. If I play in my own room, I'd like the piano to sound like it is playing in my own room. Baked in reverb and ambiance can definitely sound nice, but it also contributes to the feeling that you're just listening to a nice recording rather than that you're actually playing the instrument itself.

To me, the most realistic is either VSL Synchron Steinway or CFX. I also love their Vienna Imperial, although it has problems. I love the control of tone colour possible with VSL pianos.

Maybe it would be more accurate to say that, with the baked-in room sound of Garritan, you're not listening to a recording but you're playing in the room of Abbey Road. It's something you can't replicate with the dead sound of a digital piano put through a reverb. That's the positive side. The downside is that, well,you're always playing in the room of Abbey Road.

Well... but what's wrong with that? There are worst places to play one's piano!

Well put. Garritan took the rather bold position to sample faithfully the specific environment of their piano model. The feeling of being in a music hall is unparalleled. I think VSL is taking a similar approach as well, though I haven't had the pleasure of trying the Synchron CFX yet.

This differs from the more traditional sample session approach of trying to completely isolate the piano from its surroundings, through extreme close micing, recording in a sound-dampened studio or anechoic chamber, etc., which produces an extremely pure, dry base sample (which is then modified by digital reverb effects in order to approximate a realistic listening environment).

The benefit of the Garritan approach is that the realism of the environment shines through. The downside is if you're looking for a different type of environment, that single baked-in one may not be the best base sample to work with.

Is that true for playing live, or only recording? I ask because with my CA-78 I can change the room style, etc (using Kawai's setting, not using a VST). However, it doesn't sound right, as the sound still seems to come from the instrument, not the room. It is still like an upright, with all the sound kind of pouring into your face. That is, I can localize the sound as coming from the speakers, I am not fooled into thinking the sound is bouncing around the room. Clearly that wouldn't be an issue with recording, as we are already used to the differences between being in the room vs stereo recordings of that room.

For me, it's absolutely about realism while playing. Recording IMO is pretty easy with a DP/VST--when you're a passive listener, it's much easier to pass off the environment of a performance, but when playing, I think your brain is attuned to different aspects of the instrument/performance, and how "real" a sound is compared to the expectation from your tactile experience playing the instrument....if that makes any sense?

It's why listening to VST recordings on Youtube doesn't tell you anything about 1) the playability of the instrument, and 2) whether you will ultimately like it under your fingers. I think this is what Tyrone Slothrop is trying to determine with his experiment.

Ok guys. You're killing me. My G.A.S. is acting up. I'm feeling the urge to buy.
"Must control fist of death!"

Yeah, I know what you mean. I managed to get some temporary relief just now by picking up two more virtual pianos for my Pianoteq, but relief, such as it is, is only temporary.

Take in mind CFX Lite lacks exactly the ambience.

Nobody here tried the Bechstein digital samples? Haven't tried it, so curious about what others think...
(great thread btw!)

Bechstein Digital Grand is nice, but you need a powerful computer. Each note uses 5 voices, and I suspect effect to require even more CPU.

But my Intel Core i5 is a little old.

Hmmm. Interesting point you made with your example of striking the C4 & C5 notes whilst keeping the damper pedal down. In a real piano, the C5 would be re-exciting strings which are already moving, whereas with a sampled piano, each note would be playing a recording of the note triggering the sympathetic resonances of all the strings from a resting/unmoving state. Note sure what Garritan do here to accurately emulate this, but I never feel the sound gets muddy, particularly with judicious use of the damper pedal.

I’d go for one of the following Kontakt Player grands, depending on your taste:
- C. Bechstein Digital
- Embertone Walker Steinway
- Wavesfactory Mercury Fazioli
- ImpactSoundworks Pearl Yamaha

Garritan CFX hands down.

It's simply a joy to play in terms of dynamics and response. It also has the most satisfying lower registers in the sampling game. When i jam on a piano, i like to test and push its lower registers with percussive syncopated rhythmic chord lines. I like to hit that C1 note then release it and let it ring to hear how good the release samples are. The Garritan CFX delivers this in spades.

Second place would be VSL CFX. While it sounds more organic and aggressive than the Garritan CFX, it does require a significant time spent in the edit page in order to get the best out of its upper and lower registers (in terms of presence and volume).

I have Garritan CFX Lite, and while it offers the Classic 'close mic' perspective, there's still plenty of room ambience present, albeit it's probably one of the less spacious ones. Every mic perspective in Garritan's CFX Full library is sampled/recorded with a certain amount of ambience/room.

So there you go, Sloth! You can rush out and buy the hands down winner (and be assured you haven't been bumsteered).
Let us know how you get on with it.

Sorry. Bit of morning silliness. Not enough coffees yet

I told myself over and over again, do NOT read this thread. I'm so very tempted by these recommendations for the CFX. I've listened to some demos and if I had one minor criticism it is that the highest octave sounds a bit thin and piercing. Otherwise I have to admit it is very beautiful.