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"The VI Labs Modern U studio upright library is here. Visit www.vilabsaudio.com/modernu to order and to learn more.
Modern times call for a modern virtual piano: Highly detailed and intimate, clean and crisp, a new piano sampled with the finest gear in a modern space, able to shine or blend in as desired. Precision response using any controller, plus sophisticated controls and presets with tweakability rarely seen in a virtual piano. High res graphics, deep sampling and scripting but easy on the system. We're happy to introduce the Modern U, sampled from a brand new popular studio upright piano with a modern approach. 6 mics, real resonances, Sordino pedal, many presets included, and many more features make for the ultimate studio upright library."
Ruslan Sirota 3 minute demo - this is his own slow jazz. He makes anything sound great. https://youtu.be/2VU39wB1K1g
however I was hoping for an updated version of a grand since the VI Labs Ravenscroft is one of the best sampled in my opinion. However I feel it's a bit on the bright side, I wished they sample a new grand piano with their expertise of the Ravenscroft since the playability and sound of the Ravenscroft is really really nice!
to me the demo sounds simply impressive, really really good. At 1:58 in the video says 1400 release samples per microphone including staccato releases crucial for realism: what does it means? Is it a sort of missing link we never captured in any previous vst?
I think "modern" is to the brighter, dynamic side of sound. For me... and this only my experience.... more to the Yamaha acoustics than say and old Steinway acoustics I played.
I think "modern" is to the brighter, dynamic side of sound. For me... and this only my experience.... more to the Yamaha acoustics than say and old Steinway acoustics I played.
Peace Bruce in Philly
I think any brand can sound modern, or less modern, and it really is more of an age thing. For example, compare the Vsl steinway to the Embertone Steinway, i'd say that is a good modern/not modern comparison, although the vsl is a german D, and the embertone an american, i believe.
I love how VI says ‘100% sampled; no synthesis or modeling used’, as if that’s a good thing. Talk about spinning.
There’s no amount of sampling on earth that will come close to modeling things like ‘resonance’. Kawai and Yamaha have come to terms with this, and the overall improvement and liveliness of their respective new sound engines is notable. If you don’t believe me, ask CG!
After buying the beautiful Ravenscroft 275, I bought another VI Labs product: True Keys bundle, and was disappointed. It simply belongs to a somewhat "cheaper league". Not bad, but not too impressing after some serious playing. So I am afraid to get another not too impressing plugin from VI Labs...
Good for them! Sampling is a real recorded piano. Modeling is 100% fake. I'll take real over fake.
Originally Posted by Pete14
I love how VI says ‘100% sampled; no synthesis or modeling used’, as if that’s a good thing. Talk about spinning.
There’s no amount of sampling on earth that will come close to modeling things like ‘resonance’. Kawai and Yamaha have come to terms with this, and the overall improvement and liveliness of their respective new sound engines is notable. If you don’t believe me, ask CG!
I love how VI says ‘100% sampled; no synthesis or modeling used’, as if that’s a good thing. Talk about spinning.
There’s no amount of sampling on earth that will come close to modeling things like ‘resonance’. Kawai and Yamaha have come to terms with this, and the overall improvement and liveliness of their respective new sound engines is notable. If you don’t believe me, ask CG!
Well, 100% sampling is much better than 100% modeling. Talk Garritan CFX and VSL vs Pianoteq There's simply no comparison.
I love how VI says ‘100% sampled; no synthesis or modeling used’, as if that’s a good thing. Talk about spinning.
There’s no amount of sampling on earth that will come close to modeling things like ‘resonance’. Kawai and Yamaha have come to terms with this, and the overall improvement and liveliness of their respective new sound engines is notable. If you don’t believe me, ask CG!
Well, 100% sampling is much better than 100% modeling. Talk Garritan CFX and VSL vs Pianoteq There's simply no comparison.
Yea. The Garritan CFX is much less playable than PianoTeq but sounds better.
I love how VI says ‘100% sampled; no synthesis or modeling used’, as if that’s a good thing. Talk about spinning.
There’s no amount of sampling on earth that will come close to modeling things like ‘resonance’. Kawai and Yamaha have come to terms with this, and the overall improvement and liveliness of their respective new sound engines is notable. If you don’t believe me, ask CG!
Well, 100% sampling is much better than 100% modeling. Talk Garritan CFX and VSL vs Pianoteq There's simply no comparison.
Yea. The Garritan CFX is much less playable than PianoTeq but sounds better.
Garritan CFX is much MORE playable than Pianoteq IMO.
You will never find an upright that’ll ‘sound/behave’ as good as a 9 foot concert grand. Uprights are significantly compromised and have no where to go but extinct. My onion is that the current hybrids, like the N3X, are already better than an upright in terms of the overall experience.
‘Hammers hitting strings’ is overrated. The truth is that in most modern-day artifacts ‘nothing hits nothing’. Remember the spinning hard drives; where there were many moving parts ‘hitting/moving’ something? Well, those parts are all gone and now SSD’s have no moving parts and -dare I say it- are better.
Granted, moving parts are essential to the piano, but as long as the ‘movements’ resulting from these interactions are replicated (as with the AvantNovus), the resulting outcome of producing sound by means of something hitting something can be omitted. Hybrids are not ‘all there’ yet, but they will be soon (5 or so years). If you don’t believe me, ask Kurzweil. He believes we will ‘leave’ our biological bodies for a form of virtual existence/consciousness, and that yes, this will be so much better than our outdated biological/analog bodies. In this virtual realm we will be capable of doing anything; including flying past the stratosphere, onto the stars, and back. Can you do that now with your outdated arms and legs?
Pete14, I respectfully disagree with almost everything you just said.
It's all just a matter of opinion. In my opinion, actual Hammers hitting actual strings are far from overrated. In my opinion playing back pre-recorded samples is overrated, and modelling is even more overrated to me, in it's current state.
I have both acoustic and digital, and while the digital sound from a great vst just comes from a much better, larger, and way more expensive piano than my old upright, the latter is so much more inspiring to me, like night and day. It's like it's a magnet to me, which i'm attracted to, while the digital option is hardly motivating to me, even tough the sound of the recorded piano is fantastic.
Maybe in 25 years Digital piano's will have evolved to something that compares to a decent acoustic, who knows. But in five years, I don't think so.
And there is no point in comparing hard drives to musical instruments, I am sorry. :grin
Okay, but you must agree with me on the fact that our biological bodies are somewhat outdated, and that our virtual future selves 2.0 will be so much better!
Just because the Beatles used an upright does not mean that I would like an upright sound over a grand. Maybe if I am just playing 1 2 3 4 with chords - but even then - I am not sure that a grand piano would not have sounded better.
You will never find an upright that’ll ‘sound/behave’ as good as a 9 foot concert grand. Uprights are significantly compromised and have no where to go but extinct. My onion is that the current hybrids, like the N3X, are already better than an upright in terms of the overall experience. ‘Hammers hitting strings’ is overrated . . .
(Disclaimer, I own a digital in addition to an acoustic and I play it every day)
The N3X costs the same as a good brand new upright. In 5 years the upright will still sound like a piano but the N3X will sound like an artifact. In 15 years the upright will still sound like a piano and the N3X will be cluttering up the basement next to the dried out paint cans.
Logic tells me that a digital can never be as good as the real thing because its purpose it is to replicate that thing. The virtual world is virtual - it is not reality.
While I agree that the acoustic will simply be a better instrument, the digital hybrids, particularly the AGs, hold their own in the test of time. The N3 is fast approaching 15 years and it still sounds and plays like a fine piano (and plenty of people still own and use them). They're an exception to the idea that digitals are 4-5 year obsolescence due to technology advancement and depreciation.
Also, I’d like to clarify that my ‘hammers hitting strings’ remark is specifically directed at uprights.
Whenever I say that uprights are compromised and that the very top hybrid options are better, I get a ‘nothing can come close to hammers hitting strings’ remark. The problem with this notion is that we’re isolating one aspect about the acoustic piano theorem, yet disregarding all the others, like: action (prior to hitting strings), size, form factor, etc.
When we look at the upright from a wholistic perspective, it simply falls short despite ‘hammers hitting strings’.
It falls -literally- short in the action department, the string length/position, and yes, even in the form factor; which is a necessary evil in order to make it ‘fit’. So yes, the upright was conceived in the name of saving space and money, and the only way to do that was/is by slashing the heck out of the budget!
The N3/X uses a grand piano action, takes advantage of its inherent form factor, and with a little help from Pianoteq, it can sound, feel, and behave phenomenally acoustic. So who cares if there are no hammers hitting string.
Incidentally, once Kawai releases a baby grand Novus with -hopefully- a real, solid spruce soundboard, I wonder how a puny U1 will compare to it despite its hammers hitting strings.
P.S.
Perhaps uprights at the level of the U3 and above are a bit better, but the average, run of the mill spinet and small upright sucks, and is therefore on its way out.
P.P.S.
This is simply my onion; there’s no need to fight over it. I respect other people’s onions, too.
The N3/X uses a grand piano action, takes advantage of its inherent form factor, and with a little help from Pianoteq, it can sound, feel, and behave phenomenally acoustic.
I agree on the action, yes, it is better than an upright action. But i disagree on the "can sound phenomenally acoustic" part, especially with a little help from Pianoteq. I think there is so much going on in and around an actual acoustic piano, modelling is very far from beeing able to replicate all that, that's why i think sampling is still a much better technique than modelling in 2020, some kind of mixture of both is probably best.
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Incidentally, once Kawai releases a baby grand Novus with -hopefully- a real, solid spruce soundboard, I wonder how a puny U1 will compare to it despite its hammers hitting strings.
Ill still take the puny U1 over that Novus, which will still play back the same recorded samples over and over, while the U1 is actually creating sound. (Unless i needed the grand action for the repetition for advanced playing)
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Perhaps uprights at the level of the U3 and above are a bit much better
Hey look, a similair onion!
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This is simply my onion; there’s no need to fight over it. I respect other people’s onions, too.
Isn't it great when onions are respected and we can all have our own bag of onions and still get along!
U3piano, did you notice how I set your U3 apart from the rest? You’re welcome. And yes, also, thank you for ‘partially agreeing with me’. Your onions are indeed robust!
Well. it's not exactly playing back recorded sounds exactly as they are. It's producing sound based on those recordings, which are digital. But when a recording gets converted to analog to enter our world each time it gets reproduced it's slightly different. Great VST by the way. But I got burned with VI with Ravenscroft for iOS which is very buggy.
Well. it's not exactly playing back recorded sounds exactly as they are. It's producing sound based on those recordings, which are digital. But when a recording gets converted to analog to enter our world each time it gets reproduced it's slightly different.
If the d/a conversion is the reason the sound is slightly different each time the sample gets played back, I'm not sure if that's a good thing.
Perhaps the conversion proximation combined with the element of physical modeling can lead to an alternate yet not fully defined dimension; therefore, creating a paradox that cannot unravel in its totality but rather hold its secrets for posterity.
Yeah, not only the conversion per se but the analog nature of the world. We cannot (yet) process digital signals directly so we have to convert them to analog and send them as current to mechanical parts. So you have, one, the current which is not exactly the same and two, the mechanical parts (in this case the speakers) which cannot move twice the same way. That makes even digital pianos capable of infinite variations. And here I’m not even considering the human element as in the subjective experience, attention etc.
Reviving this topic… recently got the Modern U on sale, and being my first piano VST, I can honestly say I’m impressed.
Tried a few VSL Pianos for a month or so (Steinway and Bosendorfer upright) and although they sounded beautiful, something wasn’t quite right and it seemed way too perfect in comparison with the real stuff.
The Modern U still sound a bit too perfect, but the sampled resonance is simply beautiful and gives it life. The included microphones, combined, sound awesome, and one can even feel like being in front of a true U3 with some imagination (the lack of true “shake” from the acoustic is unbeatable).
I’m quite happy with the choice for it, as I’m pretty used to the upright sound. I can also state that I liked it better than the Bosendorfer upright from VSL, which seemed a little more muffled and more limited in dynamics.
For a day to day use, I’d say the Modern U surpassed my expectations.
Reviving this topic… recently got the Modern U on sale, and being my first piano VST, I can honestly say I’m impressed.
Tried a few VSL Pianos for a month or so (Steinway and Bosendorfer upright) and although they sounded beautiful, something wasn’t quite right and it seemed way too perfect in comparison with the real stuff.
The Modern U still sound a bit too perfect, but the sampled resonance is simply beautiful and gives it life. The included microphones, combined, sound awesome, and one can even feel like being in front of a true U3 with some imagination (the lack of true “shake” from the acoustic is unbeatable).
I’m quite happy with the choice for it, as I’m pretty used to the upright sound. I can also state that I liked it better than the Bosendorfer upright from VSL, which seemed a little more muffled and more limited in dynamics.
For a day to day use, I’d say the Modern U surpassed my expectations.
Glad you're enjoying it! HZ and I both sing the praises of Modern U often.
The Bosendorfer upright is brilliant as well - but if you think it's too perfect and go looking for another upright, the VSL Bechstein is a very, very different kettle of fish!
Thank you @HZPiano. It was a hard choice as for which one to get (since I don’t need that many to be honest, and the CLP is ok enough for practicing purposes).
@CraiginNZ I also think the Bosendorfer from VSL is excellent, and I also find it beautiful - it’s just a matter of personal taste. The VSL seemed a bit more limited tone-wise, at least to me. I’ll look for the Bechstein.
Can anyone tell me how to launch uvi and default modern u with my modified present as a quick boot? I managed to do it with all the other vst in my possession, but not with uvi and modern u.
Petrof P125 * Roland LX 706 * Pianoteq 8 - Grand Steinway B & D - Petrof - Steingraeber - U4 - Grand K2 // Garritan - CFX // Vsl - B.Upright - D.274 // Addictive Keys - Modern Upright // ViLabs - Modern U // Kontakt - Noire - The Grandeur - The Gentleman // Production Voices - Production Grand 2
I had also found this solution of the multi, the problem is that a link remains on the desk and not on the dock.
Thanks anyway
Petrof P125 * Roland LX 706 * Pianoteq 8 - Grand Steinway B & D - Petrof - Steingraeber - U4 - Grand K2 // Garritan - CFX // Vsl - B.Upright - D.274 // Addictive Keys - Modern Upright // ViLabs - Modern U // Kontakt - Noire - The Grandeur - The Gentleman // Production Voices - Production Grand 2
There's simply no comparison.
