Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards My first few days with Ravenscroft 275 and question on micro

Hi everyone!
So, about a few weeks ago I asked everyone to recommend me a resource saving piano VST that has una corda samples, and some of you mentioned Ravenscroft 275. I took a listen to some YouTube videos and was completely sold -- by the una corda samples, and the short staccato notes and how short they can be. I also enjoyed the whole balance of the samples, between the high and low notes. So I made my purchase last week and since then I've been on classical heaven! I am totally satisfied with the instrument, and it works very well with my Studiologic SL88 Grand!!!
Well, since I play classical, any recommended mixing microphone positions, I wonder? I'm really enjoying the close mikes right now, but I'm interested in what you guys think would be a nice microphone mixing position for classical music? I will follow your suggestion and advice and create presets for myself, as I found that saving a multy into a .uviws file can call up Ravenscroft quickly and easily.
Thanks to all of you, and have a great weekend!

Some of the NAMM Ravenscroft 275 videos on YouTube show settings.

Some NAMM videos are beta software so might be NA (e.g. Ruslan Sirota NAMM 2014. Still worth seeing as his performance is phenomenal).

Yes, that was certainly memorable to hear. Thanks!

It is a stunning instrument. I did many experiments with the mics and came to conclusion that a single Player mic sounds the best, with the clearest sound and distinct resonance effects. Una corda mode sounds so good that I tend to overuse it. Do not forget to set release volume to maximal or near-maximal position. Also, turn on true pedal action and repedal buttons. Sympathetic resonance can also be magnified in order to get still richer sound effects. Good luck, and congratulations about getting one of the best instruments existing today!

Is this the same VST that is also available for iOS?

It is available for iOS, but it's not the only piano VST available for iOS and Windows. There are also Ivory Mobile Grand (German Steinway D) and Ivory Mobile American D, based on their popular American Concert D.

I'm a Windows guy, so I don't know much about the i-world, but these are the ones I know about. There may be more piano VSTs available on the iOS and Windows platforms, which I don't know about.

Related, but very much stripped-down and simplified.

Thank you very much. I’m thinking about getting an iPad eventually and would be nice to have a VST to experiment a little bit

Thanks for your suggestion! I'm wondering -- is there a setting which I can create to make the effect of the concert hall, but in the audience position? I don't quite enjoy the usual player position with the higher notes on the right. But you are right about the release volume -- I turned 50% up and it felt better.

I'm a Windows guy -- so not sure how you would connect a midi keyboard to an iPad. But yes, Ravenscroft is on the Appstore, but stripped down very much!

If you have midi over USB, it's pretty easy to connect to iOS, just a USB to lightning connector (or standard USB cable with a "camera adapter") and it just works. I've tested this out with my Roland go:Piano (in anticipation of getting my Piano de Voyage) and Ravenscroft on the iPhone. This is going to be my "bring a piano with me on business trips" solution.

If you have a keyboard with only old school 5 pin DIN MIDI connections, it will still work, you just need to add a MIDI to USB connector in the above mix. Just for kicks I tried this with my Kawai ES110 using a Mio MIDI to USB and it worked fine. I say just for kicks because the ES110 has bluetooth MIDI which allows you to connect wirelessly to the iPhone, but I wanted to see if wired worked as well through the hardware MIDI ports.

Hey, that's interesting! Then I wonder, how is the latency? What about Bluetooth? I'm sure that has a lot of latency, right? Wow, imagine controlling a piano instrument with my SL 88Grand on an iPad or iPhone!!! That's so interesting!!!

iOS can have excellent low latency performance. There are only a handful of devices to support and Apple has focused on latency.

Latency is great - I have that exact combination. Volume on my iPhone 6s seems to be a bit low though.
Nevertheless, I absolutely love the App.
I have my "business travel setup" consisting of a Korg Microkey 61, a pedal a very small stand, Ravenscroft iOs, Sennheiser px 100 headphones and a cheap keyboard backpack where all of this + sheet music + music stand and my running shoes easily fit.
Not perfect by any means but beats not practicing by a long shot
I actually feel that the small keys help me with my accuracy (not to mention suddenly being able to easily reach a 10th )

If you are using UVI workstation I can email you the Ravenscroft 275 settings that will make your SL88 sing!

I am really enjoying the Ravenscroft VST along with the Italian pianos... really fun.

I have Ravenscroft 275 (I believe you can only use UVI workstation no?) and here are my settings....

- Release volume 0
- Pedal noise -19.0 (this was irritating!)
- Key noise off
- Repetition strike ON
- Silent Strike 0
- Pedal Resonance 0
- True Pedal ON
- Repedal ON
- Sympathetic Resonance 0
- Sympathetic Polyphony 10
- Stereo 100
- Tone -2.5
- Timbre shift 0
- Reverb DRy 100 Wet 42, Small Concert Hall


MICS:

- Close OFF
- Player ON slider 3/4 Up
- Room - OFF
- Side - ON up full

I use about the same settings, where alike, on their other pianos... I really like Italian too... for that I set MIX off - they have another mic volume on them.
- Mix OFF - I discovered that Mix is their own "preset" of mic mix.... if you use this, turn all the other mics off... this confused the crap out of me.

I turn on all the feature buttons such as Una Corda, left the dynamics and that other table of crap I don't understand at default.

For those who are not familiar with these control values above, "0.0" does not mean OFF. You can turn the knobs left and they go negative... I don't get it and there is no or poor documentation.

Honestly, I half-understand these settings..... some didn't seem to do much anyway... others I found irritating and lowered them. Others are techniques I don't even have a clue how to use them. Anywho.... here they are.

I suspect much of how you set this up is to your taste and given the location and quality of your speakers and maybe even more importantly, the quality of your digital to analog converter (DAC). I am using a Benchmark USB 1 DAC my whole playback system may be considered a bit pricey given the systems I read about here. So, again, I may have chosen very different settings with a different playback systems.

Oh, and if you think the overall documentation for this stuff sucks... your are right. I am a noob to these VSTs and I found the lack of information maddening.

A pic of my latest rig is here: http://forum.pianoworld.com//ubbthreads.php/topics/2915862.html

Peace
Bruce in Philly