Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards I LOVE VIENNA IMPERIAL!!!

Just recorded a piece (Tchaikovsky October) using Vienna Imperial and I really love this VST. The recording is far from perfect as this is recorded using the Yeti Blue USB microphone from my studio monitor. It's a pity that I didn't keep the MIDI file and render it to have a higher quality recording.

My playing is amateur level and I just started learning this piece so please don't expect full proficiency. But man, Vienna Imperial does everything that I want. Great dynamic expression, una corda samples, and lack of half pedal isn't a deal breaker here since the 2nus feature also feels great.

I also tried other VSTs including the newer Synchron Pianos but Vienna Imperial is my favorite for this piece. There are a few notes that are out of tune but also sound special.

Love it!

WOW! That sounds awesome, nice.

Excellent!

Lovely playing, and indistinguishable from an acoustic imo. Wonder if you can use that on a netbook . . . .

nice.
Perhaps some old sampled VSTs have become more unique and charm in today's new technological ones.

Brilliant! It really shows off what Vienna Imperial can do with a pianist who really works with it.

Wow, I don't think I've ever heard a slow piece sounding so acoustic-like. Great job!

Beautiful! Thankyou.

Greg

That s an amazing sound! Congratulations I like it so much when we can forget about layers, sound engine, and just let the piano sing and enjoy. Dynamics were just perfect!

Btw, is OP playing and recording by N3X?
Sounds like VI is perfect fit for it.

I love that you recorded with an external microphone. It gives us the experience of hearing it in the room. More enjoyable and realistic.

Wonderful playing. Thanks for sharing.

It would be good to know how it sounds through the on-board speakers. I believe Harpuia recorded the piece from monitors.

Also, is this the N3 or the N3X?

Beautiful playing of October by Tchaikovsky Harpuia.

I agree with you about the Vienna Imperial, I love it. You can extract such a range of sound out of it, from a lovely soft touch to a powerful aggressive beast and everything in between.

It and the new BI with its update are both wonderful VSTs. After BIs update it now competes with VI for my top spot but I think these are different enough and you have the choice to pick the VST that works best for a piece of music.

Both of these VSTs work so well with speakers/monitors and headphones, I can really enjoy listening to myself play via speakers with these. One of my other VSTs sound great with headphones but my speakers struggle to bring it alive and they add some harshness.

Harpuia, this is beautiful. Not the VST, but your playing! So very expressive. Like others said, it is cool that we get a mic's perspective rather than just straight rendering.

Secondary to your playing, the Vienna Imperial is also amazing.

I have just looked up The Seasons and Henle seem to have it. I enjoy their fingering suggestions as it keeps me from having to think too much about it!

Yes I recorded from monitors. I haven't tried to feed VSTs into the onboard speakers and I think the monitors would sound more natural. But it is worth trying.

This is the N3X. I also tried playing with the onboard sound (both CFX and Bosendorfer) using the onboard speaker. I need to change the touch sensitively to light, which is my favorite. The onboard speaker can get much louder than the monitor (615W for N3X and 448W for my pair of JBL 308P MKII). I do feel the multi channel speakers are a relatively better design than stereo as I somehow feel the sound comes out from the cabinet. Although I once did side by side comparison among N2, N3X and GC1. The GC1 wins hands down since they are so different acoustically. However, the onboard CFX / Bosendofer don't have the same variety of timbres as those top VSTs, and the samples are looped. Recently I've been switching among different piano sounds and it's also interesting to try a different sound.

Yeah I agree with you that VI and BI are so different. I've been loving the una corda sound of VI a lot and BI does not have it. I have to try the update to see what has been improved.

Thanks, Harpuia.

I truly enjoyed your performance. I can even hear a little ‘quiet buzzing’ at the very end. It sounds very acoustic, and considering the real action, it must be a very satisfying experience for you (the player).

Perhaps the acoustic is not on its way out (as some ‘round here are fond of saying) , but from a very practical standpoint, including maintenance, price, size, neighboring concerns, etc., this kind of setup (acoustic action + quality simulation) is worthy of serious consideration; and the icing on the cake is that there’s lots of room for improvement (soundboard, Renner-level action, etc.).

I can only hope that other manufacturers of acoustics will soon start introducing their own hybrid pianos because if we’re left with only two competitors (Kawai/Yamaha) innovation/improvement will be very slow, to say the least.
Still, it ain’t half bad where we’re at with current hybrids.

I didn't expect that people prefer the mic'ed recording to the direct recording from VST software.

I plan to record this piece later when I practise more. I was using my laptop camera and microphone as I felt it would be a hassle to deal with video and audio alignment, and I don't have a camera with good quality. I found a software to use iPhone as a webcam input and I can try to hijack the VST audio to the input to avoid aligning video and audio.

I have been recording video on my phone, and the VST on my computer and then combine them using iMovie. Aligning the audio and video is a bit of a pain but doable.

What software did you find to use you iPhone as a webcam?

I might consider that as an option, to save me from the iMovie hassle, though that would mean changing my recording process.

I normally record the midi on my DP and if I like it I replay the midi and then record audio on my computer. I often reject a recording at this stage.