Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Playing a real Steinway D made me switch vst's again.

It seems performing on a Steinway D at pianofest opened my eyes when it comes to judging vst's.

For some time I ditched Garritan cfx because I felt tired of it's sound, and loved embertone's walker sound, so I only played that for a while. Well, I still love the walker for it's sound, and will use it from time to time, but now I think I finally fully understand why garritans cfx gets so much praise around here. It just responds, and sounds, the closest to the real thing, comparing the libaries I own, it's playability exceeds everything else.

Also something I noticed, it's the only libary that's perfectly playable for me on my vpc1 with a flat velocity curve, I feel no need for adjustements so far, I think that says something.


As an amateur figuring things out on his own, I didn't really see this before, but as time goes on and I get better at playing, and with ever growing enthousiasm, and using better equipement, now I do. So now, this is my main vst again, and now I really want nothing that responds any less. I guess now only VSL is another option for me then?

Anyone know if Garritan as a company is alive? Or are they done? I would like them to release a Steinway D of the same quality as their cfx.

Be ready to spend a lot of time tweaking the setting if you buy VSL. I just don't think the out-of-box setting is any good. But the flexibility of the setting is almost endless just like Pianoteq.

Also curious that OP you still have the opportunity to perform on a Steinway D during the pandemic?

Ok, well I think i'm used to that already, haha. But how does the playability of VSL's libaries compare to garritan cfx? As good? Better?

I do think VSL pianos react to my touch a bit better than Garritan as I started to use close mics more. If I only use close mics on Garritan CFX the sound is less inspiring.

However, Garritan really did ambience well. I'm pretty sure for VSL you can get similar ambiance effect since you have 10 pairs of microphones to play with. It requires a powerful computer though. Overall I would say they are different beasts and it really needs some adjustments when switching over.

Numbers don't do it for me. I only need one mic. The more-is-better notion is unappealing to me.\
I think they should get it right once, and not wrong all the other times.

I agree with that. The thing is there isn't really only a right or wrong with this, I think. It's also very much a matter of different preferences, and so I do think numbers do count.

That said, too many options can get confusing and annoying as well, and I'm not planning on getting a full version. Who knows, maybe if I'm totally blown away and want more.

Not everyone has the same preference and one mic would significantly limit the potential for creating different nuanced sounds.

Multiple mics simply give a greater variety to shaping the sound.

God Bless,
David

One mic makes for a mono sound 😛 Let them be a pair at least.

I think choice is often a cover for not knowing what works well.

My best pianos offer no mic choices. The engineers chose well.

The multiple microphones are more useful than just being able to combine lots at once.

It is being to pick the microphone that works best for you. For example there are three different close mics. A ribbon, a tube and a condenser. Not all in exactly the same location but all placed close to the piano. These different 🎙 have different characteristics. As a user you can choose the microphone that works best for you.

My feeling is, there is value in this that gives you the ability to experiment to find the mix from 1 to many 🎙 🎙 in a way you can’t do with other VSTs. Varying type and location of the 🎙.

For example, one thing is I do not use any reverb, but instead use a distant 🎙 to provide a recorded reverb.

I do think that VSL creates too many options for casual users. However I saw David Lai is satisfied with 2 mics of the standard Steinway on a modest machine so maybe that should be fine.

Setting up a recording rig with multiple mics is not an easy task and is not going to necessarily improve your recording unless a complex recording rig/engineering and a near-perfect anechoic room are available. My humble guess is that for an average VST maker, three mics are challenging enough. Just thinking of how to fix the phasing issues drives me crazy and that's the first and easiest thing to fix probably.

Kawai's anechoic recording room for Shiegero Grand:

They could counter this by creating good presets, but judging by the opinions I have read on here that doesn't seem to be the case with vsl libraries.

I don't like the presets on garritan cfx much either.

One little thing I wonder about is whether having so many mics setup at *simultaneously* affects the recorded sound at all, because Earthworks say that one advantage of their piano mic setup is how little it disturbs the "acoustic sound field". I'm assuming they have all mics set up together - it would be a mammoth task to take multiple samples with each mic position, separately.


Not your best work, IMHO.

Greg

That's a very stark statement. Thank you for sharing!
I don't have that much ops on acoustic so it's very reassuring that I can stick with CFX.

Exactly why i thought i'd share my experience and newly formed opinion.

I forgot to add I also play synthogy's American D sometimes, but same as the walker, it has a nice sound but it isn't up to the level of garritan cfx in terms of realism and playability.

Earthworks mics are omnidirectional. In this type of mic, the higher frequencies aren't really omnidirectional at all, and this mainly has to do with the microphone body interfering with its acoustic environment. One solution is to have a very small enclosure housing the "business end". This type of mic suffers from a poor signal-to-noise ratio, so they're not a substitute for the more common omnis like the DPAs that VSL uses for the Decca Tree.

The effect of the mic body only affects the mic itself. Having multiple mics set up at the piano simultaneously doesn't make any significant difference. The VSL pianos don't use omnis at the piano at all, so this doesn't really make any difference.

Thanks John.

Greg

👍

John is a mic guru. Impressive.