Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Are there any sampled pianos better than the Garritan CFX?

I have Standard and it's more than enough for me. Configuration took me around 30min total and since then I have not touched settings. I mix Close mic (~0db) and Decca Tree (~2db), turn down velocity knob to -3, dynamics knob to around 20db, turn down pedal noise and that's all. I use it with Fabfilter reverb and get nice, rich, bright tone. Compared to Embertone Walker 1955 it runs so well on my computer. I'm not able to get crackles etc. with 64 sample buffer at 48kHz sample rate, while with EW1955 I have to be careful with 1 mic position at 128 sample buffer.

Regarding keyboard velocity to give you the full equation, I'm using cheap Roland FP10 as a controller, with curve in DP set to: Light.

The guys at Soniccouture are a class act. They produce superbly sampled AND scripted virtual instruments (I've found quite a few sampled pianos have a great tone and sample quality, but are inconsistent or poorly scripted and performance issues arise). Apart from the velocity mapping controls, the VEL>VOL dial (how the volume of the samples are scaled to velocity) is important - shifting it to the left gives the piano more body at the PP to MP range. These controls in combination with your keyboard or controller velocity settings allow a fine level of adjustment and optimisation for individual playing styles & preferences. I use a 5 year old Yamaha CP4 Stage (88 key triple-sensor hammer action) and it's a fantastic match for the Hammersmith.

The Hammersmith is the only product I got from them but indeed, it's so well scripted compared to some of other great sounding VSTs I've tried.

The 'VEL>VOL' knob is the one I described as 'dynamics knob' in my previous post. In default setting it is a bit too much to the right side for my taste.

Forgive me for having a different take on the Garritan CFX ...

I'm using the light version (not enough room on this SSD for the heavy).

The sound lacks resonance and seems relatively lifeless.

The pedal behavior is odd. Pedal on starts when the pedal is around 80% down and goes to full with no grading. It's very hard to use it properly.

There are far too many controls. Compare it to the Vintage D ...
That one has controls for tone color, tone resonances, and dynamics. That's it.

But the Garritan has four pages of settings with over 30 controls.
It's as if the designers didn't know how to make it sound like a piano, so you have to figure that out for yourself. Annoying.

Comes to show how different people are. I also like Vintage D, but Garritan CFX is simply better, and to me that's immediately obvious, without any further tweaks, as it is by default. Might be because of the controller. I'd choose Garritan CFX over Vintage D any day or night for playability, control, response and realism. It's only when exporting audio files where Vintage D might be a bit more rounded and softer (since it's a Steinway after all) but not for all music. And then there's the faulty half-pedal implementation that for me spoils everything. But yeah, that's me. Some people (Macy for example) think that my criticism of that pedal fault is rather unjustified and exaggerated. So, yeah, we're all different.

And, on top of that: we change all the time too depending on our perceptual experiences. It is astounding to me that the same VST that I liked very much can be obviously artificial and not so nice half a year later. The 'perfect' VST piano is perhaps a moving target.

This is truly funny for me to hear, because yesterday I bought the Synthogy Studio Grands, and this has VASTLY more controls than Garritan CFX. And, what's more, it really needs those to make the sound nice. After about an hour and a half of playing and tweaking, I got the Bösendorfer to sound quite decent. Today I will tweak some more. It will take some time to find the perfect sound (but I have no doubt it is possible).

This, from my perspective, highlights a real asset of the Garritan CFX Lite: it sounds great out of the box.

Yes, I remember Synthogy quite well.
I had Ivory 1.x years ago. More controls than anyone would ever deal with. It's UI was a training ground for 747 pilots.
I'm not surprised that Ivory 2 is likewise excessively knob-laden.

I don't mind many control options, but it would be nice if the default parameter settings were good. I don't understand why these are sometimes so ... suboptimal. Take Embertone Walker for example. In the default situation it has pedaling noise that causes permanent hearing damage (I am exaggerating a little... but still). That is easy to fix but there are other settings that seem to be a disservice to what probably could be a really nice VSTi. A number of respected members here report that they like it very much, but I guess that is after significant tweaking (probably including performance settings).

This is what I like about Bechstein Digital Grand (besides that it sounds and plays beautifully). You I just start it, choose "player perspective" and then one from a list of very good presets ("Classical (near)" in my case). I never have to change anything, although it does have plenty of controls.

Wow, so you used the Garritan CFX for this!!! I left a comment on the video wondering what it was. That sounds so good and very classical!!! How did you achieve it on your settings? Also, I find my settings to be a bit more on the resonant side when pressed the pedal down. I have the full CFX. Would love to get a hint on how you set it up. Beautiful playing, by the way, love it!!!

Wow, I missed your post but thanks to David Lai I listened through this. What a wonderful performance and also I'm so glad that I discovered just another entirely unknown romantic composer! It's been an obsession as of late for me to discover forgotten and little known romantic composers. And your interpretation is so good!

To add to that, I didn't know your channel until today and skimmed through it for the last 30 minutes. I am absolutely amazed that you're only a hobbyist at the piano, yet you've been uploading almost on a daily basis for the last few years, hundreds of pieces by unknown composers that you play not only without mistakes but also with such a feel and interpretation skills! All that between your studies of Mathematics and later having a full-time job. I have absolutely no doubts that's a genius level phenomenon! 👏🏻 Not sure how many top pianists would be able to consistently deliver perfectly played pieces that are at such a high difficulty level on a daily basis 😱 This is both depressing to me but I also have the highest admiration of people with such abilities. Bravo!

Indeed, I echo this as well! And of course, the instruments are wonderful, which helps with all the fun projects we can do as at-home musicians!

Wonderful playing.

I like meeting highflyers as they inspire me to reach for the stars.

If Gamma1734 can do it we can try too!

That's indeed a very precise and expressive playing of some very nice romantic compositions.

I like this piece:



The CFX sounds good, but for a recording I would like to hear a more far perspective, so to get more ambience and natural reverb. The close perspective is a little too cold sounding to me for a romantic piece.

OK, now I know what word to use to describe this ...COLD. That's what I don't like about the CFX.

I'm sure others have said it already, but if you reduce the first three knobs on the Piano tab of the CFX (all related to "release") you can quickly get to a sound that includes the lovely room ambience while you hold a note (and so is different than CFX Lite) but doesn't have that crazy room sustain after you release a note.

The “Player Perspective” uses different microphones than does the “Classical Perspective. I find it much easier to dial down the brightness and control the reverb in Player Perspective.

I learned some useful things while reading this thread, thank you!

Hi Gamma: your demo videos about the VSL-BI are wonderful. What are your thoughts on VSL-BI vs Garritan-CFX?