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Hi I have continued playing with the VST today.

Firstly, yes as someone mentioned earlier, turning round robin samples off made a massive difference. I didn't understand what it was until I looked it up. As Im already human, I don't think I need this on and it greatly improves my consistency. The problem where I was accidentally triggering a more aggressive/more muffled note has gone away.

Second, I have turned all the mechanical noises off but I can still hear a mechanical noise when I press the key, especially in the higher registers. If this is normal and expected I can leave it on, its just a sound I am not used to being there. I haven't noticed it when I play my teachers upright either. I have recorded the noise here. Its really quite prominent when playing softly.

This is hammer or key-off noise. You would definitely hear it when playing real grand piano with open lid. Actually one can be really surpised how many 'additional' sounds does real acoustic grand make.

Downloaded this and played it for half an hour or so tonight. First impressions- it's the most enjoyable, playable, vibrant sampled grand I have. So, quite a freebie- thanks Sonic Couture. (I also have the Native Instrument pianos, Ravenscroft, Garritan and Walker lite, Keyscape, Art Vista Virtual Grand, Piano in Blue and others). I haven't yet noticed any notes or velocities jumping out or sounding oddly which most sampled pianos even today are not wholly innocent of- this is a particular bugbear of mine and which leads me generally to prefer Pianoteq... So I do encourage others to give this a try (including adjusting to taste velocity curve etc). And I wouldn't be put off by it requiring Kontakt 6. The Kontakt 6 player is an easy free download and can live happily with the full Kontakt 5, as is my case. More and more libraries will be scripted for and require Kontakt 6 in the future (as Noire does)- so it's worth having it ready for that.

What an absolute horrible nightmare to install. I never got so many independent errors and issues in such a short time, YUCK

So I didn't have the newest Kontakt 6 version installed but due to some ominous error I couldn't update. Downloading their registry uninstall tool fixed the problem. Anyways,
Obviously this is more meant like a 'bait' to buy the Pro version, which, surprise surprise, happens to be available for only 100 euro. So the natural question is:

Does anybody have some experience with the pro version, is it worth the money? Especially, will it be a good addition to VSL Steinway D Full (which I own)? Would be great to hear some comment.
(I thought of starting a new thread about this offer (the price seems lower even than the black friday offer) but I'm always reluctant with starting threads (although I used the search function and tried to gather any info I could find on it)).

After some days and comparisons with my other VSTs (as, in no special order, Garritan CFX, VSL Vienna Imperial and Bosendorfer Imperial, NI The Grandeur, VI Labs Modern U and Ravenscroft 275, several UVI ones from Keys collection, Synthogy Grands and Studio Grands, Pianoteq 7 and some others) I would say this is an enjoyable piano to play and, for the price (free!), a real nice pre-Xmas gift. Thanks Sonic Couture for it and the OP for letting us know!

PS: I had already Kontakt 6 installed as part of Komplete 12 UCE, so it was a breeze to install this library

I've been using Hammersmith Standard for some time and 2 days ago upgraded to Pro. Totally worth it (Mid mics are great!) Absolutely my favourite piano VST. Light on resources compared to anything else with such numbers od layers and sound quality. So well scripted (compared to EW1955). It can sound warm and really bright when you hit harder and selection of mics give you do much variety.

There are situations when I will use Embertone Walker, Ravenscroft 275 or even Pianoteq, but this one is by far my best go-to.

My impressions after using it for a day or two, is that it is pleasant to use. I've compared also to Pianoteq, Grandeur etc. Contrary to what some of you say, I find the mechanical noises not too loud. I tend to adjust up most of my digital piano mechanical noises from default to match my acoustic grand, as the overall playing experience on my real grand encompasses the whole mechanical experience. Without them on a digital, the sound is so sterile like I'm listening to a recording!

The only negative I would give the Hammersmith, and this is personal taste...is that it is yet another Steinway D.
I'm a bit over the sound of Steinway, as it has become very generic, along to a lesser extent the Yamaha CFX, so I tend to go for more the less common more organic sounds of less known pianos

I suppose like any good music, if it's played to death, it's not so special anymore!

Seems to be a good set and forget piano, meaning you can't spend much time tweaking, you get something quite usable out of the box.

I have tried it (already had Kontakt 6). I'd say that for a free piano, it's pretty good. It's not going to replace Garritan CFX or Ivory II, but I will add it to my list of secondary pianos which I play every now and then (comprising among others Grandeur, Kawai Ex pro, Ravenscrof and Vienna Imperial)

Mine seems to be a bit of a disaster. I did get a serial number, but wasn't asked to enter it at any stage - something seems to be going wrong. Haven't yet tested it because will need to order a midi-usb cable, but having seen the interface in Kontakt suspect something is not quite right. At what point does one have to enter the serial number?

So I also tried it now a bit. For a free product the sound is really good I admit. But I wouldn't compare it to Garritan or even VSL. In direct comparison for example with VSL, it sounds much more 2dimensional and flat, also the dynamic range when fired up is too low which I don't like. Garritan for example is much lower than VSL, but usable for 95% of the cases, VSL even is much too loud most of the time, so has to be reduced a lot. Their velocities over 80% I would only use for Piano Concerto contexts. Also I didn't like the una corda sound. You have to drastically change the way you play because suddenly everything is much calmer, really unpleasant. I think this was also the case with the EastWest pianos and I didn't like it there too. Again, the Garritan for example gives a sweet una corda sound, but the volume output basically stays the same, or, reduced very slightly (like on a real grand). The interface is kind of ugly too. I'm not sure why one should buy this (are the differences to the full version THAT big (??)) when there are so many (excellent) Steinways out there, especially the VSL one. But again, for free this is really great already. (It's unfair to compare free with 500$)

Does anyone know how to calibrate the sustain player in Kontakt player please? I am still having trouble hitting the sustain properly because the bite point is too low. This isn't a problem normally so I think I need to calibrate up the pedal curve. I remember in pianoteq there was a setting but I cant find it here?

Ok so there was a script posted here recently which works, and I managed to change my pedal curve. This revealed what the real problem is.

When you lift off the pedal, the sample abruptly ends. There's no slight lingering sound like (I think) on a real piano. On my DP in built voice, when you lift the pedal up slowly the sample does not abruptly end like it does on this one.

So when Im playing and dont quite get the timing right on the pedal lift up, on my DP its not that noticeable but here the sample abruptly stops giving a very noticeable cut off of the note.

As far as I can tell this free version does not have resonance/pedal down samples. Take that into account when you make up your mind about the sound quality.

I cannot find any info on their site. Did they update the pro version of the instrument? The GUI screenshots look different. Is there some kind of changelog, did they make any changes to the scripting, or introduce fixes etc?

Per the company's publicity.

Any answers (please)?

This link might help you (go down to item 2).

Native access is a different program from Kontakt; this is where you enter a serial number. If you are using older versions of Kontakt the process may vary.

https://support.native-instruments....Setting-Up-a-Third-Party-KONTAKT-Library

I wasn't sure what samples this meant when I read the information, but surely even with the wrong samples (?) the note shouldn't just immediately cut off as soon as you hit the switch on the pedal? My pedal is acting like a crude on/off switch right now.

The problem is that if I was thinking of buying a VST like this, then this issue would put me off. How do they expect to entice me to buy the full version if I have this problem in the free one? Because I have no way of knowing if this problem would be fixed in the full version. These products should be offered as full 30 day evaluations, no limitations.

Thank-you will give that a go.