Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards noire is 50% off. worth it?

Came in my mailbox today. NI noire is 50% off for 10 days. I heard the demo and it sounds good although I know from experience that you can “fake” a lot with recorded demos, it’s only the real playing that will give you a good idea.

I have garritan cfx that is my go to vst, I love it but for the mid highs that I find unnuturally “ringing”. I also have Ivory steinway, sounds shallow to me for some reason and I never go for it.

I like a woody, well placed in an ambient, sound. Currently I am playing mostly chopin.

Do you guys believe noire would be a useful addition?

thanks

mark

Hello,

@marklings, I had Noire myself some months ago.

Out of the box, it is hugely disappointing if, like you and me, one is after a realistic piano. I spent a lot of time creating a better preset which can be found here:

https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/334-ni-noire-my-best-settings-so-far

With this preset, now used by several people, there is much improvement. Noire has a succulent, woody, powerful bass and tenor, which I like, and good playability.

However:
- In other regions than bass and tenor, I stumbled upon sample and resonance artefacts that annoyed me;
- The pedaling works fine for basic sustain and half pedal but not for any advanced pedaling (or so I've been told);
- Middle and left pedals are absent altogether.

So I would conclude, for your use, no it is not worth it over the Garritan CFX.

Cheers and happy decision making,

HZ

Hello.

I feel its a very good VST. Hugely disappointing out of the box? I say that about Pianoteq. This Varies hugely on the speakers you use. I play it thru my cheap Korg B2 speakers and all I had to do was adjust the velocity curve and adjust the tone a bit. Sounds great to me.
Total bargain at that price.
I think the YouTube demos are very close to what you get.

Noire is outstanding (I also own the VSL, Garritan, and Production Voices CFXs!).

I would absolutely recommend it, but even though half price seems like a good deal, you can pick it up considerably cheaper in the "For Sale" area at VI:Control. Lots of people do what I did, which is to buy a standalone license for Noire and then buy into NI Komplete where it's part of the package - this means lots of spare licenses that sell cheap. I sold mine for $60, which I think is what I paid for it (I bought the standalone license secondhand!).

As to whether it adds to what you have in Garritan...Well, you lose the wonderful Abbey Road room sound, but gain access to a good set of reverb algorithms and convolution options, and some very powerful editing capabilities. The good news is you can easily sell it if you don't like it, and NI don't charge transfer fees.

Hey Craig, great suggestion but I can't find any for sale now but I'll keep checking . . .

you can have a look at the following reviews to get an overview of how noire and garritan differ ...

I use a modified version of this custom "Best Settings So Far" linked above. it is my go-to VST.


Yep, totally recommend it as well. I have 15+ VSTs and NOIRE is my favorite.

So YES getting NOIRE for 1/2 is awesome I would recommend it to anyone

I think it's an excellent VST - one of the best currently available.

I didn't really care for the "out of the box" sound either, finding it a bit too dark and veiled, but of all the VSTs I own this is probably the most flexible sound-wise.

There are a number of factory presets included, but they tend to lean heavily into mood and atmospherics, and aren't so useful for everyday playing. For a nice straight up piano sound, the settings recommended above by HZPiano are excellent, but you can really sculpt the sound to fit your preferences.

Don't be afraid to experiment with the Color and EQ settings - they can alter the tone quite dramatically without introducing excessive muddiness or distortion, as is often the case with other VSTs I've tried.

I have both Noire and Garritan CFX, and between them I play the Noire much more often - it has a certain character the Garritan lacks. They are really quite different though.

well said!

Hello,

So nice to find that the preset continues to be helpful in one form or the other 🙂.

Cheers and the happiest playing,

HZ

I thought that's why it's called "Noire" ? I would be careful with EQ, especially when you plan to use it in a recording, because a lot of monitors and headphones have lean or recessed mids which can make the Noire sound darker than it really is. Simply setting the velocity response from 'Linear' to 'Hard' changes its original dark character quite a bit.

I pulled the trigger. Since I had just completed a Chopin waltz with Garritan that I will submit to the current recital I thought it worth to try that out with Noire. I must say I am very satisfied. I managed to extract a very delicate sound very well suited to this Chopin. Happy guy.

Now a question to those knowledgeable (JosephW I guess. . .). I don't seem to find the possibility of a "soft pedal". Maybe it isn't just there or am I unable to find it ?

Thanks.
M.

Noire does not support una corda pedal.

No, there's no soft pedal unfortunately.

Also, you may already know this, but in case this is your first experience w/ the Kontakt player, it is possible to fully customize the velocity curve beyond the limited soft-hard options they offer in the Noire interface.

Just click on the small "KSP" button at the top right side of the Kontakt player and another window will open up below. Click on "Preset" then "Factory" then "Transform" then "Change Velocity"

I found that the instrument really opened up for me once I tweaked the the velocity curve to my exact preferences.

Cool, thanks for the suggestion!

is it worth getting if you own a Yamaha NU1X?
I actually think the NU1X internal CFX sounds pretty amazing... my other favorite go-to is the Ravenscroft 275 due to its really nice playability.
I am tempted but again... already got the NU1X CFX which sounds really good!
What do you guys think?

Thanks!

Hello,

@lovelovemale, Noire has a rather different character and the power in bass and tenor certainly is interesting. But in other aspects/higher octaves I find it insufficient.

So if you love to experiment, tinker, tweak and have fun, yes you might follow the temptation.

But for serious (classical?) playing, I'd probably say no.

Cheers and happy playing,

HZ

So I pulled the trigger. Bought and used extensively for a few days to record my submission of a Chopin Waltz for the current recital.

I want to share my impressions.

THE GOOD
- Timbre is convincing especially on the lower and mid registry. Maybe a little feeble or delicate in the upper registry but entirely usable
- Tone and dynamics can be changed in many useful and convincing ways via dedicated controls, very nice
- Loads very fast, maybe 5 seconds on my pretty powerful machine where Garritan takes close to 30 seconds.

NOT SO GOOD
- Reverb is shallow. Better having it than not but you will want to use a proper dedicated reverb.
- Delay. I really don't know what to do with a delay for the piano !
- Particle engines. Frankly a useless toy. Couldn't get anything interesting out of that. Not an algorithmic composition tool proper, just adds a few notes, maybe randomized in tone and dynamic, according to the harmonic context. Can't see any use for that.
- No soft pedal / una corda. With some classical it would be mandatory

THE UGLY
No Resonance. What sets apart a professional sampled piano from the rest is this. Resonance is very complicated but gives a much higher level of realism

MY BOTTOM LINE(S)
- Good for pop / jazz / rock and especially if you are into Ambient / Minimalism
- Not so good but OKish for classical
- Eventually probably worth the discounted price you can get currently

My 2c. Enjoy,

M.

All NI/Galaxy Instrument pianos do have 'pedal resonance' which is a separated layer that gets activated when you press the sustain pedal.

I don’t think so.

“standard” resonance is when you have 2 or more harmonically related keys pressed together and one makes the others vibrate, its a very complex phenomenon, easy to experience on an acoustic piano, very difficult to properly emulate on a DP.

I don’t see how you could have that with the pedal down if you don’t have it without it. possibly you could have a very simplified version of that

In any case the former its not there.