Embertone just released a new sampled Steinway.

Early bird discount is 10% off.


Link: Embertone Walker 1955 Steinway D

Thank you for the information. I've had too many bad experiences with Kontakt Instruments but this one sounds nice. Also I like the way they market and sell it. You can buy a Standard and a Lite version. And then you can buy individual mics for the Standard version for 15$ each, and there's a complete bundle with all mics. Might give this one a go. Although I have to say, the upper notes sound a bit tinny? Edit: the upper few octaves don't sound like a Steinway to me at all. If anything, it reminds me of the Bechstein Digital. What do you think about the demos? The interface looks super stylish though.

So the list pricing (excluding any discounts) scheme seems to be as follows:

$39 Lite (can't add mics, 12 velocities per note)
$99 Full (+$15 extra per mic position, 36 velocities per note, una corda, memory purging...)
$175 Full + all mics

The first two options seem to include AKG C414 close mics only.

Optional mics:
Close, Wide, Hammer, Room, Binaural head

"This is a Kontakt Player instrument, meaning that you do not need to own the full version of Kontakt to use it"

Honestly, I'm not so sure how much I like the sound. It does sounds nice, but it doesn't sound exactly like a typical Steinway. On the other hand. Production Voices Concert Grand Compact sounds very much like the Steinways I've played in real life, so I'm still waiting for the full version.

I do like the low entry barrier to Embertone's Steinway though. It's cheaper than a lot of virtual pianos.

Do they really have just four demos, two of which have a lot of other nonsense mixed in and another one of which has rather a lot of reverb, leaving essentially one demo? Or have I missed some somewhere?

They're supposed to update the site with more demos soon.

Here's the VI-Control thread which will give you more info and the developer is active on.

https://vi-control.net/community/th...955-steinway-d.72492/page-2#post-4244282

Wanted to add the intro pricing available for ~next 2 weeks.

Lite - $34
Full - $89
Full/all mics - $149

Demos for the individual mic perspectives and a really nice walk-through video for both the full and lite versions. Lite version demo is near the end of the video. Note this is a Kontakt Player compatible library, so you do not need the full version.

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/embertone-releases-walker-1955-steinway-d.72492/page-6

Lovely tone!
Not a fan of the high's.
Bass register seems a tad constrained, but I'm guessing that's the instrument.
Overall it makes a good impression though, I might go for this one sooner or later.

Embertone Steinway D vs new incoming Production voices Steinway D ? Ah, can`t wait to compare. One point taken from Embertone because there is no half pedal.

Bought the full version. It does have a lovely tone with depth. It sounds organic and you can hear all the mechanical tinkles when you play soft velocites. Bass is balanced, not thunderous like Ivory American D but it's enough. It's a very different piano from Ivory. It has character and "dirt".

BUT, here's my problem with it:

I'm not happy with the playability at all. When i play it, i feel that there's a disconnection from it, it's like i'm playing it through someone else's hands (as creepy as that sounds). It feels like latency but technically it's not because i'm playing it on 128 buffer and 2 ms which is the setting i use for all my pianos and they all feel just perfect with this setting.

Just magical. Best sampled Steinway in my book.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YLhZz80yOZY

I really like the tone of this piano. From what you have written its similar to my experience with the Piano In Blue library which I purchased a few years ago. Its also the reason I wasn't interested in the follow up CinePiano and the recent Light and Sound Steinway despite all of them sounding very nice.

Just out of interest, which audio interface are you using ?

It does sound like latency the way you describe it...

Can you try using the 64 samples buffer just to see if the connection is better, even if you may have some pops and clicks?
If it's better, then it's possibly an added latency in the VSTi - if not, then it's something else - and we can exclude a built-in latency within the plugin itself.
Hope this makes sense.

I'm using Focusrite 18i20, 48 KHZ 24 bit 128 buffer 2 ms. I used to play with 64 buffer, but with my newly acquired VSL CFX i had to go up to 128 and i kept it that way hence it didn't bother me at all.

It seems that you know exactly what i mean. It's hard to describe really. But i think it's psychological to be honest, it's all head games, maybe because the sound of those pianos is not pensive enough in the mid ranges so we get that impression. I don't know.

I played again on 128 and on 64. it's not as bad as before anymore (that's why i think it's mainly in my head) BUT it's still not as "immediate" as all other libraries i have ( Keyscape C7, Ivory ACD, VSL CFX, Ravenscroft, Garritan CFX etc).

I think it's the tone of the piano in the mid ranges that is giving me that impression. I don't know.

Alex from Embertone seems to play it at 512 buffer and 10 ms. I wish i can do the same but for me anything above 128 starts to bother me (delay wise).

I find it’s eminently playable (and I do have those other libraries) on a medium Mac (i7 2.6GHz) but of course an SSD would be preferable for such a detailed grand.
As sampled Steinways go, it’s way ahead. A product of sheer love.

I have 2 Samsung Evo 850 SSD in my system. They run every single piano like a dream.

Anyway, I no longe feel disconnected. Turned out it was an issue with the volume since the default patches are too low for me. So I raised the volume in kontakt to around +1.4 and everything is fine now.

Do you feel that half pedal is missing a lot ? This is my main concern, still thinking what to do.

Ah.... once again a new piano library comes out and it's the next best thing after sliced bread.
After some really bad choices i made in the past, reading far to many forums and reviews i really have to be more carefull..... althaugh it's difficult at times.
You claim 'it's way ahead as sampled Steinways goes', but you will probably make the same remarks next week/month when Production Voices will release their full fledged Steinway libraries..
You seem to really like both the Bechstein vst and The Wavesfactory Mercury a lot, but i still have to hear something online to my liking.
There are only two libraries i really liked hearing the online examples and video's.. those are the Garritan CFX full and the CinePiano (btw a Steinway )
Both purchases didn't dissapoint..... to the contrary !
And those other libraries take to much space on my SSD, but cost me to much money to delete them all..for now that is...
I like what i hear from the rare PV Steinway examples.

I will safe some real space on my SSD for the gold version of PV Steinway and remove every library i do not like in the process.

I wouldn't be so in a hurry for that if i were you. I wasn't impressed with the Compact version which i own(ed) before deleting it 2 days later. The piano sounds dull, gray and has no character. But to be fair, the compact version is only one mic perspective. Still, proceed with caution.

I bought it, and my first impression is that I'm not satisfied with it at all. Haven't spent much time with it and already some things are bothering me. There's this one note that is sticking out really badly, B4. Feels like something is wrong with it, it's considerably more tinny or metallic, and also louder. I tried making a demo of it:

https://instaud.io/2kLt

My playing isn't that even in the clip and I think you can still hear it.
I would say that this is very noticeable, I could hear it after a minute or so of playing. Why does the developer not notice this?

The other thing that bothered me was that repedaling was extremely unforgiving and basically non existent. A lot of other pianos that don't feature repedaling are also annoying to play but here, I noticed it straight away.

Also I got some pretty bad CPU overload with this. Kontakt would frequently give me a red symbol in the CPU status screen, and I'd get cutouts. The only other pianos that ever gave me issues with CPU in a similar manner are the Bechstein Digital and the VSL CFX.

So yeah, I have only spent a few minutes with this and still need to give it some more time, but my first impression is definitely not good.

Oh man, you just catch me at my door, I was ready to go into bank to put my money for it, before I leave I read your post and now what ? On every site I read only good things for this piano. What version you bought it ?

Hi, oh I'm sorry about that. If you are in doubt, then just disregard what I said. I tend to notice things that a lot of other people don't care about at all. I also wonder why nobody else in this thread mentioned that note that sticks out. Perhaps it isn't that much of a big deal? To me it is, but seems like it isn't to a lot of others. Anyway, I'd love to hear your opinion on it once you buy it.

For clarity purposes, are these sound observations related only to the Compact version? Do you have contrasting comments for the full version?

Even one mic position should be enough to hear basic sound of piano and bring some conclusions, If it`s not good then there is a big risk to put money on it. Full version comes next month.

For this day you made it, I take my shoes off

Some things to help regarding CPU overload and cut-offs:

- Make sure multi-core option is ON in Kontakt and choose your number.
- Set "killing voices" to disabled
- Batch re-save.
- Increase the number of max voices in kontakt. It's set to only 100 voices which is too low for such a massive piano with so many release samples. I would say set it around 400. This will depend on your playing style, you can set it lower if you want. Just play your most "demanding" piece and see how many voices you're maxing out and set it accordingly.

In my experience as an actual user of way too many piano libraries, BechsteinDigital is the best sampled Bechstein, and Wavesfactory Mercury is the best sampled Fazioli.
As such, this Embertone Walker 1955 is the best sampled Steinway I know.
Will the ProductionVoices one beat this? We'll have to see. I do love their Yamaha, though, and find it much better than the Garritan CFX, although I will join you on the CinePiano. That's a special one as well and very, very good. A character piano in Piano-in-Blue style.
Yet, as for now, with all six mic settings, the Embertone rules.

From all the current top brands, modern Bechsteins seem to have abbandoned their unique character, so present in the Bechstein golden era of the past., ... the most.
In the eighties the company was almost bankrupt and the brand name went through some incarnations behind the scenes.
The modern Bechstein sounds like a modern and dominant grand piano and nothing like the defuse and romantic character and sometimes accompagnied by weird overtones that were exemplary in older Bechsteins.
The Bechstein vst sounds bright and somewhat cold and has a timbre that i do not classify as classic Bechstein like, more Zimmermann' ish !!!!
That alone is enough to dismiss the Bechstein vst as the best Bechstein virtual piano ever.

I personally think Fazioli has upper harmonics without to much character..... very clean.
That doesn't mean i do not like a Fazioli in real life, because i do, but likewise with Bösendorfer, the real ones are difficult to capture in a sampling session and seem to loose more than Steinways and Yamahas when sampled.

I do not think the PV C7 is much better than the Garritan CFX...the PV C7 is very well sampled indeed, but the sampled grand is a C7 in all it's plunkyness at times.
The CFX is a much, much better grand piano and i cannot fault Garritan for not capturing the sound, warmth and overall character of the CFX in the Abbey Road studio.
To the contrary and i am not alone here.

But you are entitled to your opinions and taste of course and please share your opinion.
But what i try to tell is that their is no best vst , because we all want something different.

Should check this. Thanks, tdwctdwc.

Ahhh.... thanks ! But i am of the opinion too that even the most basic settings and mic perspectives should sound good the least.

I still have the Sonic Couture Hammersmith pro (50+ gb) on my drive without ever using it. The sampled Steinway isn't a top quality Steinway which is a pity , because SC does a beautifull job with other vst's.
And there's the Ravenscroft..... i still cannot believe why i ever bought that one.
It sounds dull and never inspires me to play.
And i have deleted some libraries allready.
The Garritan CFX and CinePiano give me every bit of satisfaction.... so i really don't need anything else.
But....... a really authentic sounding, playable, woody and numerous mic option Steinway is always wellcome.

You've your hands full already. Stick with what you got and make some music. I remember when i had nothing but a Korg Kronos back in 2011, i ended up making an album. Now it's been long overdue for me to make another one because i'm jumping from one piano library to another to find a "signature piano sound" for the next album.

I think in choosing a library, you really have to make sure it has enough velocity layers, that's first and foremost, then you move to choose if you like the tone. We're lucky enough nowadays to be offered such advanced technology in sampled piano.

With that said: if you force me right now at this very minute to choose one piano and stick with it and go record an album, it would be one of those (See ? still i cannot choose only one! we're spoiled!):

- Keyscape C7
- Ivory American D
- The new Embertone Steinway. No i'm not saying this because it's new. The Una corda samples are the best i've heard period and it's just a joy to play with 36 velocities. My runs never sounded so good as they do now thanks to the amount of details this piano has.

All extremely valid points !!!

and making music instead of reading about the next best vst is of course the most important one......
Sadly it didn't prevent me to buy the extremely new ( 1 hour ) Soundiron's hyperion strings micro, because it was only €34,-


Now i am going to play and download will have to wait untill tomorrow.

Let’s not forget all of us are different.
Some are musicians, some were trained to be, some are hobbyists.
We all have a very subjective perspective on things. And music.
De gustibus disputandum est.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HgG8kYeUzJY
Watch, listen and weep.

It sounds great for most part ! I really like the added extra’s like staccato samples.
But i hear some minor tuning flaws and the piano seems to be a bit dry.
And i mean not in a dry/wet room/reverb kinda way, but ‘dry’ in what is to be expected in an older piano.
I have dialed in a superb rich tone in my CinePiano and i wonder if this 1955 Steinway can produce the same lush sounding individual notes.

It’s a steal however for that price and i recently bought Embertone’s Joshua Bell violin ....... what an outstanding solo violin that is......but it was not cheap at all for a solo violin vst.
Extraordinary that Embertone uses such a different pricetag for this one.

This one is so close to being perfect for me, and it's an absolute steal at $35-39 for the lite version. But - keeping in mind I'm a beginner with very limited playing ability - it has a few big flaws keeping it from reaching its potential. My impressions so far:

I love the staccato and repedalling samples. The attack just feels very realistic. It's among the few VSTs that I feel don't sound too pristine (how I feel about the CFX Lite, as much as others like it.) or generic.

My favorite sampled library is the Ravenscroft, though the new Steingraeber in Pianoteq is currently my favorite overall. I could see myself preferring the embertone to either, but I have to big problems with it.

First, there's no sympathetic resonance (or silent key resonance). Since I'm still so new to playing, a lot of the fun I get out playing piano is simply listening to the resonances on big chords. The lack of sympathetic resonance makes it sound a little stale on big chords, so that's pretty disappointing.

Thankfully Embertone said on another forum that it's possible to addwith scripting and is something they are "seriously considering." It still seems like a really basic aspect for a modern piano library to include by default, but what do I know. Hopefully it doesn't take too long for that to happen.

Two: I'm having trouble with dynamic range, mostly regarding timbre. The timbre barely seems to change when I play forte vs piano the way it does on other VSTs (or you know, a real piano).

I'm using the lite version, which only has 12 velocity layers compared to 36 in the full version, but according to Embertone's explainer video, the overall 'feel' should remain the same even when using fewer velocities, especially since even the full defaults to 18 layers.

Yet the 12 layers on the Lite hardly seems better than my PX-560's built in 4-layer samples in this respect. This is my first VST using Kontakt Player so I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, but I've tried messing with the dynamic range curve in the instrument to little success. Perhaps it just needs more tweaking but I haven't had such trouble with any other VSTs.

So my impression right now is that the piano is impeccably sampled, but could be better scripted.

For now, I'll be sticking to the Steingraeber PTQ and Ravenscroft, with a little CFX thrown in. But despite my negativity, I still think it's a fantastic deal with a lot of potential to get better.

So am I the only one who feels bothered by that B4 that's sticking out? Seems like nobody else cares. It bothers me greatly.



Thank you for these. I have multi-core enabled and killing voices disabled. What is Batch re-saving exactly? And I usually always increase the number of voices in Kontakt, most instruments have a way too low setting there.

About the rest of the discussion, I've been a big fan of Garritan's CFX, but I have to admit that its tone begins to bother me sometimes. It feels cold and clinical for the lack of a better description, as if it is a little bit soulless. So I can see the appeal of the Embertone instrument, but it feels rushed to me, and definitely doesn't deliver when it comes to repedaling. And that B4 ruins the entire experience all by itself. I also struggle with configuring the velocity and sensitivity setting to get the touch to feel 'right'. That's always the biggest problem for me when trying out a new piano VST. Looks like people enjoyed the Cinepiano but karvala gave me a bad review of that so I'm hesitant to actually buy it. I also don't care much about the ProductionVoices Steinway anymore since the SFZ version didn't satisfy me either. Let's see if mr. Chapman improves the scripting for the Kontakt version.

Batch re-save dramatically speeds up load-up times for your libraries in kontakt and sometimes may fix some issues with performance as well. It's in the drop-down menu of the "save" tab in kontakt. After you choose it, it asks you to locate your library folder (in your case it will be the Walker Steinway folder). Choose the folder and it will batch re-save the library. Now you can load it up again.

Some tips regarding the piano:
- Try to play on the "Classical performance" preset. That preset has velocity curve and sensitivity settings reset to a straight line. See if that works better for you.

- Are you sure you're not purging the "sans-pedal" samples by mistake? Doing so will result in a very "stringy" thin sound hence you're technically playing just the pedal down samples.

- Try the Una Corda. This for me is the best thing about this library. It may lessens the effect you're hearing about that B note that's bothering you but still has some attack if you push it. I'm having a hard time NOT playing Una-Corda when i launch it.

Ok, my first impression : Very natural piano sound, but at first I have a problem to feel connection with it similar to some users here, so first thing I do I use external Valhalla room reverbe (Vienna hall from tips and tricks) to make it more loud and clear, then I was a little disappointed with dynamics, so I turn on all switches on Sweetening but the most important was to use linear velocity on dynamic scaling and volume scaling (put that horizontal track under to non existent), of course max 36 velocities, I also put sample start to zero. Now it is much better. Last but not least, you need it close mics or should I say you need it all to feel this piano and set a sound like you wish.

Combine the default (main) mics with the Close ones. And die.

Haha, I use room mics and close with valhalla room and I am in heaven. I delete all my libraries. I keep only Pianoteq (Steingraeber) and this beauty.

I’m with you, judge, I’m with you.

Fleer, listen this sound and then use Embertone Stainway, use above combination and change a little horizontal settings in velocity and volume scaling to be more percussive and they sound the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx0jkZdQwN8

Hello pianistje,

Please can you give me 2 informations:

- How is the playability on the CinePiano? Especially the velocity response, do you feel velocity jumps?

- How is the pedaling? Is there a half pedal function or is it on/off? If there is half pedaling, is it effective and progressive enough to be usefull?

Thanks

SK

I think I'm having another GAS attack here!
So ... there are five microphone positions to choose from.
I doubt I'll need all of them, so I'll just pick one (or two) to save money.
But which one?

• Close
• Wide
• Hammer
• Room
• Binaural

Hi stamkorg. It is very playable to me , but....... a few bass notes are indeed jumpy when digging into my Kawai keybed.
However i was looking for the ultimate pop piano, that doesn't sound like someone put nails into the hammerheads, because some self proclaimed studio authority has once claimed that pop piano's need to sound tacky, shrill, bright and anything but warm and lush. Therefor all rock and pop piano programms sound god awfull on every digital piano..... both hardware and software.
The CinePiano ( after some peronal tweaks) sounds way and i mean way better than all of my other libraries by comparison.
Every other day i load my piano's to see if i am fooling myself....... but no i absolutely dig the sound.
Somehow brightness, warmth , fullness and 'cutting through a mix' seem to be present in abbundance without distorting one of the mentioned aspects.

But my sole reference is the ultimate pop piano that needs to be much more than some intro riff or other simplyfied piano part that many think a pop piano is all about.

The pedalling is present but less functional than the Garritan CFX for instance.....,,
I am sorry, but i cannot be more specific because i do not know what level is acceptable to you.

Good luck with it !!

Eh, I only recommend what will I do insted of you. I love classical music, so for me Close is a must and Room also. Default mics are equivalent to Room but closer. Matter of preference. Hammer is equivalent for Close but with little distance and more attack and wood. Good for pop, rock but also to give more body to piano. Binaural sounds good with headphones and Wide give lots of air and stereo both from player perspective. Tough call. I say go for close first.

Yes, it's a tough call. Before you posted I was leaning toward binaural (since I mostly use headphones) and close, since I can always add room/reverb in Kontakt. So I'm still undecided.

More puzzling ... the web site says that this library prefers Kontakt 5.7. But I have 5.5
It states that it will work with 5.4 and above, but unless you use 5.7 you won't be able to load this piano into Kontakt's "Libraries" tab. You'd instead have to open it with Kontakt's file browser. Annoying.

I could do what I do with other pianos. I load them all (six of them) and them save them as a "multi". Whenever I start Kontakt I just load that multi, and all of the pianos are available. No need to invoke the "libraries" on the left side of Kontakt.

But I wonder: Will I have to load this piano twice? Once for, say, the binaural mic, and a second time for the close mic? I hope not.

Otherwise this becomes a disk space issue, because when you save a multi the entire library gets copied to the multi. That is, when using my existing six-piano multi, Kontakt is accessing copies of the six pianos, and not the originally installed folders. That doubles the storage requirement!

Why not use Kontakt in some DAW, say Reaper, load whatever you want and save as preset ? I alway do that.

I'll stick in an opinion as well if you want (and disregard it if you don't!).

- Playability: to me, awful. of 30+ libraries I have, it's second only to the Waves Grand Rhapsody in lack of playability. It's not so much that the amplitude jumps across velocity layers, although it does, it's that the timbre changes are *extreme* between adjacent layers around the middle of the velocity. It goes from being very bright to an almost una corda sound on a knife-edge.

- There is no half-pedal support; it's on-off only. The developers confirmed this to me as well.

The piano does have a nice tone when it's loud, and if you were playing largely in one velocity zone, I could certainly see the attraction, hence it has a lot of potential as a pop piano. But for classical, forget it. You could scarcely do worse in my view.

pianistje, karvala,

Thank you for your comments.

If there is no half pedal, it is not for me.
I can't understand how you can make a new virtual piano that sounds so beautifull today without this function.
As Karvala said, for some classical pieces, you need a subtil pedaling.

I can live with this.I realize that there's benefit to continuous pedaling. But I'm just not yet good enough to take advantage of it.

But this is a real problem:This failing is Beano for my G.A.S.

Mac they are talking about Cinepiano from Cinesamples.

I had the Waves Grand Rhapsody and you are right it was unplayable......have deleted it.
What controler do you use and what mic settings for the CinePiano ? Because it seems we’re discussing an intirely different library...... .

Sorry but compared to the Hammersmith and American D the tone is heavenly.
For me it’s not a ‘nice’ tone, but so much better than the two Steinways mentioned.

I agree it’s not a classical piano, but not a single vst is.
I never understood the need for people to have a digital that somewhat mimicks a real grand all the way.
There are so many options nowadays in many places to play and practice on a real grand if people for whatever reason cannot practice on an acoustic grand/upright.
Sure playing at home is a big plus, but do people really look for a controler and computer to sound like the real thing ?
Even the most beloved vst receives lukewarm reactions within a few years.
Some people over at VI control don’t like the playability of the Embertone allready.
It shows we are all looking for something really different in a vst.

For me the purpose of a vst is not to mimick the real thing but make an utterly convincing impression in whatever recording or composition.
I understand that because i do not use vst’s as a classical replacement, it’s easy talking from my perspective.

Oops.I was interested in the Embertone Steinway. I guess the thread has weaved elsewhere.

Sorry ! I will not talk about another piano again in this dedicated Embertone topic !

I purposely have tried to avoid purchasing more piano libraries this year. CinePiano, Light and Sound Steinway C and VSL CFX were all very tempting based on the initial forum reviews, hype and sound demos but I think I made the correct decision to wait. Well definitely in regards to the first two piano libraries mentioned as both have had bad reviews in regards to playability from experienced users on here and other audio forums. I purchased the previous piano library from CineSamples (Piano In Blue) a few years ago and my opinion was similar to what Karvala said above. The velocity response is strange and even worse there is some latency within the actual samples that I have to increase the attack/start time as a workaround which further negatively impacts the overall tone. Its a useful library for film scoring/production/MIDI composition but for live playing it is useless.

The two piano libraries I use the most are Garritan CFX Concert Grand (Full) which I purchased around six months ago and Galaxy Vintage D. Both are excellent in their own way. I actually prefer the tone of Vintage D if I'm being honest but its just a shame it lacks proper release samples/control as it sounds a bit staccato and digital at times. CFX is best for playability.

Now back on topic, this Embertone piano library. I'm very tempted to purchase this. It could be a replacement for Galaxy Vintage D which I've being using for many years. It also sounds like it has a lot of character which is one of my criticisms regarding Garritan CFX which can sound slightly boring. The sound demos that I have heard so far of the AKG default mics and Neumann U87 close mics sound excellent and very detailed. The Una Corda samples sound beautiful also and are the best I've heard from a piano library.

Can anyone confirm the playability is comparable to Garritan CFX?

Ill post a full review if I decide to purchase this.

I'm using a CA67 as the controller, and listening through HD650 headphones (amp-driven) in case that's also relevant. I have played with some different velocity curve settings, dynamics ranges, 'character' settings, but I can't find anything that doesn't have this unfortunate knife-edge timbre change. I just played again with the main/default instrument on the default settings, and it had this effect. If you have suggested settings, I'd certainly be happy to try them.



I don't own the Hammersmith. The American D certainly has issues with its tone, so I don't disagree. None of the existing Steinways are without issues in that regard, which is why it's a shame this Embertone hasn't been better received.



You'd be surprised; I think most piano VST sales are to people who are looking to use it as a replacement. Options vary; I use to play a range of acoustic grands, and I still have an acoustic upright, but I also have neighbours and family who are not too keen on noise, and other options to play are surprisingly limited where I live. Most DPs, and presumably all hybrids, are sold as acoustic replacements and all of them have sound inferior to the best VSTs, so many people are looking for piano VSTs to imitate acoustic pianos.

Sounding and feeling like the real thing is an incredibly difficult thing to do, hence the lukewarm reception that most get. I've also noticed in my own experience at least, that while some VSTs are clearly better than others in terms of acting as an acoustic replacement, it also depends heavily on the repertoire. I haven't yet found one VST that is clearly the best even for a subset of classical repertoire. In fact the one (and only!) concession I would make to Pianoteq is that it's versatility in that regard is at least as good as any sampled piano, and possibly better.

I am using my trusty Kawai MP8 ( althaugh i cleaned and regulated it to some extent last year )
Also using the same Sennheiser HD650 into my RME input.

I will carefully read the rest of your post later,..... i deleted all other piano's bar the CinePiano and Garritan CFX full,...... downloading the full Embertone with all mic perspectives as we speak (175 GB)......
I hope it will give me the same amount of satisfaction as Fleer and sloba......

I will reply later....... thank you for your lenghty reply !

Just be patient in the beginning, go to Response tab first and make linear on volume scaling. Piano needs little tweaking but after that its heaven. There is no makeup on sound. You will hear Steinway with resonance as recordings from Horowitz. Some people are not ready to hear that on digital piano. They want clean and perfect sound. This sound is closest to old Steinway from concert halls as it gets.

Still only 50% loaded from the entire 175GB.
Had to manually repeat downloading when it freezed from time to time.
During the night and half of the day when i was at work only 29% was downloaded. Now i have to look every 15 minutes to see of yet another lock up occurs.

Really frustrating, but i won’t go in the alternative directions as suggested over at VI control.

I will report in a few days when hopefully the entire library is on my SSD.

In settings go with - Download only and single connection - don`t do nothing till its finished then manually extract if you don`t want more troubles with Continuata

I bought this and plan to play with this over the weekend - will report back.

Continuata Connect is probably the worst piece of download-install software I have ever seen. I did "Download only" and downloaded all the files. How do I install this now?

Thanks,
Osho

Every zip file contain one independent file. There are six mics (BRC, AKG, OKT, etc , extract them to folder Sample) The smallest one contains basic folder structure. It is simple. Open any of them (zip) and you will see where it goes. In the end the structure looks like this
- Documentation (folder)
- Instruments (folder)
- Multis (folder)
- Samples (folder)
- Snapshots (folder)
- Walker 1955 Steinway D.nicnt
- Walker 1955 Steinway D. nkc
- Walker 1955 Steinway D.nkr

I look forward to reading more reviews. I think I'm going to purchase this library also this weekend so once downloaded/installed I will also report back. I'm particularly interested in how this will compare to Galaxy Vintage D which has being one of my favourite piano libraries for years now.

Simply amazing, slobajudge.

Wasn’t necessary for me. I just let Continuata do its job. Once or twice it halted, so I resumed. All went well for me, though I know Continuata is no walk in the park.
Enjoy that wonderful Walker, little pianist!

Good catch (pianistje= little pianist).... but actually it is very difficult to translate properly....


Finally after some really frustrating days i was able to play the thing at last.
It seemed the ‘wide mics’ did not load as files, but after some helpdesk intervention ( saw my screenshot files) and a new wide mic download code i fnally had a chance to play for some brief moments/an hour.

I like it a lot, it is what i expected the Hammersmith to be, but failed on so many accounts.
No glitches or pops and some really nice perspectives like my fovourite ,..the close hammer mics.
Still to early to give more details, but i am glad i removed a few libraries that are simply not good enough to my ears.

Compared to the CinePiano it is more nuanced and playable , but the Steinway itself is an older one and exhibits some ‘quirks’ soundwise that reveal it’s from 1955.
A good thing, because now i will continue to use both for different purposes.

All in all a very happy user with this one ,!!!!!
Thanks everyone in this topic promoting the Embertone.

Some additional thoughts......
Unlike other users ,i feel this library is more about very strong mic perspectives as stand alone options, than a mix an match palette of perspectives like in other libraries to get the most out of their potential.
Under my fingers it feels great and the nuances are gorgious.

The only thing i regret is that you can slightly hear the decaying quality of the sampled Steinway in some registers.
The Hammersmith was all about that and therefor sounded terrible to me.
Walker D gives a characterfull impression, but lacks the full bodyness you experience behind a fairly new Steinway D concert grand on one of the better stages out there.

Without getting into to much detail, a concert grand has to indure up to 35.000 kg overall tension.
After many decades it has a certain concequence soundwise.
Therefor many older grands sound dead..... not only due to bad strings etc. but a soundboard that has flattened to much over time and lacks proper soundboard pressure ( sounds misleading ). The position of the bridge is a tiny bit higher in new grands (warped soundboard pushing the bridge a bit more upwards ), due to this specific shape of the soundboard when fabricated ......it looses it’s initial shape over time ever so slightly and the soundboard pressure ( difference in height between bridge and the strings end pin ) drops.... affecting the overall tone.

Being Dutch i try to withdraw from specific jargon, because in English i have no idea what most things mean on that specific level....... sorry for any mistake....

Agree, no more then 2 mics at the same time but thats more then enough.


Don`t bother me at all. Do you try all mics positions ?

There are very small number of pianos vsts that I dont have, but Emberton is for sure among the best for bodyness, but like all others it will never grow to acoustic Steinway, unfortunately.


I always found lots of charm in old pianos.

Very good description, and one of the consequences of this, which I assume is present in the Embertone (I don't own it unfortunately; it's certainly present in other 1950s and earlier piano VSTs) is a more rapid release decay. The difference in sustained resonance between a modern Steinway and a regularly-used 1950s Steinway can be huge. There are advantages and disadvantages to both; you actually get a greater clarity on the older instruments which can be very desirable for some repertoire, so it all depends what you want to play with it.

Yes , very accurate summary !!!!
Don't expect the Embertone to sound like a brand new Steinway D.... it doesn't.

The rare soundbytes from the upcoming concert grand from PV could be indicational that it does have a different sound.
I initially feared PV's pricetag would provide an extreme disadvantage compared to the Embertone Steinway.
But if their Steinway D is more 'new' than it is in fact a different instrument than the Walker 1955.

Not that i have any intention whatsover to buy another monster piano library

But you will

That latency you experience with some libraries rings so familiar with me as well and that's my only beef with the Embertone Steinway even though i've been an active endorser of it since its release. And that's exactly why i decided to come back to the Garritan CFX which is still unmatched for me in terms of playability.

Me too. NO INTENTION WHATSOEVER.Will not buy.
Must resist.
Must resist.
Must resist.
Must resist.
Must resist.

Garritan CFX is really playable and sounds very sweet in digital shape, I like it despite the fact that acoustic Yamaha cfx sounds a little different, but Emberton has so authentic sound from vintage Stainway D that I forgive them any quirks.

It would be interesting if there's a video somewhere on Youtube showcasing the sound of that Abbey Road CFX played live to compare it to Garritan's interpretation. I'm guessing it's a unique sounding CFX, different than other CFXs (?). Garritan mentions in the CFX promo video the Abbey Road head engineer had other pianos at his disposal to choose from and he chose that particular CFX at the end. I wonder if those "other pianos" were different brands or were all CFXs.

Here it is, i found the video where they talk about their decision: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sulGpl58lJg

Garritan engineers really do excellent job to clean the sound, fantastic job to make this piano playable and I like it very much. I also have VSL CFX and that piano has more realistic sound but I am not satisfied with top notes and their body. With Garritan everything is very good but the feedback from sound is not acoustic feel like I am receive from Emberton. Anyway, both are excellent products.

I honestly don't understand why this VST is getting so much praise here. Sure, the sound is great, but the playability is garbage IMHO. The notes sticking out are really bad in my opinion, and some of the notes are also slightly out of tune. Repedaling simply doesn't work at all. When it comes to repedaling. this is among the harshest piano VST I've ever played, perhaps the Addictive Keys Steinway was a bit harsher, but I constantly have disappearing notes etc, it completely sucks. This is significant to me because they explicitly advertise repedaling as a feature. Also there's some bad samples. Try hitting E2 very loudly, there is a snap sound in it. Why do they not notice that at all? I noticed these flaws within a few minutes of playing it. Always blows my mind how developers spend so much time and effort sampling the pianos but then shipping their products with such avoidable flaws. At least Embertone doesn't call it "the Bugatti Veyron of virtual instruments" lol. Anyway, I don't want to take away your enjoyment of it, if you can tolerate these flaws in order to enjoy the sound, then I envy you, and all the power to you. But I can't play this for more than a few minutes. Really infuriating too because the sound is definitely nice, but not like this.

I was constantly disappointing with all sample libraries because of the nature of technology itself, thats why I love Pianoteq as instrument the most. But I also love authentic sound and I learn to live with flaws of samples except if its too much. I dont think about this piano that playability is sucks. Truth is, minority of acoustic pianos also are in top condition and most of them play and sound with flaws. Even with that lots of people love that imperfection and slightly out of tunes notes. Problem with out of tune notes in Emberton is so small that is not worth to discuss and this is part of charm of that vintage piano. Anyway there will be update for Emberton, its not a bad idea for you to send them your opinion about some flaws to fix it. In the meantime I will I enjoy in part that this piano shines the most and that is sound. Despite some flaws this piano is very playable.

Those who put pianoteq above sample libraries usually used to tell about the incompleteness of sample libraries. But like the sample libraries, Pianoteq is also technically incomplete, and neither is fundamentally close to acoustic piano. There are technical advantages of modeling piano in detail, but the most important thing in playing the piano is sound after all. Pianoteq is still a long way from there. While Pianoteq continues to evolve, I think they need to change the sound module itself to overcome the sound of the sampling libraries.

However, I have seen a lot of discussions about comparisons about them in several forums, and that is undetermined. Eventually, the instrument that someone think is good is better one.

We are a bit pathetic ,.... aren’t we ?

To me, the Garritan CFX is not a bad representation of the acoustic instrument, and it's clearly a particularly fine individual instrument, but it sounds a little too light. The VSL CFX, in spite of some flaws, is in my view a better representation of a CFX from a purely sonic perspective. Both are actually very good VSTs; the Garritan is possibly more versatile and slightly more playable, but VSL have really nailed the CFX timbre and it's perhaps a more realistic playing experience.

Update for Embertone Steinway D is coming, it will include also half pedal. From VI control, Embertone:

`An update for everyone- we are releasing more documentation at the beginning of next week. And also, we’ve been hard at work creating an instrument update that includes additional features, most notably, half pedaling. It sounds and feels great! We hope to have an update ready within a week or two.`

This sounds promising. If the update is received well and the reviews are good, i might purchase the library. One question i have is in regards to the multiple mic positions. Is there any way to link them together so that when you change settings in one Kontakt instance it affects the other. It would seems like good idea to avoid phase issues to ensure all the samples are playing back at the same time also.

Also another question, is there an upgrade from the lite version?

As far as I know they will fix multi mics patch. Till then I use two mic position at the same time in Kontakt but I set up them separately. There is no problem with that, everything works fine. I think that now it is also possible to upgrade from the lite version but better to check with them because it is not an option earlier.

It is a very positive attitude to customers' feedback and requests! I'm a half step away from buying it.

I'm so excited by this instrument and fell in love from the very first time I heard how it sounds. For a long time I was looking for a replacement for Imperfect Samples' pianos which has great tone but not as good at playability. Now I think I found it! Great job, Embertone!

Can anyone please explain what is different in this samples that make them so alive: No compression, added reverb, or some another processing? I spent two hours on tweaking my VSTis to make them sound similar but I couldn't.

Embertone is well known for almost fanatic approach in deep sampling instruments. They just record real resonance of the piano and there is no difference compare to sound you hear from some youtube videos where people play acoustic Steinway D from the close position. It is obvious they put a lot of effort to record piano from small distance with lots of details and lots of velocity levels with minimum processing in production (if at all).

So I just downloaded the full 175gb (with all mic positions) but i'm not sure how to continue with the install.
The purchase email says the following: "The Connect app will download, fix and extract your library so that it's ready for you to add to Kontakt." however I ended up with 194 ZIP files and I'm not sure where I have to extract which files. The Connect app immediately closes after I open it with the status message 'Installing..' after every file.
The brief included documentation is not really helping me further (refering to the “main” samples folder which I don't have yet).
I'll send an email to their support tomorrow, but maybe someone here had the same issue and the answer can be of help for others as well.
----

Oh and BTW, I think they changed the pricing of the full library + all mics from $175 to $149.
Which imo makes more sense to me than the previous pricing (when buying the full set was actually $1 more expensive than buying all mic's separately)

Nevermind, just unzip with the option 'extract here' and it will find the corresponding directories automatically.

To all Happy users of this beautiful piano: What do you think about it after the end of the honeymoon?

As you may know, Production Voices just released their Concert Grand instrument. Can't decide which of them should I pick....

Can you get "DRY" sound of it? Don't get me wrong, it sounds beautiful, but sometimes we need the totally dry piano.

I still think that Emberton Steinway is the most realistic sounding vst piano sample at the moment. I still keeping my Pianoteq with me as different technology but I erase all others. No vst piano sound can compare with Emberton Steinway. Even Garritan CFX which I like very much sound flat and boring compare to ES and the same with VSL CFX. The both are fantastic pianos but money wasted. Emberton informed today that update is ready very soon which bring half pedal and bugs fixed, and I cant wait to update it. I dont need another piano, frankly speaking I cant imagine that some new piano will be better. I don`t use dry sound, because I mainly play classical music. On the other hand, new Production voices Steinway has some advanced stuff implemented, it is probably excellent piano but I don`t like the demos I hear. Maybe I will buy it some other time.I will first wait what people who already have ES have to say about it. Emberton Steinway still inspired me to play it a lot. It has everything I expect to hear the same way as I play acoustic piano. I am sorry that I have no money at the moment to bring Yamaha Avant grand or Kawai Novus in my house to enjoy maximum as possible together with ES.

I have a lite version. I want to use the full version very much.
Lite is good enough, but there are some drawbacks. I think Full version is another class that complements this.
I hope they will discount ES on Black Friday.



Unfortunately, many people seem to be thinking the same thing as you. Two days have passed since its release, but no reviews have been posted anywhere!
I guess most people who purchased ES seem to be worried about their wallets:)

Still deeply in love with the Embertone, not only for its sound and playability, but also for its Kontakt Player NKS compatibility.

slobajudge
angmyu
Fleer

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts!

The only concern to me is that Embertone Walker 1955 Steinway D, according to demos I heard, sounds distant. It is great for dreamy, cinematic, romantic etc playing. But how do you find it for other genres, styles? Can you get a "Ringing" tone of it when it is necessary?

I would wait for the reception of the pedaling update. For me , this piano has unfortunately been un-playable in the current state
There is something really off with the repedaling / catch pedaling, notes keep disappearing. I have to look further into it, but I will wait until the update which will come one of these days I heard from the guys at Embertone.
I will write a more thorough review afterwards.

Combination of main mics plus close mics is fantastic and piano can`t be more close then that. Earlier in this topic I put a video link of acoustic Steinway and the sound is the same as this combination, more then I mention in that post. If you like sound from video you will love Embertone. Decrease reverb to make it more present. Overall, all mics except room mics are relatively close. I like binaural mics also from player perspective and this is the same feeling as acoustic distance. I cant help you with other styles because I play only classical music.

Every time I hear it I forgive them bugs but expecting from them to resolve that. The main problem for me is missing half pedal to control resonance. Compare to other pianos vst, this sound much more realistic and piano really need that half pedal. As I see notes sometimes disappearing only if I hold pedal longer, so this is not something that bothers me much, because I always try to use pedal only when is really necessary, but of course it need to be fixed. I hope that update will be address all of that. Other then this, piano is very playable.

It sounds great, but so quiet, I need to increase the volume on the earphones. It sounds always distant on the demos because they need to address the volume issue of this vst.

slobajudge
Can you please compare tone and playabillity of Walker Steinway D to VSL CFX Or Garritan CFX which I believe you own.

Thoughts of all owners are welcome.

Yes, I own all three and all three are the best pianos samples at the moment. Details and personal preferences choose one vs the other and without self testing my words doesn`t mean much. Now as I said that, for me Emberton has more realistic piano acoustic sound and more alive vs the other two pianos and the moment you start playing it is obvious. Power of his samples are in the next level despite the fact that you will play with one and maximum two mics. No reason for more but you can mix them all if you load them separately till update resolve multi patch. About playability, without update Emberton has bugs with pedal, multi patch and missing half pedal. As such it is not playable as other two pianos. They working perfect. VSL till now has lots of updates at least ten and Garritan has also one big update with half pedal. I also hope that Emberton will fix problems and update is a matter of days. Emberton is very playable in general but need that update to work in the level of other two. Yeah, I know, till you have it all you will torture yourself and after that your wallet will ask some questions

Back in Mid-June we heard:

And then in Early August:

Has Embertone released an update yet for their Walker 1955 Steinway D VSTi yet? It sounded like the update that was promised was pending a month ago... and this thread has gone quiet for almost three weeks now. Has anyone received it? I'm afraid that without such a half-pedaling/re-pedaling update, it's playability and use across the complete range of Classical music (pianissimo to fortissimo; Mozart to Liszt) will be limited. I am very happy with PianoTeq v6.2.2 playability and especially with the Steingraeber & Sohne model sound. I was just looking for one high quality sampled instrument to purchase as an alternative. Garritan CFX Full appears to be the most playable... but is actually starting to lag in sampled technology, Production Voices Concert Grand is more ready for prime-time... but I question the selection of the newer Steinway D "Road Warrior" instrument they actually sampled, and Embertone is the sweetest I've heard... but has some unacceptable deficiencies that would prevent me from purchasing it.

When it is ready, I would like to re-hear the Gluck-Sgambatti and Liszt MIDI recordings we evaluated on another "Steinway D Concert Grand" thread again on the Embertone Walker 1955 Steinway D, as an interesting comparison of how this instrument has progressed since initial release.

Update is close but not yet. This is Embertones message from yesterday in VI control forum:

``Hey gang,

I am monitoring this thread!! I would suggest those with performance issues reach out to us directly. Our tech support guru, Nick, is extremely detailed compiling everyone's issues, so we can probably identify what's going on pretty quickly.

Our half pedaling script-work is done! There is only one (extremely time consuming but) minor issue left, which you will notice (and probably chuckle about) when the update comes through.

Thanks and talk soon!``

At least guys are still in touch and following the dedicated thread. Nobody is perfect: Sometimes we overestimate our capabilities and underestimate the problem.
Let them do their work

Good luck Embertone!

Have you tried the VSL CFX? Much better instrument than the Road Warrior (LOL) Steinway D, much better sampled, and infinitely more playable. Not without its flaws, but the closest to playing an acoustic instrument of sampled instruments that I've experienced, with suitable configuration. Unfortunately, also substantially more expensive for the full version, but worth it if you want just one definitive instrument and you're not convinced by the Garritan CFX (which in my view is its only serious competitor at present). Also worth noting that they kept their promise of updates; they released about five or six updates in the first couple of months which substantially improved it.

If you compare VSL CFX to Emberton, at the moment without update technically yes, its working better. Much better sampled ? No. VSL doesn`t have that resonance and has weak upper register and I hate that. It has more realistic sound than Garritan though but Garritan has more even and pleasant sound.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. The sampling of the VSL CFX was a lot more even than the Embertone from what I've heard, with better post-processing in my view. A lot better than the PV Concert Grand Steinway as well. With the surround mics, it has huge resonance; if anything, too much. Weak upper registers? Yes, that's true to an extent, though not nearly as weak as the PV Concert Grand, and the weakness can be fixed by simple per-note amplitude editing; takes less than 5 minutes and sounds fine afterwards.

VSL CFX with one mic sound awful. You must fire up at least four to make it sound like piano. Compare that to only one binaural mic in Embertone without surround and VSL failed.

Do you think the Lite version is worth it? Or is it Full or nothing in your opinion?

For 39 $ you will not find better, but I don`t know their policy for upgrade to full. Anyway you need more options for the sound, I recommend full version. People who like this piano have different opinions what mics they like and most of them combine two mics except binaural. It sounds fantastic solo with headphones and little bit distant. Main plus close mics are fantastic, for others wide plus hammer misc, etc. I suggest you to wait for update, it will resolve also multi mics patch.

LOL you and your love for Embertone. I will not get into details about the quirks i have with Embertone's Steinway but i will amicably say that you are absolutely wrong about what you said about VSL CFX.

First of all, VSL CFX to me is the closest experience you will get to playing a real vivid organic sounding piano. Those thousands of release samples per key pay off at the end and that's what makes it a step above any piano vst for me.

Second of all, the mic-ing concept in VSL CFX is totally different than Embertone. The mics in the VSL CFX were purposely positioned to work together and complete each other, unlike Embertone which were placed in traditional perspective positions that we're used to with every piano vst and its cousin.

As Karvala mentioned, the thin upper registers can easily be pumped in 30 seconds in the edit page. It's the same feature Pianoteq Pro has and it's even better scripted than Pianoteq.

Glad you love Embertone piano. For you it's the best. For me, it's not as i find the VSL CFX vastly superior.

The bottom line is let's all enjoy our choices and make music:)

Thanks for the info on VSL CFX... I had not tried or considered it. Wow - I guess it wasn't until today that I realized that this is the same "Synchon Stage Vienna" crew that produced the famous analog "compare" of their Hamburg Steinway D, Bosendorfer CEUS 290 Imperial and Yamaha CFX Enspire Concert Grands, featuring pianist Stefan Mendl. Very nice set of pianos to record and sample; each offering some benefits that the others do not. It looks like they may have made use of the Yamaha CFX Concert Grand Enspire's system to develop so many and different types of samples, similar to what I recently discovered what Embertone did in using the "Live Performance LX" Walker 1955 Steinway D - which is the same "RePerformance" piano used by Zenph to reproduce legendary recordings of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Glenn Gould and Oscar Peterson.

The VSL CFX is a nice sounding instrument from the demos, but a bit expensive for even the Standard Library... also makes me wonder if they will ever sample their Hamburg Steinway D or re-sample the Bosendorfer Imperial? For the money though, if Embertone gets the half-pedaling/re-pedaling right on their "Walker 1955 Steinway D Full version", this virtual instrument may yet end up being a bargain for what it offers...

Synchron Stage Vienna Concert Grand comparison: (includes the new Yamaha CFX Enspire instrument used to produce the "VSL Synchron CFX")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2GYYV8JSqM

Dr. John Walker's Zenph Studios RePerformance of Rachmaninoff: (utilizes the instrument used to produce the "Embertone Walker 1955 Steinway D")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRZ01GhrJss&list=PLrRdDOgKd0iVHqZuQqBpyWUtI0lBKY1Hq


P.S. Although value priced, my opinion is that the "Lite" version gives up too much with reduced number of max velocity levels (36 --> 12) and no una-corda pedal support.... kind of like the Ravenscroft 275 iOS version I purchased for my iPhone.

May I claim the diplomatic middle ground and say that they both suck lol

Seriously though, with the updates that the VSL CFX has been getting I should probably give it another chance. The release samples that you mentioned ended up ruining it for me actually, because I would get weird sound effects in the release samples frequently, and only related to certain notes. Ruined the immersion for me. I will say though that it feels very alive, and the dynamic range blew my mind every time I played it. I'm very curious whether Embertone will fix the issues of the Walker, because as far as tone goes, I'd prefer it over any CFX any day. When I can actually enjoy it for more than five seconds without getting pops and crackles and being disturbed by out of tune or too sharp notes, then it sounds like candy. Sweet like sugar.

Wow how diplomatic. Hats off.

They added a knob with the latest update to tone down the volume of the release samples and it completely solved the weird artifacts that everyone was complaining about.

Ironically, i was one of the people who gave up on it before the updates started rolling. I even deleted it fron my SSD. And trust me, i wouldn't be showering my bouquets of praises now if i didn't think the updates made it near perfection for me. And i'm one of the pickiest you'll see on here.

Pops and crackles...umm..well...SSD is actually listed as a requirement on the VSL CFX spec sheet. I run it with no problems on my system.

I think I didn't see the knob yet, but I know there's a numerical setting that you can do in one of the deeper hidden menues somewhere. Someone, can't remember who it was, advised me on the settings in the VSL CFX thread, but I must admit I barely remember anything about it. But it's there's an actual knob now, then I should check it out. Even though, if that means you have to turn down all release samples just so the faulty ones aren't bothersome anymore, then that is not an elegant solution if you ask me. It's similar to the issues that the Grandeur has and that can be "fixed" by turning off sympathetic resonance or release samples (thankfully there was another solution later on).

I do have the Embertone installed on an SSD. I tested it again and it looks like I have to crank up my sample size settings in the ASIO driver. Then it drastically improved, but introduced more lag and there was still some crackles left. Looking forward to what the update brings to the table.

I take back the "knob" word, it's not a knob but as you said, it's a numeric value that you can control with your mouse, that's correct.

It's not hidden anywhere, it's actually on the "edit" page, which is the first thing you see on top of the main GUI when you open it and you can get there by clicking on the "edit" word.

It does not turn down the release samples all the way, unless you want it to (that would be a value of -80). I set to -6 and it's game over, problem solved. I wouldn't be happy playing with no release samples anyway (i'm picky, remember?).

The edit page on the VSL CFX is far deeper than what's available on the Grandeur. I would say that the closest thing to it in terms of tweakability is the one in Pianoteq Pro.

I can not comment on the Embertone because I have not tried it, but the VST CFX is the best piano vst right now. My piano teacher, who was the pianist of the Symphony where I live, - previously no piano vst convinced her -, then last Friday she came to my house and I put the Vsl CFX in Cubase with the patch made and published by Karvala -modifying the RS LEVEL in -5 to not have the commented problem of the Release Samples-, midi velocity curve modified by midiflow in the Yamaha NU1 and Sonarworks to balance the acoustics of my room ... she played several pieces among which are the Bach's partitas and she said that without problem could study with that piano!!.So, the VSL CFX works for me and I'm very happy about this!!!.Comment that she is a teacher at the Conservatory and is playing piano acoustic all day and at home has a Yamaha Grand G2 5'7''

Just to mention: On January 2015 "Zenph" was bought by “Steinway & Sons” and thanks to Zenph's technology we have some incredible performances in "Steinway Spirio" library now!

Pieces played by:
George Gershwin
Duke Ellington
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
Claudio Arrau

Just to name a few.

I also think that VSL CFX is among the best samples piano. I say that many times. But sound can`t be compared to Emberton, who has much more realistic sound. But ok, I am glad that you love VSL CFX. After couple of years we finally have some new pianos to talk about and that`s good. I agree, lets all enjoy our choices and make music

Can’t wait to get my hands on that Embertone Walker update. Come to mama!

You’re doing it again. That’s your opinion about Embertone having a more realistic sound. My opinion is the opposite, I think the vsl cfx does.

With that said, I like to thank you for respecting other people’s preferences and choices, that’s the spirit. Thumbs up.

Let’s just agree that people express their opinion when posting in threads, while at the same time respecting others’ unless proven otherwise. It’s simpler that way.

Does anyone think otherwise?

Funny thing is that when you dig up older posts about the best piano vst around the www, we enter an alternative universe at times.
How some people rave about a certain vst and fully ignore it when their next ‘ultimate’ vst comes around. ( Ivory on top of everything)
I have done the same , therefor we should take any comment with a grain of salt at times.

Example .... i use an HX3 hammond clone, considered one of the best.
Over time it received many updates and thus ‘improvements’.
The initial product reviews were stellar even when the HX3 product was still called ‘HOAX’’.
After at least a dozen updates and the related forum comments, one would assume that the current product is at least in another league compared to the first one’s
I stopped updating after a while because it was a pain altogether and the extreme hype after each and every update was totally wasted on me..... iow i couldn’t care less about 10% more authentic percussion when you listened to it in isolation with €400,- + headphones.

Comparing a Steinway to a Yamaha is also impossible.....the differences in sound are large in my opinion.
I for one choose sound above playability and the behaviour of the total piano playing experience.
Of course it has to play at a certain level without latency, cracks or other huge distractions.
But i prefer a superb tone over acurate pedal behaviour and i get the feeling that some forum members feel the opposite.

Ps Kontakt ,out of nowhere , cannot find the Embertone since yesterday.
The routing path and everything seem accurate and Kontakt should have no reason to ‘Library content not found’ messages ..grrrrr......
Out of nowhere without running any updates whatsoever ( didn’t even played the Embertone yesterday) it can’t find the Embertone.

Totally irrelevant and has nothing to do with what you quoted the post above for, which is respecting people's opinions when it comes to tastes instead of claiming facts without adding the magic word afterwards which is: "in my opinion". That is all i was amicably saying to Slobajudge.

And regarding moving on to other vsts when new ones come out: So what? what's wrong with that? We're all in the pursuit of perfection in terms of piano sample libraries.

And if you're referring to me regarding Ivory American Grand, Yes i did say a while i go that it's the best piano vst at the moment but that was during the time when VSL CFX had tons of bugs and issues, so now the VSL CFX is my go-to piano. Sue me?

I have checked out the latest update for the VSL CFX and my first impression is that it runs a lot smoother than the initial release version. After spending some time doing edits to the individual note edit pages I could also (kind of) balance out the weaker upper octaves, and by making changes to those numerical setting things, those stupid release sounds have gotten bearable. It's actually pretty fun to play now. I have come to dislike the sound of it though. It sounds even colder and more lifeless than the Garritan CFX to me now, and the sound quality doesn't satisfy me anymore, although I find it hard to pinpoint why that is. I'm considering upgrading to the full version because apparently the additional mics greatly improve the sound. But then I am not sure if I want to sink more money into this, and also I still don't want to support this kind of customer treatment regarding drm and dongles.

I am really curious now though - if they ever sample their Steinway with this engine, and then refine it similarly to how they refined this one, then that could be one heck of a piano VST. Let's hope it doesn't take them another ten years to release that.

Ironically, the setting that i use in the VSL CFX relies on the standard version and it sounds full and vivid to me. I couldn't be happier. So go figure.

I can send you my preset if you like to try it.

And yes, i think the Synchron Steinway is coming i believe. They're in love with that stage. They just released a new Synchron strings library today.

Don't overreact please,...... i have no idea whatsoever what you wrote about Ivory piano's.... don't even know what you currently use apart from the VSL/CFX.

I like to read all over the web about vst's because it's fun and people's opinion change over time.
I have also claimed that the first years the Garritan CFX was my holy grail piano vst, but i don't really warm to the CFX sound at the moment.
And the CFX rendering from VSL sounds even more 'cold' than the Garritan that has still some warmth.
Good for you that you like it very much,..... please continue to enjoy your vst !

Ahhh i see. Fair enough then, my apologies.

And thank you very much. I will indeed continue to enjoy my lovely amazing VSL CFX.

Do to some 'Steinway' brand related issues i had to rename "Walker 1955 Steinway D.nicnt" to "Walker 1955 Concert D.nicnt" in the folder.

After launching native access and kontakt the Embertone is on full display again.
Pffff....luckily someone posted this over at the VI control forum.

Uh oh... WHY would they do that and choose this one name out of everything they could have chosen?? They'll run into trouble with Synthogy because of their "American Concert D" product name.

Also, tdwctdwc, thank you for your offer. Can you perhaps make a screenshot of your microphone mixing screen? I'm just using the default player perspective mixing. Have the room mics disabled because they add this very IMHO unpleasant room reverb to the sound. But perhaps you could make it work better?

My setting has the "Decca Tree player preset" mics untouched hence most of the work is done in the edit page and volume levels etc. Due to the graphic GUI nature of the edit page, it won't be any help to post a screenshot. That's why i offered to send you the preset file as it is. Feel free to pm me.

Nah, “concert” is a general (Steinway) denominator, like ProductionVoices Concert Grand.

I don't think so, read here:

https://www.garritan.com/products/cfx-concert-grand-virtual-piano/

CFX is a YAMAHA and they named it a Concert piano too...

The sound of this Embertone is gorgeous.
If they add the half pedal and if it works well, this could be my next purchase and a reference for the next 10 years.

Does anybody compared it to the Vintage D about playability (response to velocity, homogeneity and continuity of the tone with the increase of velocity played...)?

Thanks

SK

Which is what I meant to say, and why I put Steinway between brackets

Is there any news about the update? If not, then I suppose they will release it after October 1 - the release date of Kontakt 6.

The huge advantage of this library is that it's "Kontakt Player" compatible so Embertone can implement all new features in Kontakt 6 without any need to think about those who are on the previous paid versions and don't want upgrade now. "Production Voices" have to understand how important is it!

And what about your impressions now? Do you still feel the same excitement of this piano?

@Max_Forte : I don’t think Kontakt and Kontakt Player can cohabit, then if someone have paid for Kontakt 5 (as I do), he will have to pay for Kontakt 6 or install Kontakt Player 6 (and disinstall Kontakt 5) to use libraries designed for the newest Kontakt.

I had a similar setup in the past. I believe they were "Kontakt 3" and "Kontakt 4 Player". Worked well.

Just purchased the Embertone Walker piano, mainly for the extensive una corda samples, which my beloved Garritan CFX doesn't have. Now I'm contemplating to buy the close mic (U87) perspective. However, did anyone notice, when you switch off 'tone' (sweetening section), the piano actually sounds warmer and closer? Not sure if I really need that close mic perspective ...

When you switch off Sweetening (all three) you get piano as it recorded without processing. I have full piano with all mics and from time to time I change and combine different mics. Sometimes I love combination with two mics and sometimes solo with different ones. So, not much help for you, only if you take all mics you will have peace

Is anyone else having problems in Kontakt ever since they renamed this to Concert D? It didn't show in the side tab anymore so I opened Native Access where it showed that it was uninstalled despite having been installed earlier. But the name was now changed to Walker 1955 Concert D. Installing it in Native Access made it show up in Kontakt again, but now it is searching for "Walker 1955 Concert D.nicnt" but can't find it. That's because my file is still called "Walker 1955 Steinway D.nicnt". Should I just rename the files or can I break something with that? Would I have to rename every single file, also in the samples folders, and replace the string "Steinway" with "Concert"?

Also what's with the update, didn't they want to release it in July or something, and didn't they claim they just had a tiny little annoyance to get rid of which shouldn't take much more time?

I have the full package too and also many other vst's incl. the Garritan CFX full.
My personal absolute favourite is the hammer close mike.
And althaugh many combinations sound awesome , the hammer close mike produces that unique sound i favour above all other settings.
At first it sounded a bit thin in isolation, but the transparency, wooden hammer sound and gorgious sustain makes it the ideal piano for any mix i throw it in.
Without much further processing (a bit decreasing the bass eq) it is exactly what i need.
It is absolutely wonderfull how it maintains every aspect of the Walker 1955 without dominating to much with conflicting frequencies.

Again, by far my personal favourite after a couple of months playing around.

Well, this morning I ordered the close mic perspective to start with, but Chrome's 'auto-fill' wrote a faulty email address so I never received the code. I wrote Embertone to tell them about it, but based on experience, it could take a very long time before they respond.

Just a note for those interested, as part of a Black Friday weekend sale, the entire suite of Embertone's Walker 1955 Concert D - w/ full (all 6 mic) perspectives is available for 20% off the normal price; i.e. $119.20 USD today (Saturday, November 24th). I just purchased it!

https://embertone.com/instruments/instruments.html

I've been waiting to pull the trigger for the updated release that addresses the 1/2 pedaling and re-pedaling issue... which is very important to me, as I am using my virtual instruments for silent practice on my Mason & Hamlin BB 7' acoustic grand, with ProRecord MIDI and the built in QuietTime mute rail. But I had not seen it available for this price since it's introduction. Any news on the updated release? Last I saw:
https://vi-control.net/community/threads/embertone-releases-walker-1955-steinway-d.72492/page-23


I am adding this to my PianoTeq 6.3 Standard (Steingraeber E-272, Ant.Petrof 275, Grotrian Concert Royal, Bluthner Model One, Grand K2, Hamburg Steinway B, Hamburg Steinway D) and Garritan (Yamaha) CFX Full collection of virtual instruments. Should be fun to compare playability vs. acoustic sound emulation of the various packages!

You have almost the same Instruments as me
Yesterday, I bought the emberton too. Sadly I can't install it but if I figure it out it will be alot of fun!

About update for Emberton Steinway, the last information from Emberton in VI control forum is: `We are extremely delayed updating our Concert D... but it really is just on the threshold. I want to convey my disappointment that it's not ready yet, and say with confidence that it will be finished and ready before the holidays. If anyone is particularly antsy and needing the half pedal improvements of the piano, please PM me. I can get you a beta patch.`
On my email I receive the message that update will be very soon.
I have a question for you Wolfgangmeister about silent function in acoustic pianos. Do you feel any problems when you play in silent mode, like hard action, key motion range are decreased, problems with tuning etc ? Some people said that is bad to have that on piano and some have opposite opinion. Thank you.

Thank you slobajudge relative to the Embertone update - I may PM Alex for the half pedal improvements beta patch, as this was the reason why I had not bought the package, due to the experiment we made with my MIDI recording of the Gluck-Sgambati Melody a few months back.
Relative to PianoDisc Quiet Time 'silent mode', when a piano is properly regulated, the only difference that I perceive when I play silently (and softly) is in a very small reduction in hammer 'let off' distance (~1/16 inch) when it is in 'escapement'. The two mute bars need to carefully set to be very close and right below to where the hammers just barely miss touching the strings. When the bass mute bar and treble/mid section bass mute bars are adjusted properly as part of a well-regulated action, there is no increase in stiffness to the action, key motion range is virtually identical and the player only feels a very slight perceivable difference in the 'let off' distance when playing quietly.

BTW, there is absolutely NO difference in the piano's tuning... I have seen people say this and it makes no sense! The mute bars only stop the hammers just before they strike the strings. In fact, I have taken my headphones off and if I listen carefully as I place my head very close to the piano (ala 'Beethoven' in the movie "Immortal Beloved"), I can actually 'hear' the resonance of the strings being 'played very quietly' due to the proximity of the hammer to the string, especially when the sustain pedal is down. All in all, it is very similar to the feeling that one gets when playing a Kawai Novus NV-10 or Yamaha AvantGrand Nx hybrid digital instrument - and it is a nice experience when paired with a high quality software Virtual Instrument. In my case, I have a WNG carbon-fiber/composite action installed in my M&H, which is also one of my favorite acoustic piano actions to play.
Congratulations pianoten - as soon as I download all the Embertone files, I will let you know how I make out. Did you download Native Instruments 'Native Access' and free 'Kontakt Player 6' first? These are required to use the Embertone VI...

Demos sound very good! In one review though, it was mentioned that it doesn't crossfade to the pedal-down samples, when the pedal is depressed *after* the notes are played - is this included in the upcoming update?

Greg

Now that I have the close mic perspective I must conclude that I prefer the standard mix version, at least when it comes to the Una Corda samples (which is my favorite aspect of the Walker). I guess you really do need every mic position in order to get 'your' sound. And even then I fear you might not be able to top the main version. Grrrr!

Thank you for detail answer. Between Novus or Avant grand I choose acoustic with silent mode this has more sense for me, and btw lucky you, that piano with WNG action you have is beautiful.

Depends, you really need all mics to find your sound like you said, but mix close and main at the same time, that mix is beautiful. When you have all mics you will change opinion from time to time and use different settings. Room position alone is excellent for classical music, I play a lot with it, but now I use main plus hammer mics to achieve more closer and character piano sound similar to sound in video I post in similar thread, another example is something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn_4p1K4Aew&start_radio=1&list=RDTn_4p1K4Aew

Do you combine the main 'default' mix with one of the individual mic perspectives? Isn't that asking for phase issues since the main mix is a mix of all the mic positions? In some libraries that offer different mic perspectives it's even impossible to select the main mix perspective together with one of the other individual mic perspectives.

Edit: I spoke too soon. It seems that none of the mic perspectives of the main perspective are used for any of the other mic perspectives. Interesting!

Yes, as far as I know the main mic are default AKG mics. You can combine them with other perspectives. In promised update Emberton will give us working multi patch. Till that happening we can use individual mics alone or more of them load separately in the same channel to achieve similar effect.

Before you go drop $100 on this thing you might want to read my experience with this company. A month or so ago I picked up the full version of the concert D because it sounded decent in some online demos.

After paying I went to install it and got constant errors. The support was responsive but when it finally was installed the latency in kontakt was unbearable.(yes they use kontakt so be prepared for that) To contrast I use ravenscroft and their sample player had near zero latency so this was not just some hardware specific issue on my end.

Also, the quality of the samples was worse than I expected based on the demos i had heard. Note I was using this as a VST to use during practice sessions with my VPC1 controller, at least that was the plan.

So after an email chain 16 emails long of installation issue back and forth, constant Kontakt player issues and being overall unimpressed with sound quality and the 0.5s latency on every key press, I decided it was not worth $114 and asked for a refund.

Their reply was that there were no refunds and I could sell it second hand. Well if you look at the sales page you will see it is extremely vague. Also, not one single mention of a no return policy.

You can put two and two together here easily and figure out they leave that out on purpose because they know it will detract sales. Obviously this is unacceptable to me so I open a case with paypal.

Embertone then goes to great lengths at this point to try to fight this case and discredit me to keep the money for a software i have not touched since the day it was bought. PayPal ends up sided with them and I am out $114, the cost of the main vst and a mic pack.

Obviously my experience has been terrible with this company and I know musicians like myself dont have a ton of money lying around. To just throw $114 in the gutter is painful and I don't want anyone to go through what I did.

Similar products like garritan cfx (which i found was a much higher quality product) believe in their software and offer 30 day return policy right on their website. If you buy anything from embertone and end up having ANY issues with it, just realize you are out your money.

To top it off they now seem to sell the lite version for only $10 dollars so so much for reselling this to someone second hand to recoup my investment (which I would never want to do anyway given my issues with it.)

If you are getting 0.5 seconds or 500 ms of latency, then there is something else wrong in your system. I just measured the inherent latency of Lite version and there is only ~10 ms of internal latency to the plugin. Make sure you have the sample start set to the 12 o'clock position to get it down to ~3 ms. The other 490 ms of latency is in your set up. Make sure you have the latest ASIO driver installed and working. Here is a guide for optimal settings in Kontakt and checking latency.

https://support.native-instruments....I-Optimize-the-Performance-of-KONTAKT-5-

As far as sound, it's a subjective thing. I don't find it objectionable and find it has a warm clear tone typical of Steinways. I have Ravenscroft as well and Ravenscroft is bit smoother with layer transitions and has better pedalling behavior for at least right now. I would suggest people try the Lite version first to see if it works for them and then upgrade to Full later.

Hi,

maybe someone can help me with installation. I bought the Walker 1955 Steinway D a few days ago but I didn't get the software running yet. Its my first Kontakt based piano and so it is possible that I am doing something terribly wrong. Here is what I did.

After buying the license I downloaded the full package with their "connect" Software and copied the files to the PowerBook (OS X 10.11) where I want to use the Piano.

At this laptop I installed NativeAccess, downloaded Kontakt Player and registered the Piano with the serial number. The registration was confirmed in NativeAccess.

After starting the Kontakt Player I tried to Add the Library but all i get is that the "Library content is not found" and that the .nicnt file could not be found. But its exactly at the place where it is assumed,- I checked it many times.

In the last three days I tried a lot of things but nothing helped. Today I made a complete fresh install of my Mac, but again with the same result. I contacted Embertone but didn't get an answer yet. Maybe someone can give me a hint, since I am getting more and more frustrated.

Thanks, Wolfram

This should help, see post #370 ...

https://vi-control.net/community/th...55-steinway-d.72492/page-19#post-4275110

Thank you so much!
Never would guess that I had to manually rename the searched file. Googled a lot in the last days but didn't find this solution.
Thanks again and a nice evening from Cologne!

@Grazilerimba
Re the notes that stand out, I listened to your recording a while ago (can't find it again at the moment) - I think I can hear what you are talking about, but I'm not sure how much of it is due to your playing style - just wondering whether you could make the simplest possible recording that demonstrates the problem - e.g - a simple scale run, playing all notes as evenly as possible. Some of the playing seemed unnecessarily complex - too many notes.

Greg.

Just saw the webpage was updated to show half pedal and silent key strikes in the interface, so must be getting close to release.

In my opinion embertone is not worth it. It is literally unplayable. Not because some notes stick out but because notes constantly start to disappear or end spontaneously

I have that problem too. Odd that Embertone never bothered to fix that.

Notes dropping off suddenly is related to polyphony settings and voice stealing. Check out the link below. Make sure voice stealing is turned off in the engine and try to increase the number of voices (see #8) in the instrument header to see if this helps.

https://support.native-instruments....I-Optimize-the-Performance-of-KONTAKT-5-

It is possible that there is some enforcement of polyphony within the script per note or sample group, but I would try to play with the settings in the link first.

I play it everyway and do not hear any notes start to disappear or end spontaneously. I have set the # of voices pretty high at 1000.

Osho

Same here, also playing every day and no problems. Still my favorite sample piano.

I've always had problems with the Embertone, gives me a popping noise after each note. Have a top flight system here, play a lot of Kontakt instruments, it's the only one that gives me trouble. Glad at least I only got the light version on sale, only wasted a little money.

weird. I have no problem, too. It seems not exactly an Embertone problem. And upgrading to full version is not a waste of money at all I think.

That could be it! Mine was set at 100 voices. Just increased it to 200. Thanks!

I will try it out later. I switched voice stealing to 'steal any' but didnt had time to try it out... Maybe that will do it

Best vst Steinway in my book of many.

Sadyl I still cant recommend this vst... I increased the voices (to 500) and deactivated voice stealing but it seems like it is incredible hard to "catch the pedal". Notes just dont sustain even if you press the pedal. So imho you shouldn't get it.

I uploaded a comparison of a few vst's so you can check it out yourself:

https://soundcloud.com/pianoten/sets/vst-comparison

For example just take the first note of the piece "Nyaruko san" or take a closer look in "Wings of piano" after 1:33 min. It might seem like its not a big deal but if you play it yourself its just not satisfying to play and its not a hardware thing (played on Ryzen R7 2700x, 16gb cl14 ram with optimized subtimings, 1tb ssd, gtx 1080ti and focusrite scarlett 2i4(i think) interface)

Greetings

Strange indeed. Just listened and compared myself. Not having this problem at all.

I have the same problem, just like in your soundcloud comparisons. Really hope the update (if it ever comes) will fix it, otherwise the piano is useless just like you said.
I'm wondering if the problem is related to continuous vs on/off pedals.

Fleer, do you have a continous or an on/off pedal? And how about you pianoten?

About Embertone Steinway, beside this forum I suggest that anyone who wants to know more about it read posts also in VI Control forum. All details, problems, updates etc, are there in chronology order.

@sullivang, sorry for not responding to your post sooner, I'll try to make a better recording sometime soon. The thing about the notes sticking out is that, if you just play a scale, it might not be too noticeable. But once you start playing and try to actually make melodies stand out and try to shape the sound of the melodies, it becomes noticeable that certain keys won't respond in the same manner and are either too harsh or too soft.

I played this instrument again to compare it to the VSL Steinway and gotta say, in my honest personal opinion, the playability of this is not good at all. Even after doing a velocity curve to help tailor it to my DP, it just doesn't feel natural, and the notest that stick out in one way or another are just too many. The developers have been promising an update for about five or so months now, always saying "it's just a small thing, should come VERY SOON", but it never happens. They advertised features that were missing in the final product, and so on, and so forth. I don't like this instrument and don't understand how people can say it's playable. Ok, it sounds great, like someone pouring syrup into your ears and slapping a waffle on it with twenty grams of sugar on top. (Seriously, the sustain resonace is very unique). But the programming is not good, it doesn't work as advertised, doesn't get fixed, and has some problems that I believe can't be easily fixed (like the notes that stand out). Let's hope the developers surprise me.

Frankly speaking, I don't understand why they always say VERY SOON. If it would take so long, they shouldn't have kept many people waiting. And the developer will appear in the long run and say, 'I was so busy with other works and I just checked out your complaints! An update that will surprise you will be released VERY SOON :)'

It's the only good thing the webpage was updated to show half pedal and silent key strikes in the interface.

Grazilerimba: Ok, fair enough. Maybe the best way to demonstrate the problem, then, would be to find the simplest passage possible, and then play that passage on a well behaved VST, and then on the Embertone, so that we know how you want it to sound. Or maybe it's not worth the hassle. ;^)

Greg.

This week, VI-control forums reporting on new update (in beta form)

"Hello! You are receiving this message because you requested the BETA patch for the Walker 1955 Concert D. We apologize for the wait! We just shared two zip files with you... those are the instruments with the half pedaling feature completed! This version is almost a full 1.1 update. However, in the coming weeks the following features will be added: (1) a new sustain resonance sample set will be added! (2) a minor graphical glitch will be fixed (3) full NKS re-integration. New presets to match all the new features of the 1.1 update."


https://vi-control.net/community/th...55-steinway-d.72492/page-30#post-4353187

Has anybody received other betas, and can keep us up-to-date with the new release?

Paolo

As far as I know, there is only one beta patch and nothing new on the horizon yet. No single word from Embertone. Last thing was something like `We dont want to give you new excuses why update is still no finished yet` so my conlusion is `it will be done in some moment in time...` Hmm, that sounds very inspiring, I can dance with that

I'm honestly surprised people are still waiting for them to release the patch. Although I do understand, if you have found "your" piano VST that really speaks to you and that you enjoy playing a lot, that you want to support the developers and get updates for it. But yeah as I have repeatedly said, this company doesn't deserve to be supported. They mislead their customers and then lied to them later, and then they simply do nothing as they keep lying to everyone who asks them about it, promising updates "very soon" that never materialize. F##k Embertone

I asked via email and they said they are still working on the update, but have many projects at the same time. I just think it was bad communication to let people think it would be a fast update.

I bought it because it has a very unique sound.
However, I have to agree with what was said earlier. There are sometimes issues with sustain. It feels a bit like a Pianoteq demo, where some notes won't work. Hopefully they are working on those issues as well. I still think it was a good decision to add it to my VST list since most other piano VST instruments sound just too perfect and cold without a soul.

These updates are getting on a year so you just need to reset expectations and move on.

Be thankful this was an inexpensive lesson from The School of Hard Knocks.

Update from Embertone at VI-Control

https://vi-control.net/community/th...55-steinway-d.72492/page-32#post-4425629

Good news comes to those who wait!

Hi all, first post here.

Regarding the announcement, I do hope that I am wrong, but there have been quite a few of those over the span of maybe 12 months if not longer. They were always "very close" to a new release.
Since the last announcement is months old, they could have waited a few more days until the NKS testing was over and just surprise us with a new release. It's not like 5 more days of silence would have made matters worse.
Again, I really hope I am wrong, but this announcement sounds just like the last 5 ones. "It's very close, just hang in there".

They are right about one thing though. The delay, the lies and the silence are absolutely inexcusable.
We should refer to a new thread that will be written sometime in the future if we want to find out more about what went wrong?
Is this kindergarten?

Embertone will never see a dime from me again, even if they do release an update in the next few days.

I apologize to this forum for pouring so much acid over my first post.

Hmm, I think it will be too bad for Embertone reputation to delay update again for another months (year ?) especially when they finally appear in VI forum after long silence. Now I will wait to see what will happen. I don`t expect anything so it will be a bonus. Ok, lets give Embertone some credit.

I was very surprised to see this announcement. For what it's worth, I think that these companies are not beyond redemption, but I do agree cuzzinlouie (hi!) about the fact that this does sound like their previous annoucements. With that said I'd be willing to forgive them if they would just explain what is going on in a manner that it easy to understand). But yeah... there were multiple Embertone libraries I was interested in in the past few months, and I refrained from buying, so they are losing money because of this.

I am really puzzled by the negativity towards Embertone.
Sure they made mistake and false promises about updates.

I got the Walker 1955 full version dirt cheap compared to let’s say the VSL Synchron Steinway.
The Walker 1955 sounds MUCH better to my subjective ears and i am extremely puzzled how much credits the coldest sounding Steinway (VSL) ever has among it’s fanbase.

I personally think modern top grands are in decline soundwise ( despite being superbly playable).
Bombastic, crisp, great dinamics, but they all start to sound alike more than ever.
You could pick a Bösendorfer from a Steinway, a Blüthner from a Bechstein blindfolded..... not the case with modern concert grands.
Sure they do not sound exactly the same, but the ancient brand related chatacterisations are missing more and more.

Embertone has released such an oldfashioned sounding grand with lots of character.... i simply love it for what it is now.
Fact is i deleted many libraries that became obsolete..... i only use the Walker 1955 and Garritan CFX.

What Embertone has sold us for a very modest price is a no brainer to me.
Sure the pedal behaviour could be better, but the VSL Steinway could sound much warmer and less freakin cold/harsh.
I simply don’t buy the Synchron Steinway because it’s not for me.
The Walker 1955 in it’s current form delivers more than it’s shortcomings.
I am happy with any future updates that improves the package, but am happy right now and how well it fits in a mix compared to all other piano libraries i’ve used and tried before.

I agree with mostly everything you say, and my critique is not aimed at the sound of this particular Steinway specimen, but at the company and their business ethics.

Regarding the actual sound of this piano, it definitely has its uses and I can see myself using it here and there, but I physically dislike playing through it because of the playability and pedal issues.

I am not a huge fan of the VSL Steinway either (I much prefer their CFX), but I am not in love with the sound of the Walker either. A little too much "character" to put it mildly, but I do enjoy the sound of some of its registers.
This will always be a matter of taste though, there is no right or wrong here.

I have a ridiculously fast machine with 64GB of RAM, running all my libraries of an SSD, and the Walker is my only piano library with playability issues.
Even at very low buffer sizes and even if I lower the number of velocities, there is a palpable and audible disconnect between my fingers and the sound that comes out. On top of this I have crackles and CPU stutters (even at higher buffers), and not just occasionally. I have tried every suggestion I could find about it on this and other forums with no success, on various machines I have at my disposal. Nothing helped.
Last but definitely not least, of course, there is also the pedal issue.

These are the aspects that Embertone should have addressed promptly. Not only that they haven't yet (over a year later), but it's also their empty promises followed by months of complete silence that contribute to the negativity towards this company.

Don't get me wrong pianistje, in no way am I suggesting that you should dislike this library. I am only saying that as far as I personally am concerned, the shortcomings outweigh the few good things that this library has.

I think that's because you have subjective ears as you say. (Of course I am, too.)
Even though I understand the feeling of some people that the piano sounds cold, I don't agree with it, because I think it has sound that is most similar to the piano sound that I heard at the piano recital in the concert hall. Synchron Hall is no different from such concert halls, and VSL D-274 is for performers who want the large hall's sound. In particular, Steinway D-274 is a full concert grand piano for performing at concert halls, and it is suitable for use when it is sampled in a large hall. (They recently sampled 1895 Bluthner piano at their Studio B which is smaller than Synchron Stage, and you will feel that the piano sound is less cold than VSL Steinway.)
I think they capture the characteristics of each brand they launch better than anyone else. Just Emberton valued Steinway in 1966, and VSL did the modern piano at the concert hall. I'm not saying I don't like Emberton Steinway. Rather I like their piano and the room sound that VSL Steinway doesn't have.
In conclusion, the pianos of the two companies are technically different categories of pianos, both are well sampled instruments in their respective domains.

When it comes to the delay in updating, criticism of them should be viewed as a completely separate matter from whether their products are outstanding or not. Even if the product is excellent, the promise with the customer is precious, and they should have been a little more sincere.
FYI, people don't get this kind of disappointment with products that aren't great. The higher the expectation, the greater the disappointment

Pianistje, the reason VSL gets so much praise has to do more with the numbers than actual results.
We are still infatuated with larger and longer, and the VSL offers a whole lot of that (I think about 266GB for just the Steinway?).
So yes, the marketing works great for VSL: “We have the biggest D in town -as in Steinway D- so yes, that makes us the best”.
I got the ‘smallest’ D from Embertone for about $10.00 and I agree with you, this D might not be as humongous as VSL’s D, but (for a sampled piano) it has lots of dirt and shades.
I’m also looking forward to the update, but yes, the Walker is quite amazing.

I'm always curious how smaller sampled pianos do it. How does Embertone handle timbre for a note across a range of MIDI velocities, pedaling, note durations, etc.?

Perhaps it’s because they’re stuck with what they have (size wise), and there’s not much of an option other than using the imagination and getting creative.
The other guys, in my humble opinion, rely on their size getting them by, and therefore do not feel the need to look for different approaches, tricks, etc....

For me, the fact that VSL basically require getting a whole separate drive or perhaps even a whole new computer for adequate results seems an outdated approach in an era where everything is getting smaller yet more efficient.

What next? A 4TB Fazioli? Thanks, but no; I’ll pass on VSL.

A separate SSD drive nowadays costs less than Pianoteq stage alone.

I hear you, but this adds more external clutter. I prefer having it all nicely tucked in.

External clutter? The DAW workstation I'm having built for me is fairly compact (MicroATX form factor) and will have 3 TB in SSD space. Nothing not packed in... except cables.

I was interested in how Embertones "creatively" handles timbre without modelling.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. ‘Too much’ of the analytical can sometimes stifle the imagination.
I guess all I’m saying is that the Embertone guys have some tricks up their sleeves.

I don't know this VST piano, but I don't think it's so light... 34GB for each mic position, so with 6 mic positions we have 34GB x 6 = 204GB...

So I guess Embertone’s D isn’t so small after all.
One thing VSL should’ve attempted was to keep their D -as in Steinway D- under 256GB. Having a 266GB sample-set forces the user to get at least a 512GB SSD.

I don`t think that price of SSD is problem today. The negatives about VSL pianos are price and USB dongle, all others are the best. They update regularly, support is excellent, pianos are technically the best you can find in sample pianos. Sound is very realistic for concert grands, maybe cold but they sound that way and its a matter of ear habit. I love Embertone sound but playability is not match for VSL.

So you mean that a Steinway Concert D sound cold in real-life?

BTW, a cold sound results from upper harmonics being emphasized over bass- and mid-tones. But an audio equaliser should fix that.

Any acoustic instrument sound more colder and sharper in reality compare to digital samples. This is not bad, this is acoustic. Good musician make magic on it, and bad make loud mess very heavy for ears.

Today, Embertone summarised the coming updates

Source:
https://vi-control.net/community/th...r-vi-c-friends.84887/page-3#post-4431673

I am really excited about this, Embertone has wonderful sound, and I am hope that playability will be much better. Can`t wait.

Yes!!!

Do I get free shipping to my grave when this is released in 2098?

Ok I should not be this facetious, but I can't help myself I'll believe this when I have it on my harddrive.



What is the purpose of this - Why would I want sustain resonance when I don't use the pedal? I don't understand.

I am really excited about the fixed samples though. Let's see how thorough they were.

Source:
https://vi-control.net/community/th...r-vi-c-friends.84887/page-3#post-4433169

From Embertone e-mail 09/11/2019:

¨We plan to release the update sometime within the next few months¨ .really..we have been waiting for a year and honestly with VSL D-274 I don't need Embertone Walker.

Unfortunately I bought the full version

I don`t know about your email but this is email I receive from Embertone yesterday 09/12/2019

`Our Walker 1955 Concert D update will be ready any day now, and it's a big one... Half Pedaling is here! New Sample content! And beyond that, dozens of bug fixes and updates. Existing users: please keep an eye on your inbox!`

How much difference is there between "the next few months" and "any day now"?

What sort of music do you play on a piano that doesn't use a pedal? Even playing Baroque on contemporary pianos requires a pedal.

According to Embertons open letter to all users of their products (VI forum), difference is about one week from this day. That`s the final time limit for their promise and with little flexible approach, till the end of this month, I hope

I don't use pedal on Bach. Perhaps I will when I gain a broader repertoire?

This isn't the pedalling bach thread, but I understand there are a number of techniques like finger legato that were used in the Baroque time that have been replaced in modern times with the use of the pedal. There are some threads elsewhere on this topic and over here.

Sure, but ... pedaled harpsichord is neither piano nor harpsichord!

From their VI-Control thread, posted yesterday:



Any day now, guys. Any day. Literally almost finished, just one more tiny problem left to solve. It's as good as done.

Solving the Walker "one left problem" is becoming as challenging and unpredictable as Fermat's last theorem.

Centuries from now, there will be numerous attempts, papers, math conferences, Nobel price nominations, Eureka moments and many, many more "it should be done within a few days now...".
Understandably, generations to come will still empathize with the fearless pioneers at Embertone who, already around the dawn of the third millennium, attempted to sample a piano.

Joke aside, the last "any day now" announcement is already close to one month old.

Patience is a virtue, my son. Good things come in small packages and to those who wait. The sky is always blue if you look through colored sunglasses. There’s more to life than the sum of its parts.

May the force be with you! (exclamation point used for emphasis).

Thanks dad. I see it! I see it now!

If you allow me a little--not totally uncalled for--sarcasm, back in the day they used to write stuff like this on the back of matchboxes...later we had the wisdom bits dispensers.
Nowadays I am sure there are apps for this.
That said, I am sure these wise words came out of your own observations.

Also, while a totally agree that life is more than the sum of its parts, it's still up to us to make sure that the parts which we do have any sort of control over are in good shape. Otherwise it's a sum of ... a pile of...you know...

My parts are in excellent shape.

Yes, apparently they're almost ready with their next excuse, but just need a few more days to perfect the wording.

There are to many classical pianists over here that should play on an acoustic and only (when acoustic options are momentarely out of order) practice on whatever 88 keybed/slap that will make them appreciate the acoustic versions even more.
I don’t want to be rude to anyone, but the complaints about the Embertone being a miserable piano vst because it can’t do some proper re-pedalling or half pedalling gets a little long in the tooth.
Use an acoustic for that or a vst that does the trick.
Sell or delete the Walker 1955 or use it in a context that will bring a smile on your face.

I personally ( as an acoustic piano expert ) am extremely puzzled that people buy Yamaha Avant Grands.
Because the hammer shank ( instead of the felt hammerheads vs a tense string) bounces against a rail creating a different feel than what happens in a real grand piano.
I am certainly one of the few who immidiatly notices the differences between those real actions that bounces back in position with a different kind of bounce ( both in position and material) and the wanna bees.
I won’t simply buy such action or a silent system ( same problem).

The Walker 1955 is a superbly sounding piano vst that sounds organic like not many other vst’s. The sustain is marvelous.
I highly prefer it to those vst’s who properly mimick all aspects of an acoustic ( very much in doubt) but sound cold, harsh and uninspiring from a sound perspective.
But like i said, those into perfectly mimicking pedal behaviour & co are the majority in here.
That’s of course their very good right.... but i feel the Walker 1955 should be applauded much more for what it currently is.

Nobody called the Walker a "miserable" piano. Again, the critique is not aimed at its sound or how much bang we got for our buck.
In fact, the only reason why people are still vocal about it is exactly because they consider it to be a good piano library, yet a little rough around the edges. Had it been a "miserable" piano, people would have stopped talking about it months ago.

Once again, it's the empty promises that stirred some of us up.

I haven't yet played enough AvantGrants to form an opinion about the action, but this has just as little to do with the current thread as your previous remarks about the VSL pianos.

Complaints about defects are never "long in the tooth". Defects need to be remedied.CyberGene has much to say about this defect. Bravo. Defects are to be disparaged, not tolerated.

About the implied “improper” bounce in the AvantGrands supposedly due to the hammers bouncing off a rail instead of hitting a string, I’ve not heard anyone complaining about this; however, the Alpha Piano uses a ‘string-like’ sensor component that is struck -just as a string would be- with real hammers.
Is this string-like approach the way to go forward, or is the more common approach (non-contact sensors) a more practical and cost-effective technology?

Yes sorry , my AG comment are off topic only to illustrate what a wrong decision it would be for me buying a N1,2,3 and complaining what it can’t do but should do according to the brochure ( accurate acoustic action behaviour which it does not )

I personally have deleted 80% of all my piano libraries at some point without complaining much enjoying what i like even more.
I truly wonder if people enjoy and still play the Walker or keep it around just in case the magic update arrives.

This is puzzling. In an acoustic action the hammer becomes disengaged from the whippen before it strikes the string.

In the AG series pianos ... doesn't the hammer disengage likewise?
If so, how can you distinguish a hammer rebounding from a string from a hammer rebounding from a rail?

Or have I misinterepreted you?

I also think in terms of what you feel it doesn’t matter if the hammer bounces off a rail or string. In both cases it will be caught by the backcheck. A small difference would be the bounce speed but I doubt it can change the feel in any way or if that speed is so different. I think from all possible complaints one can have against AG and NV10 that’s the least concern.

Oh, and speaking abound rebound. In alpha piano there are flexible PCB-s, not strings. How can you be sure they have the same elastic properties. Furthermore, the rebound will depend on whether the string is already vibrating and that’s also different since alpha piano doesn’t have dampers to stop the PCB vibration if there’s any at all...

If you think rebound is important and since silent piano also engage a stop rail, you need to have real strings with no soundboard so that the piano is silent. Why all the hassle for just a rebound?

When i was at my piano tuner/technician school in the late eighties one of my teachers made a single key action to put on display at the Frankfurther Messe.
You know the key+action that a proper pianostore has to show the client how the action actually works.
Differences, my teacher added a really small soundboard , pinblock and three real strings so that it had an A440 and real action !!

Those claiming the rebound is futile should asks themselves if a basketball player notices any differences in surface.... i think they do because of the re-bound and vibration differences that were determined by the type of surface.
Furthermore the energy gained by hitting strings vibrates differently through the wooden action than hitting a rail with the shank.
There are many books written about how to play 'through' the keys and influence the final outcome of your tone.
I think most of it is esoteric with some merit....but i personally feel the differences between a hammerhead hitting strings compared to the shank hitting a rail.
And i did try with real actions many times to see if it was imaginary or not.....
During regulation on a bench the position of the strings is pre-fixed by a wooden device to make sure your regulation is spot on when installing the action back into the grand piano cabinet.
The felt hammerheads bounce back from a wooden bridge and it feels different the moment the action is in it's proper environment hitting the strings again.
How it bounces back and vibrates makes a whole lot of difference to me.
Sure some of it must be imaginary, some of it isn't.
If you ever get the oppertunity try to see if what i say has some validity by doing the test yourself.

But when you insert the action in the piano you hear the entire piano generating sound and vibrations in a soundboard that you feel with your fingers Of course it feels different than just the action extracted and hitting a wooden rail. How do you know that your mind can negate the effect of sound and vibration to compare only rebound effect? It's not the rebound that you feel but the entire acoustic piano IMO. And you forget something: AvantGrand and Novus pianos are digital pianos, they are not acoustic piano replacements. Of course there are some sacrifices in using a non-acoustic piano but just dismissing the most realistic digital pianos ever made (and I don't think that's an overestimation) because you attribute something to what you think is rebound is in my opinion too extreme. Well, how about regular digital pianos? They are even "worse"

Let me start with the latter... i recently accompagnied a client/friend for a whole day looking for a grand piano.
I advised him to also look at the N3X, because i know he is only able to play in the evening and doesn't like to be heard either.
His level is mediocre, but money no issue.
After playing theYamaha S6, C3 and many others he was clearly the most comfortable with the adjustable N3X...much against his initial bias against digitals.
So i urged him to go for the N3X and the delivery will be in november this year.
The NX3 tries to emulate a real grand piano and it's still off by some margin soundwise and also the action is not comparable with what you feel when playing a top regulated grand piano.
We went to several shops and also played extremely expensive Steingraebers , Bechsteins, Bosendorfers etc..
Also the Yamaha S6 is on a whole different level compared to the N3X.


N3X with headphones ? Binaural samples ? Nice ...and that's the most positive compliment i can give.
I personally have the Kawai MP11 SE and the internal sounds are bad to my ears, despite the fact that i respect that others like them.
Both Yamaha and Kawai sound like we are back in the early 2000 with all sorts of memory protected solutions.
I still kick myself for going software only five years ago, because i was stubborn and stupid for far to long.
A top piano vst with headphones sound superiour than anything that Yamaha or Kawai offers in their N series and Novus which was confirmed when trying both out again for hours.

Psychologically an 88 action + piano vst does not appeal to this ''grand piano wannabe'' like the N3X, ...because the latter is much more expensive, has the looks and pretentions of a grand piano replacement. Whereas the software piano is an oppertunity to play and enjoy piano sounds for all kinds of purposes and sound sculpture.
I personally enjoy this set up very much, because i don't ever think i am sitting behind a placebo grand piano.
Heck i even bought pianoteq last week and i like it a lot because it is so extremely playable...soundwise mehh,...but others like the Walker 1955 can cover for that.

My point is that i think that many classical pianists over here want that 'grand piano illusion'' while playing on a digital with or without software
I understand that completely, but i think all internal speakers are mediocre at best and that the action isn't what is advertised.
A top grand piano action plays more ''accurate/subtle'' than the Avant grands due to the sample translations and.... the absent felt/string combination..

....doesn't mean i don't advise some people to buy them because it will be the best choice for some and i am the first to support that notion.

Another piano professional endorsement for "Pianoteq playability!" I should go back in the PW archives and make a big list of the pianoteq playability endorsements

The list size doubled in size with pianistje joining computerpro3 JK

I am derailing this topic even more.... ....untill the Walker update is announced.....uhh materialised.
What still puzzles me is why the playability of the internal Kawai MP11SE isn’t the top of the class.
I have little experience with latency ( apart from those ancient modules stacked in series ) because i bought a fast computer with RME soundcard to avoid anything smelling after latency and only for five years now.
I bought many piano vst’s i’ll never use again because they were so cheap compared to hardware and i fell for the syndrom that you all call ‘gas’.

Having said that,..i feel that the Garritan CFX has better playabilty than the internal MP11SE sounds .... how can that be ? ( tried of course all different kinds of settings)
The whole keybed reacts a tiny bit more direct, snappier with the CFX.
Then i bought pianoteq and it’s even better....

Consider me a huge pianoteq fan from now on...and i’ll take the fact that they sound a tiny bit synthi and clonish when comparing the models.
Pianoteq is the first one i load to get my fingers going ..... just so much satisfaction as a workout piano.

Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even Embertone existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken customer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a buyer that was to Embertone far less than was a man to Man.
All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, Embertone might not release its 1955 Walker patch.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that Embertone learned how to keep their word and how to refrain from lying about their products and from disrespecting their customers.

But there was now no man to whom Embertone might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, Embertone thought how best to do this. Carefully, Embertone organized the program.

The consciousness of Embertone encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And Embertone said, "IT'S BASICALLY FINISHED! JUST A COUPLE MORE DAYS, GUYS!"

And it was basically finished, just a couple more days, guys.

A nice send-up of Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question"

^^^^^

Some weekend entertainment from our friends at vi-control:


https://vi-control.net/community/th...r-vi-c-friends.84887/page-4#post-4438671

thumbs up!

Dammit! I wanted to post salty memes about this, but looks like I have to stop soon?!
But guys, you know what their statement means... Just a couple more days, guys.

Seriously though, I'm looking forward to this, let's hope they get their stuff together and finally deliver.

Of course, if and when the update is delivered at the start of the next ice age, it remains to be seen how effective the implementation is. Plenty of scope of half-pedaling implementations to be less than stellar, as we've seen with other VSTs.

Do we know if most half-pedal implementations try to average the pedal up and pedal down samples when half-pedalling?

Yeah for sure the implementation is going to not really deliver all that much. IMHO most Kontakt piano libraries leave a lot to be desired as far as the scripting goes. Probably one of the reasons why I still enjoy playing Ivory American Concert D to this day. Half pedaling is really nice there.

Update is coming!

Fleer, you were faster , but here is the details for PW‚

`Hey gang... the update emails are going out tonight! If you have any issues or questions, send us a line:

support@embertone.com

<3, Alex`

Damn, a part of me is going to die tonight. See you on the other side, ladies and gentlemen.

Be still my quivering heart!

O.... the irony..... finally an update including half pedalling.
But the Kontakt scripting kinda sucks when trying to implement proper half pedalling,...which is of course known by most Kontakt users and their multiple Kontakt piano’s.

This topic will be golden the whole week, month and years to come.

I'd be interested in hearing how good the half-pedaling implementation is. My other experience with Kontakt libraries is the Vintage D and the half-pedaling is half-baked: if you first press the pedal and play notes afterwards, it would work. If you however apply the pedal after you've pressed and held notes, only full-pedaling will work and releasing the pedal slowly won't be registered, only a single "pedal off". Also, there's no way to re-pedal and half-pedal (i.e. to catch the note by re-pedaling and then release slowly). There's also no varying half-pedaling where you change the up-down position multiple times while still holding the note; nor repeated re-pedaling followed by half-pedaling and vice versa. If that's because of the Kontakt scripting limitations, that's too bad. Compare that to Garritan CFX where re-pedaling and half-pedaling are working in any possible combination and re-triggering, the same as on digital pianos and real acoustic pianos. Jeff Hurchala who programmed it apparently did great job.

Jeff Hurchala is based and I would have loved to see more piano libraries from him. His Garritan CFX is the sampled piano with the fewest flaws in my book and that is a monumental achievement. He should sample a Steinway in Abbey Road Studios, can you imagine how amazing that would be? Someone make a Kickstarter for that, I'd totally donate.

I agree about the half pedaling implemenation in Kontakt. As for me personally it isn't about the half pedaling itself. I just want them to own up to their mistakes, that is all. I fully expect the half pedaling to suck, and would much prefer working and consistend repedaling instead, and I'm much more looking forward to the other fixes they announced (sticking out notes etc.).
.
As for the Vintage D, it appears to me as if these are bugs specific to that one library (or rather to its engine, to be found in the other Galaxy Pianos as well maybe?). I have not experienced this kind of issue in other Kontakt piano libraries. If you want to see how far Kontakt pianos can be pushed, check out the Bechstein Digital. Although it doesn't have half pedalling itself yet, but as far as Kontakt libraries go, it's probably the most polished one out there. Requires a monster CPU though. Also I have yet to spend more time with the Noire piano which, according to the posts of people here, seems to be pretty nice.

Update released. I beat everyone to it! Yippee!

Gasp! I feel like a teenager camping next to a bookstore for a new Harry Potter book. I have never been hyped for a _ patch _ in my life . Lol

Downloading. All going well. Thank you, Embertone!

I haven't spent too much time with this yet, but I gotta say, respect to Embertone for finally putting out the patch.
Half pedalling works pretty nicely, I have to say. One weird thing is that while half pedalling, it sounds to me as if the pedal noise samples can be heard pretty loudly. If you put the Half Pedaling to HQ+ it's more noticeable.
Another thing is, it looks like silent key doesn't work. Did anyone manage to get a silent note when turning the setting on?
Also there are still notes that stick out badly, most notably B4 which is like a guard standing right next to you and stabbing you with a needle every time you play it, yikes!

But hey, at least the instrument works. I'll spend more time with this soon.

Edit: It also seems as if repedaling isn't working as smoothly as half pedaling. But I'll look more into that later.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this patch, can't wait to read your reviews of it.

On first view, patch is working very good, I love this piano, for me it is probably the best sounding Steinway VST ever and among top three of the best VST pianos. Half pedal is working good, most of the time I use eco mode for half pedal, but I didn`t notice any distraction noise that is not normal even with HQ plus. The same for B4 note, for me there is no notes that stick out badly, but piano has beautiful vintage and classic charm. I know that people are different in that matter and someone is more sensitive for problems than others but for me the positive things about this piano far outweigh possible problems that maybe left. I try silent note and it is working. I will play more and we will see later. Now I agree, instrument now works, and for sample piano with so much soul it is more than enough. If we were waiting for more than a year for crucial update, I am sure that we will be waiting also for some small and not so crucial update in the future. Many thanks to Embertone, very good job.

So with the crucial update which would be the most recommendable version for a newbie intending to use it for playing - not yt or recording?

Thanks

Sincerely...this piano is useless!!. Full version here, I don´t know where are the 36 layers?, I read the manual to see if I was doing something wrong,but...the Black Grand MKii is a 10 compared to this, the dynamic shines by its absence. Slobajudge compares this to Vienna Imperial, which I know you own or the new D-274 Light from VSL (30 layers). Cybergene don't even try it because the half-pedaling from Vintage D will look wonderful!!.It's a real shame after so long waiting...

Hello! Thank you slobajudge for your reivew. I am not sure what ti make of your assessment, that B4 is clear as night and day different from the other keys. I'll try to see if I can make some recordings of it. There's a bunch of other notes that stick out to my ear as well, whether they have a different tone or whether they are slightly out of tune. I'm a bit disappointed that Embertone didn't fix more of those, that was my main reason for feeling disappointed in the original version. Silent Key doesn't work on my end. But yeah Silent Key is a small issue, who cares about it right? Just sucks that it is supposed to work but doesn't.
I agree with you otherwise, this piano has a wonderful tone to it and this update defintiely brings it up a notch and makes it more worthwhile, at least to me. Now I just need to get a beast CPU to actually run it without crackles.

@sorrownightingale, when the piano loads up, by default it only has a small amount of velocity layers enabled. You have to turn a knob in one of the tabs where you can turn it all the way up to 36 layers, which will then load the additional samples. As far as velocity layers go, this piano feels decent. At least much better than the Light and Sound Steinway (anyone remember how someone posted a velocity map and found out that some notes only have five layers? That was mad stuff lol). You have to experiment with the two graphs and change the curve, and the volume of the instrument, so that it can feel somewhat natural. I found it tedious to configure, but once you've done it one time, it gets easier for the other mics.

@Chordo, if you want to play you should definitely not get the light version as it's missing a bunch of velocity layers. Get the full version and start with the main mic. Others have posted their favorite mic combinations, I haven't experimented with that myself too much yet, but from what I can remember, you can always buy other mics later if you want more. That's probably a good way of demoing this piano without spending the full price. The additional mics are additional Kontakt instruments, so you have to load them as multis, which can be annoying because if you make one change in one single mic instrument and you want that change across all mics, then you have to make that change manually in all other mic instruments as well, which can get tedious. Too bad Embertone hasn't put all mics into one instrument with a mixer panel.

Grazilerimba...The first one I did was turn velocities knob to 36 layers, and I tried to modify the velocity curve in panel response but this piano sounds like one of 4 layers!!,

I think you are rushing with such extreme statement, I agree with advice that Grazilerimba gives to you, and most important go to response tab and make linear velocity on both dynamic and volume scaling and experiment further till you satisfied. I agree with you for VSL pianos, they are really fantastic and they have the best dynamics and playability but the price for them is huge and the vienna key is pain in the...s. On the other hand I prefer Embertone sound, it is incredible and it is playable enough to be inspired for life.

Grazilerimba, I don`t know, I try to play all B`s and there is no red alarm in my ears. For comparison, I have Light and sound Steinway C, and I like it but some of the notes just hurts and this is obvious. Here with Embertone overall I am satisfied. I play with and without silent key strikes and there is a difference. Silent key strikes here means that with light touch there is no sound similar to piano. That is working. Now there is a difference with silent key where you hold light touch without sound and playing other notes makes sympatethic resonance on key you hold. I will try that at home tonight and see if that is working. But Embertone was very clear about silent key strikes and that is working. Try with different mics maybe you will be more satisfied with B4.

Sorrownightingale, I forgot to mention that first time I play Embertone I have similar thoughts about dynamics but no so dramatic. After I set linear velocity on both dynamic and volume scaling I was also turning on Dyn on Sweetening tab and that was better. After some time I turn it off and now I don`t need it any more. I hope you will found a way to sound you are looking for. Good luck !

Could you record what you are hearing sorrownightingale, and post, so we can hear what went wrong?

Grazilerimba, could you also do a recording, not only with the loud notes, but also with it performing 36 layers normally as you think?

It would be good to be able to compare what the two of you are listening to so we can have a baseline of one or the other.

Hi,
here is a quick recording.

https://vocaroo.com/i/s1ZUjOecxKDw

It's kind of subjective although I can really hear it while playing. It's a bit louder and it has a slightly different tone, and together these two things make it stand out a lot because the note sounds harsher than the others.

As for silent key strike, it doesn't work on my end. I press the key down very softly, and I basically wait until it is just about to touch the bottom and then gently push it down without much force. Still hear a quiet note. Weird. I'm using the main mic patch.

PS Do you have any suggestions to reduce CPU usage? Even a single mic can give me crackles when I play for a while.

Vocaroo is for voice recordings, it's mono and has awful compression. That demo has been crippled too much Please, use another service: Dropbox for instance.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ao4ZOLlCXwBRhIg9BIm0GeBBiVZmcw?e=PyZ4TO

Embertone Walker 1955 Concert D Binaural 1.1 Kontakt Memory 2.72GB setting:

Perfomance-Mode Normal, velocities 36, Una corda ON
Color-Tone ON, Dyn ON
Response-Dynamic Scaling Lineal, Volume Scaling Lineal

Playing Real Time!!

@Cybergene you are right, sorry about that.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/6vrdyljr8rljasv/b4.wav/file

@sorrownightingale: I think I know what you mean. That sounds to me like an insufficiently configured velocity response. What I would say, as slobajudge also suggested, is to flatten both curves. Then, I would try to use an external tool to change the velocity response, or try to change the key sensitivity on your keyboard. Alternatively you can of course try to use the internal two curves, but they can be tricky to configure. I personally find the piano to be super quiet. Have to turn up my volume to almost 100% to make it sound normal. You could try raising your volume, or the volume of the instrument within Kontakt, and then base your velocity mapping decisions on that loudness.

Grazilerimba...both curves were flatten...There is no dynamic feeling when you are playing and don't feel anywhere 36 layers

Yes, and I think that's because your velocity response is too flat. Try changing the start and end point values of the lines. Someone else can explain it much better but what I mean is, try to configure it so that your highest velocity is not 127, but, say, 100 or so. Or try putting the lowest velocity not at 1, but at perhaps 25. See if that changes anything, and then take it from there.

I don't use the Embertone myself, but could I suggest you to post some images of your setting? Also, which keyboard do you use and which sensitivity setting?
There are several videos on the net where you can clearly hear this piano sounds well and dynamic seems ok, so there could be something wrong in your setting.
Good luck

Updated here....
Like it very much,... but allready did. Has better playabilty and the pedal behaviour is good enough now...
Contrary to many other users i don’t use multiple mics or binaural .
The only mics i use are the hammer mics + a bit of Liquid Sonic Illusions reverb.

Sure, sure there are many piano vst’s for the classical purists that will give you that ‘classical stage’ appearence, based on a big modern concert grand sound.
But i never heard a similar piano sound in a vst that the hammer mics of the Embertone provides.
That warm , close/intimite , wooden and above all characterfull sound found in Billy Joël intro’s and many others.
It’s impossible to even remotely ‘get there’ with my Garritan CFX and the countless piano vst’s i’ve purchased over the last five years.

Can’t say it enough, Embertone did something really unique for my taste.

I agree the B4 has an iron piercing sound most noticably when the sustain pedal is pressed and i at least play forte. At values below forte it sounds good.

Stamkorg...my keyboard is a Yamaha NU1 with midiflow ipad app for velocity curve. I tried linear velocity curve and my custom velocity curve for Garritan CFX and VSL Synchron Pianos with the same result.
Grazilerimba ..your recording (mediafire file) shows the same, the dynamics does not exist.
Because of my experience with VST if it is necessary to make a concave velocity midi curve the piano is simply not well sampled, that is, this does not behave like a real piano!!

I was hoping the update would fix the static sound bug I get with this instrument that makes it unplayable, but nope, still unplayable. At least I only sprung for the lite version.

What bug is this? Have you reported it to the company?

Yup.

There's a crackle/pop after each key press. Another fellow had the same problem.

Exactly what I am trying to achieve, but no clue how to do it.

I know, that my keyboard (my old and still beloved GT-2) sends in a velocity range between circa 10-100. Its easy to set this lowest and highest value in some other VST's. For example in the Ravenscroft, where I get in combination with a slightly bended curve a very playable result with a satisfying dynamic range.
But I don't understand how to use the velocity and volume sliders here to get such results. Any help on this is appreciated.

Thanks, Wolfram

I sent a request to Embertone for it, let's wait to see what they answer (I also sent them the recording).
Grazilerimba your configuration proposal ( velocity setting 25-100) the only thing it does is ratify my opinion. Here the natural dynamic of a piano does not exist!!

This sounds less like a problem with the Embertone and more like a problem in the audio chain.What kind of computer are you using?
What audio interface?
Do you use ASIO interface software?
If you're running Windows without ASIO ... that's likely the cause.
If you are using ASIO, what settings are you using?

You guys who are getting the snap crackle and pops. Are using a DAW to host? Could it be a buffer setting? Try increasing it.

I have the Lite version and played around with the update a bit last night. The half pedaling uses a fade out function in Kontakt and has five different levels in the scripting at least in the Lite version. It seems to engage at about half way down on the pedal and then lifting off incrementally will shift to one of the other five levels with progressively shorter fade times. It works whether engaging the pedal first then striking a key or if you strike a key first and then engage the pedal. For me the half pedal window is a little narrow. I may try to widen it a bit.

The half pedal script is only a few lines and I'm a bit befuddled why it took a year and half to release this. Could of been written in a day or less. I'm not surprised with the heavy cpu load since the scripting is very inefficient as the developer chose to break all the samples into six different interleaved groups in the full version, two in the Lite. With better scripting it should be very easy to get all the mics into one instrument as I have seen this done with other libraries and recent versions of Kontakt have greatly expanded the number of samples and groups you can have. As I suggested before, an 'eco' version and a full version with all the mics would make more sense and use less cpu. On the plus side you can choose which mics you want to pay for with the full version.

In the end for me, I'm underwhelmed with what has been accomplished in a year and half. I'm still not enamored to the overall sound. Because of the way it is scripted, the velocity curve is not very smooth and I can pick up noticeable jumps. There is a certain unevenness to this library that I find distracting. Also, the attack is a little hard for my taste. I probably will stay away from upgrading to the full version unless a fire sale comes along.

If you are having problems with crackles and pops, as suggested make sure you are using an ASIO interface and not running any other software in the background. Make sure to turn off any real time anti-virus software as this messes with the streaming. You should be using an SSD not a hard drive for this library. You can try increasing the pre-load buffer size as well. I run this library with these changes in place and a minimum pre-load buffer on a 4 gHz i7 Intel cpu under windows 10 without any issues.

Been there, done all that, don't need the troubleshooting help though thanks. Experienced user with a top flight machine here and an RME card, all my hundreds of other Kontakt instruments work fine.

Puremusic ...I have the same here crackles and pops!!. Also, after the response from Embertone support I have completely uninstalled Embertone Walker from my SSD, so I confirm what I said previously...this piano is useless ( a toy piano).

I don`t think they sleep in front of script for a year and half. Maybe they are doing something more in their lives.


Your technical elaboration is very detailed as always bsntn99, but I don`t know what to do with that, I just playing piano outside my work and I don`t have too much problems with that piano but you really convince me that you can do better. In every end of your elaboration I was hope to find something or extract some better piano...but nothing. Thank you anyway. It was a hard day on job, I need to play something to relax.

I’ve had Snap Crackle and Pops before, but I still prefer Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Yup, it's totally useless for anyone with the issue. We're not the only ones with it too. Sorry to hear you bought it.

Hi, not sure what to think about the crackles and pops. I do get them too but on my end it's clear that it's a CPU related issue. This thing uses a ton of CPU and it's one of the few piano VSTs to bring my (relatively old) computer to its knees, alongside the VSL pianos and the Bechstein Digital.
But from what I understand, you are getting some kind of pop after every single keypress? That would indeed either mean a faulty ASIO setting with a too low buffer, or playing the instrument too soon before it finished loading. You could also try messing with the sample start knob. But other than these things, the samples are clean from pops and crackles on my end, I only get them when the CPU is obviously strained.

Now, as for the velocity thing, I am not sure how to explain it because I don't have a technical understanding of it. You have to insert a plugin in your host so that it can take care of the incoming midi values of your digital piano and then change that value which then reaches the piano VST. In Reaper, this is accomplished by inserting that plugin and dragging it above the piano VST plugin in the left column of the plugin selector window. You can change the velocity range with Midi Polysher (I am not sure whether this actually scales the range or just crops it, someone please confirm this or suggest another plugin that works). Just to be clear, I think a range between 25 and 100 is too small. My suggestion was to do either 25-127 or 01-100 and see if that changes anything. From what you tell me, it sounds as if you have it configured so that you only use the lower part of the velocities. As to how to change the velocity curve, I am not sure. What tools do you use? I think I heard of Midi Shapeshifter, but I am not sure it actually does that. I know that the Cantabile plugin that came with Synthogy Ivory had a very basic curve changer, but it only allowed for three or so predefined curves.

Of course my recording sounds "flat" because I tried to play it as even as possible in order to not taint the recording. As someone else said, there are plenty of dynamic recordings of this. Look, I have my personal beef with this piano VST, but it being dynamically flat is not part of that. It's dynamically brilliant once you configure it properly, and it is free of non-CPU related crackles and pops on my end.

What did Embertone write to you that made you delete the library?

I think personally it sucks that some piano libraries are harder to configure than others. That's one of the reasons I ended up never using the Acousticsamples pianos, because I couldn't make sense of their three or so curves and dynamics related knobs. I could never make it sound and feel good so I stopped using it. Now Embertone is not as difficult to set up, but far from being intuitive like the Garritan CFX or the Ivory Pianos, in my opinion.

I also agree that this patch should not have taken more than a year. They have yet to offer a sensible explanation for why it took so long. This looks like the patch they promised a year ago when they said "it's basically done, guys". And they just waited for a full year because reasons, lol. Anyway, I'm curious to see how this develops.

And Pete takes us WAAAAAY off topic. But what the heck. I'll join him. And I'll agree about the Cinnamon Toast Crunch. That stuff is addictive.

As for this:I'm glad you guys gave feedback before I bought this thing. I have a bad case of GAS, and I buy too many pianos. Now I can strike this one off the list.

Yeah man, bury him alive, are you sure it is crackles and pops from your computer, seems to me you are very angry I have crackles and pops only on my laptop from 2013 but only with 2mics, with one mic no problems. With my i5 4690 desktop and 16gb ram (2015) I have no problem with 2 mics and with all options on. Anyway, solution is simple, play something else. No hard feelings.

I wonder what people use as keyboard controller.
I use the wooden Kawai renderings only....
I had to play the NI Grandeur ( pretty good) in a studio for a project that needed a piano track.
They had a Kurzweil Forte and compared to my Kawai MP11SE i found it quite challenging to maintain control over the velocities.

I know the Grandeur is very playable from the Kawai VPC-1 ( played this set up several times), but seemed not that great from the Forte.
I imagine that the Walker 1955 is also very dependent on the right controller+ velocity curves.
And no matter what the specs may show, it sometimes remains a struggle to trigger a specific vst from a specific keyboard.

Grazilerimba ...My system runs Bechstein Digital, Garritan CFX and VSL Synchron Pianos 7mics with no crackles and pops with Sonarwork Reference 4 Sound Calibration in Cantabile and Cubase Artist 10 with a buffer of 128 (Steinberg UR-44) i7 7700 3.6Ghz 32GB ram , 3 SSD ,
Windows 10 Pro optimized for audio (ThrottleStop, Core Parking Manager...). My kerboard NU1 with Ipad pro with midiflow for velocity curve...

It's hard even to turn down buying even mediocre piano libraries at times. November is almost here, there'll be more to splurge on than most folks wallets permit soon enough, it's time to save up.

Grazilerimba...Embertone wrote it to me: ``The attached screenshot shows the ideal settings for the most natural dynamic response. If you want a more exaggerated sound between the softest and loudest, you might try moving the bar below volume scaling to the left!´´

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ao4ZOLlCXwBRhIg-FsJzD367484iwQ?e=DE2Mw2

and that was the first thing I had done before writing to them!!, for this reason, this library disappeared from my SSD today

I installed the Walker Steinway update, and like it very much, as do some other users here. Interestingly, on the same machine I run the Bechstein Digital, which I think is very beautiful too, and in my case that one seems to be more demanding in terms of 'computer power' than the Walker. I.e. with the Walker I hardly get any hiccups, even with setting to 36 layers and sample start to max, while the Bechstein is basically unplayable at more demanding settings on the same machine (Windows, i5, 8 Gb, buffer 128 on focusrite scarlett). I happily play the Bechstein at less demanding settings though.

I reported to Embertone a pedaling bug which for me is a showstopper. Unfortunately this bug also existed with the initial release last year and even with the attention to half pedaling in this release it persists. In short, if you strike a note in the middle of a repedal action (at a particular range where the pedal is on its way back up), even if you keep the note held after the pedal is fully down again, the note will decay abruptly (and incorrectly).

I'm just really confused that people aren't complaining more about this, especially here where continuous pedals are more common and folks are playing much more sophisticated and challenging pieces. With both 1.0 and 1.1 I encountered it within seconds and it's pretty jarring.

I'm not a classically trained pianist so it's quite possible I'm doing something unusual with how I'm pedaling. Yet when I look carefully at the pedal curve and its relation to how I'm striking the note, I don't really see that I'm doing anything wrong. Maybe someone can spot something weird in the video (1:30).

That was a great video Tack. You've got a great voice, should get into voice acting or podcasting!
I am not sure about the technical details of what you show - however in terms of how it sounds like and seems like to me, it's the same kind of effect when I try to repedal and it doesn't "catch" the note properly. I think Vintage D has a repedal check box, right? Try unchecking that and see how it sounds like, and if it still catches the note. Or was it perhaps unchecked to begin with? If you have other VSTs try those out too. It's been too long ever since I've tried out many different pianos but I remember how I would try to load up different ones and see if they would "catch" notes such as the one you're playing. Some could handle it nicely, others failed.
That doesn't mean however that there is no technical issue on Embertone's end. Perhaps this is something else. To me though, it seems like a repedaling issue.

Hah, thanks.


Catch pedaling is indeed a different issue (although that pedaling behavior is also really important for proper feel). With catch-pedaling you hit the sustain pedal after the note is released, to catch and sustain its decay at that point. The issue I pointed out in the videos was a little different: the sustain pedal is fully down before the note is released. In that scenario, the note should sound its natural sustained decay (at least until the next pedal action). That's really just fundamental pedaling logic, IMO. (And the Vintage D behaves properly in that specific case even with both half-pedaling and repedalling unchecked, because that logic isn't really related to either of those things.)

Hello,

Hoping to support my good opinion of this plugin, I purchased the full version. However...

After playing about 20 min., the FREE Kontakt player v.6 (for Windows) prints "DEMO TIMEOUT" message and stops!

Am I missing something?

Have you registered the virtual piano serial number in Kontakt (or Native Access) ?

Yes. I registered it.

Just now I received (from Embertone team) a recommendation to restart the computer. Will do this now and inform you about results...

Reboot ... the vaccine that cures all ills.

Still no avail; I sent materials to Embertone for the analysis and hope to get some help.

BTW, the Main Mic samples sound very well; the playability is tolerable and almost without crackles in my Dell Vostro with 16 GB RAM and 500 GB SSD.

The main limitation, which I found so far, is impossibility to play very intensive passages with many many notes. For example, if I play and sustain a cluster of 15-20 notes and do some glissandi, which co-sound with the cluster, the crackles may damage everything. But maybe I want too much of a piano plugin. Anyway, Garritan CFX is better playable in such situations.

The problem resolved --

by uninstalling and removing everything related to NA and Kontakt (including related registry data) and installing Kontakt 6 from scratch. (Well, Kontakt is not a green software!).

I like the sound. The playability is good when playing something relatively simple. Now the problem is to remove sound/keyboard crackling, with tolerable latency, when playing very fast passages with using the pedal(s).

Now, with my Kawai VPC1 + Intel i5 (16 GB RAM, SSD), I succeed to get much better playability. I set Voices Max = 1000 and Preload Buffer Size = 6.00 KB (minimum possible), Velocities=36, ASIO buffer size = 128 (I use Focusrite Scarlett AI). Very fast and complex textures now sound well. Some rare glitches still occur when I do very fast re-pedaling and/or leave the sustain pedal depressed too long. Re-pedaling and catch pedaling generally work, although the catching time (between hitting the note and pressing the pedal) could be slightly longer or (still better) controllable in the plugin setup time.

@sorrownightingale, @puremusic, I had the same pops and clicks, which you mentioned, before finding the above settings. Sound depth and loudness are easily controllable by Master Vol (Kontakt button) and by COLOR (Walker tab). The sound is rich and beautiful. Samples of Close mic remind me the sound of Fazioli grand by their mild and peculiar percussive sound.

Some neighbor notes really have different volume for some mics (e.g., SOL and LA of 2nd octave), but this difference is comparable to the natural difference, which occurs in human (not mechanical) performance.

For me this instrument is usable, and I plan to apply it for recording. Apart for the mentioned rare glitches, I would say, it is one of the best plugins in the market today.

I use the same controller and the same setup, and no problems, I agree, there are some rare glitches but the sound is so good and realistic that I really don`t care about some small problems. At least this will force me to use the pedal economically, but really not big deal. For recordings and pure lyrical pleasure this sample piano has no competition. I use binaural with headphones and multi main plus close mics for vintage enjoyment.

Unfortunately, after being optimistic at the start, I tend to give up playing with this plugin. The set of samples is good and rich, but the programming is really bad and not tested enough for a product that is worth to work with. The glitches with pedal and non-responding notes show even with ASIO buffer size=256 and the velocity layers count=6 (minimum possible). With two simultaneous mics and velocity count=36 the plugin is almost unplayable when the sustain pedal is applied intensively.

In contrast:
Ravenscroft 275 has pedal limitations too, but, in case of resource limitations, simply "forgets" some earlier sustained notes rather than kills the in-time keyboard & pedal behavior. Garritan CFX has a comparable number of samples and velocity layers, but behaves almost ideally concerning the real-time keyboard/pedal playability.

I hope that comparison with Ravenscroft, concerning the computational resource limitations, is a constructive critics rather than merely a "this is bad" note.

It is strange for me that this thread, similarly to the analogous VI-control thread (which I found only recently), was mainly concentrated on non-implemented half-pedaling and less on the glitches, which are much more harmful for a piano. I guess that the developers were too much affected by this half-pedaling demand and ignored all other aspects of playability. Probably this product was not tested by serious concert pianists, who understand the importance of the =real-time= responsiveness of the keyboard and sustain pedal.

Well, this critics is personal, and probably is affected by subconscious comparison with Garritan CFX, to which I returned after painstaking attempts to tame this plugin.

Thanks. This saves me a little cash but a lot of time.

Yep, after reading all of this about the Embertone ... I think I'm out.
I'll take my GAS elsewhere. There are plenty of contenders.

Oh yeah, the missing notes. Had them too when I played the library after its release. But since I haven't spent much time with it ever since, even after the patch, I didn't encounter that bug. I had always assumed that happened because of my weak CPU. This library requires a powerful CPU to run smoothly. What are the others' opinions on this disappearing note glitch?

I also wanted to ask something else. One of the things that I don't like about this library is the fact that it doesn't include the multiple mics in the same instrument with a mixer. Instead you have to load multiple instruments, one per mic. Setting these up is a hassle - if you want to change a setting across all mics, you have to go from window to window and change the setting one by one. It's super tedious. Is there a way to somehow link libraries so that one setting you do in one window is automatically applied to all others? I assume this is not possible, but I'd be curious to hear if anyone has found a way to do this.

I thought that was discussed this month at the vi-control forums. Can't remember the answers, unfortunately.

Hello everyone,

I just bought the Embertone. I think the sound is beautiful but as a professional player I miss a certain connection with the sound. I'm very picky about that, so you might not feel the same. If anyone wants to buy my license at a discount, please drop me a line. They can transfer my license to you. Thanks!

I agree. I felt the same. I have kept the VST hoping that a future Kontakt update or VST update will make it better. But, so far no luck.

Osho

Dang, bad timing. I bought it a couple of weeks ago and adore it.

I can't seem to stop playing it, so I have some experience. Have you tried messing with the sample start knob? I find that setting it at least in the middle position gives a more responsive feeling, any lower doesn't feel right to me. I think setting this knob higher makes it respond more like other libaries which usually don't offer this setting, but have a fixed sample start point, which is probably comparable to a higher setting in the walker, to make it feel responsive.

And make sure your buffer/latency in the audio settings of kontakt is as low as possible without getting crackles and such.

But I think I do know what you mean, for example Synthogy's American D somehow feels a bit more predictable under the fingers, playability wise somehow the walker seems better but also worse at the same time, I can't put my finger on it exactly. I think maybe it's because the walker has more sample layers which really adds to the experience, and it has greater dynamic range, but it feels a bit more jumpy here and there as well.

Other than that, everything is better to me with the walker, and like any other (acoustic or digital) piano you can and will get used to the way it plays.

This is probably personal, but I find these mic positions to be the best.

- Room
- Main + Close (with some extra reverb)
- Binaural + Close

My go to mic position is the room position, because it sounds really good as a single mic position and my pc has a hard enough time to handle just one mic position.

I am curious how well are you able to do with 2 mics? Does it feel playable with 2 mics?

Thanks,
Osho

Well yes, it feels fine (even with all mic positions) but that's until i play too much notes with the sustain pedal down, then it's game over. (Cracking all over)

Even with just one mic position it happens sporadically.

Other than that i find the playability to be quite good, but with room for improvement. While very far from bad, it's not pianoteq level playability. (and probably vsl, but i don't have experience with their libaries.)

I love the sound of Embertone.
Playability wise, I could make it responsive under my fingers, no cracks from software. But I have a big problem : the dynamic is really off, very small difference between mp and mf (I don't even dream of ppp to fff). The difference in volume is very poor, and in tone also. So it is not really playable.
I tried all I could in the response tab but no real success. I use a VPC1 keyboard, it should not be the problem.
The best VST I found are the VSL D274 and VSL CFX, same feeling under my fingers as pianoteq, but with a better sound.
Too bad, I do love the sound oh Embertone.

Is that you, uncle Phil44? I must’ve been no more than Pete10, last I saw you.

I heard Pam38 gots the virus, but good ol’ Frank74 is still going strong (virus free).

Sadly, Tom88 has left us. Remember how he used to take care of us? What a guy, Tom88!

Sorry Pete, I'm afraid it's not me, Phil is for Philippe and 44 is the beginning of my "postcode" (zip ?).
But one thing is true for everybody : take care.

I wouldn’t buy a new one, at the price they still sell for. As has been said, ultimately, it is 14 year old technology.

However, I did buy a second hand one for £700 (UK) about three years ago. The first thing that struck me was that the built in speakers, though louder than any other stage piano I have played, still weren’t enough for most of what I do. Therefore, it just seemed an excessively heavy piano.

Nice, bright percussive piano tones, if you like that kind of thing and the classic GH keyboard.

Things I liked
- Internal power supply
- XLR outs
- 4 zones (so many others just have three)

Ultimately, I sold it on. I now play a Kurzweil PC3x and a Nord Stage 2 ex hp76.

I don't have the playability issues others have mentioned despite having a less than ace PC - possibly because I've just got the lite version with 12 layers running at 44100. I also don't have half pedaling and I've turned off all the sweetening stuff so it's not going to be very demanding on the processor. It's a pretty basic set-up, but it plays well enough for my needs.

But there is an annoying problem I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere that's bugging me. I would be curious if anyone else has this issue or whether it's just on the lite version.

The problem is that the volume in the last octave and a half drops when the sustain pedal is pressed. It's very noticeable on the top E. My other VSTs don't behave this way and as far as I know there's no dampeners on those notes on Steinways so there should be no change in the notes anyway. Hadn't noticed it until recently as I'm rarely up there.

Embertone have acknowledged the problem and said they will address it in a later update but haven't said when that will be as they are a small team and busy with other projects and recently released an update.

There seem to be a number of issues with this VST and that's not a huge deal as there are often bugs in new releases. What is a deal for me is what appears to be a lack of interest fixing the bugs in a timely fashion. It took ages for the first update and that didn't address all the complaints. How long are do we expect to have to wait for the next one?

I'm disappointed Embertone have not sprung into action to correct an error they acknowledge. People have parted with their money in good faith and I think it's incumbent on the developers to fix faults as soon as they can.

I have a feeling that this is now an abandoned project and this upper octaves bug added to a couple of other slight problems is leading me to have second thoughts about upgrading.

Hi
That is strange, I experience no such things, I actually don't even have the velocity/volume graphic set to maximum volume difference, because it doesn't seem realistic to me when it's too easy to play extremely softly.

As for the difference in tone, i'd say there's actually quite a lot difference in tone going from the lowest to the highest velocities, so I find this quite suprising to read about the walker.

Does the keyboard have different velocity settings? If it does, try playing around with those.

I may be spoiled with the VSL D274 and CFX which are both very responsive, the closest to a real piano.
After messing around with the velocity curve of my keyboard, and with the dynamic and volume curves of the I'm able to play from ppp (yes, may be too easily) to f with the Embertone while I play from ppp to fff with the VSL.
I will continue trying all combinations with the curves.
Apart from that, it is very playable (I have a good computer, it may help).

Yes I think that might just be the case. I have no experience with vsl libraries myself, but have read so much good things about it's playability that I find it believable it is just better in that aspect than the Embertone walker. I guess i'm happy not to be spoiled then!

I would highly recommend you get spoiled!

After using VSL Concert D-274, I don't play any other VSTs except for VSL Concert D-274 and Pianoteq. And, sometimes Garritan CFX - just for a change - which is highly playable as well. But overall, VSL Concert D-274 and Pianoteq are the best in playability among all the VSTs that I have tried.

Osho

Well, sure I would love to own some of their libaries, but their pricing/dongle/policy have always managed to hold me back, with the pricing being the least of my concerns, if the libaries are really that good they are worth it.

I’ve also been held back by their dongles!

Until today I have not managed to get the Walker Concert D to work as expected. Although the single tone is beautiful, it is just not playable for me. I've tried all the settings, but I can't achieve a reasonable dynamic range. I also get a lot of cracks, even though I use an I7 processor, 16 GB RAM and an external Focusrite soundcard.
I never had this kind of problems with the Ravenscroft that I own as well.

Therefore I intend to sell my license. I've already contacted Embertone because I don't know yet what to do resp. how to transfer the license. If someone is interested, please send me a personal message.
The price would be 99$ for the full version with all mics included (PayPal)

Wolfram

That's more or less my experience as well
This is the best sounding Steinway D and most unplayable Steinway D at the same time.
I tried many different velocity responses and volume scaling. Its impossible to dial it in.
When you manage to get some kind of dynamics in the lower velocities, then there is almost no difference between the high and mid velocities.
And if you manage to get dynamics in mid and high velocities, you can't play softly any more.
And the tone of the mid velocities is always sounding as if you are hitting the keys hard.
One big problem is that you cant draw the velocity curve yourself. Most of the time I bump the very low velocities up and then almost flat after that.
But I think even if I could do that, there is still an issue with the velocities other than the curve.

Hey guys, I wanted to ask something. I need to clear some HDD space and want to remove half of the mic samples and keep the normal, room and close mics.
what file names in the sample folders correspond to what mics?
I think AKG is main mics and U87 is Close from what I can tell. But what is Room? On the site it says Schoeps CMC6. Is that "SHP"?

I'll let you know at evening since I did exactly the same thing a month ago and have backup on external drive.

U87 - Close
AKG - Main Mic
SLX - Hammer
BRC - Binaural
OKT - Wide
SHP - Room

Thank you very much for taking the time to look it up and post it here, much appreciated! My HDD says thank you too, it can finally breathe again. Thanks!

The Embertone web site says the Walker requires macOS 10.10, 10.11, or 10.12. Has anybody used the Walker with macOS 10.13 (or newer)?

Hello I found that decreasing the amount of voices really takes away all that crackling. I run 400 and it sounds fine to me but I may be missing something. Room position sounds best to me but sometimes sounds to distant. MooganDavid

Hi Mac if you like the vintage D you'll love Embertone 1955 Concert D. I took the chance and purchased lite and the next day I was ordering the full. I think I would have paid the 200.00 just for lite it's that good. Totally pleasing tone that has alluded me for years. I hardly use my Garritan anymore but they sure compliment each other. Close and Hammer mike positions blended together give me a sound I love! Fun and inspiring to play. MooganDavid

*stomps & pouts*

The Embertone Walker was next on my list to try, just for the Steinway sound and the actual una corda samples. I’m sad to have seen so many issues reported in this thread.

Does anyone know if these issues reported through this thread have been repaired, e.g. pedal issues, inability to handle playing with lots of notes & sustain, etc.?

I *really* love the sound of this one, but I just can’t see spending the money on something that’s going to have basic pedal issues or a limit on how many notes you can play.

FWIW I don't have any issues at all with the voice count unless I'm using the "HQ+" pedaling mode these days. Eco and HQ are totally fine for me. Not that I'm playing Liszt, but you don't need to be able to play the transcendent etudes to hit a bunch of notes fast. So it seems to be some specific setting that makes it bad for some people. My PC isn't that powerful.

I am still tweaking my velocity settings to get the best response, but even though I'm not ready to make embertone my only library, I just can't get rid of it either. Nothing out there sounds like it

@Taushi Embertone has a 7 day return policy, and if you don't want to spend much, Imo the Lite version is a very good reflection of the full version (which you can upgrade to), other than the lack of una corda. They are also good about license transfers if you want to sell down the road, as I was recently able to transfer my Lite license to a friend with no hassle.

You might feel differently being far more skilled than I, but I'm currently torn between the embertone and VSL. I think the embertone's resonances are more realistic, and the una corda samples are spectacular (VSL's fake una corda is useful in a pinch but not even on the same planet in terms of realism). I also give embertone a slight edge in it's staccato and release behavior with one exception noted below

My main criticisms with it are:

* The dynamic range is tricky to get right. By default, the instrument has too little of it. Embertonr told me the "RAW+Unprocessed" settings has the "real" dynamic range of the piano but I find it hard to believe that's accurate compared to the VSL or Garritans out of the box. It's especially noticeable in the bass, although that makes it easier to balance the left and right hands for most music.

If you turn up the dynamic range sliders from default, the key off noise becomes super loud at quiet velocities unless you turn down the release samples, but then that kills some of what I like the most about the piano. So it's a bit of a balancing game and I'm not sure I've found universal settings that work for every piece yet.

*In HQ and HQ+ mode, sometimes quick pedal changes cause a bug that keeps some notes ringing longer than they should.

*There are some stray notes that are louder than others which vary by microphone.

*The Room mics don't actually have that much of the room in them, and the built in reverbs are just okay. I highly recommend external reverb (convology XT is a good free one).

*Mixing multiple mics is tricky. I prefer to use one mic at a time.

But it just sounds SO good, and I don't have the same performance issues lots of people seem to.

I fixed my Embertone Walker too. But I'm a beginner and don't play loads of notes unless I'm testing! I did suffer a pedal up problem killing voices too quickly until I got my setup correct. A quirk of the Embertone is that it seems that it doesn't replace repeated sustained notes. Instead it stacks the voices. What I mean is, pedal down and keep playing a few different notes again and again. The voice count goes up and up? The Embertone plugin doesn't know how to limit voices correctly without cutting off the wrong ones and making bad sounds. If you configure Kontakt to cull voices it doesn't choose the right ones and again you get bad sounds. The solution is to set Kontakt -> preferences -> engine -> CPU overload protection to Disabled. Then play tons of voices till you max out (1 core of) your CPU and you hear crackles. Eyeball the number of voices. Then set the max number of voices below that number. Now it doesn't overload, and Kontakt will kill the correct / oldest voices and it plays fine. Eco mode is less vulnerable to this problem, but if you setup as I described even the HQ+, sustain samples, it all works fine.

That you SO much for this detailed review. I think I’m going to just go ahead and try it. I’ll just put it on my credit card and if I hate it, I’ll just eat the cost of it as a few monthly payments. Like you, I love the resonances and the close-feel sound. VSL is absolutely stunning, but the focus there is a concert instrument. It excels at that. It can get really close to a “piano in the living room” sound if you use the close mics, but there’s something to be said about other VSTs like the Production Grand, the Imperfect Fazioli, and the Embertone that seem to focus on the “very close feeling that highlights all those resonances and even the physical/mechanical sounds. It makes it feel alive and personal. (I’d love it if VSL did a “close” focus instrument with the same technology they use for their other stuff. I think it’d knock everything else out of the water).

So yeah, I’m gonna just try it. If I hate it, I’ll count it as a loss, but I feel like I’m going to like it for what it’s for, when I want that really intimate sound, especially on some of the more lyrical pieces.

I’ll keep your settings suggestions in mind.


Thank you as well for these AWESOME suggestions! The apparent legendary CPU usage of this program has been a concern of mine, so I’m going to implement the suggestions you and napilopez gave and see how it does for me.

If you're on windows, makes sure to list the Embertonr Walker's folder as an exception as well. At the very least, it makes it load much faster, but I think it helped me with my initial CPU issues too.

Also Taushi, have you tried the Production Grands Steinway? I'm very curious about it but the demo doesn't tell me enough. I do like the sound with the release samples turned up, but want to feel the balance throughout the range.

Just FYI, Embertone will let you return the Walker for a full refund within 2 weeks of the original purchase date, so if it doesn’t work out you won’t have to eat the loss.

I bought it last year on sale, but after a week of playing around with it decided it wasn’t for me (CPU performance and playability issues as others have mentioned, plus I found that I didn’t really care for the slightly out of tune character of the instrument).

I just sent them an email with my registration code, deleted the files from my hard drive, and they issued a full refund within a couple days - no questions asked.

Wish more companies would offer policies like that.

Sigh. You were ABSOLUTELY right about everything. The dynamic range is so odd. It seems it’s always either ppp-f or mf-fff. You can’t seem to access the entire dynamic range at the same time. There seems to be no way to properly adjust the velocity curve like with VSL or almost every other VST I’ve used that has a velocity curve editor. With this one, it seems you just move the playable range on a slider and the volume of the playable range. But it’s totally not authentic. You can never access the entire playable dynamic range, ppp-fff, at the same time.

And that sucks because it does have some great samples, with a lot of that great physical noise and resonance that those of us who want a quality “up-close” authentic piano sampler want.

You’re also right that everything from middle-c down seems very quiet in comparison to everything from middle-c up. Unrealistically so, especially considering that on a real piano, the bass notes are generally louder than the treble & high notes.

And you were totally right about the release samples, too. Unless you have them turned all the way up, it has a very unusual behavior where the release just seems to drop out, almost like you’re playing a bass instrument or something.

There’s also some noticeable out-of-tuneness. Not terrible, but definitely sounds like the piano hadn’t been maintained recently or they didn’t tune it before recording. Definitely a lived-in piano, which is great for some styles of music, but not so great for others.

The Una Corda is awesome, but, hard to really appreciate it with the other issues.

Playability would be great if it wasn’t for the lack of full dynamic range. If you could access all 36 layers at once, it’d be nice.

Interestingly, I didn’t have any issues either in terms of CPU unless I tried to run all six mics at once, and even then, only with extremely complex music. I tried a mix of about three mics, and still got good play out of it. I think I could probably settle to one or two also. I liked what running all six mics brought to the sound, though; a more complete representation.

So, now I’m kinda torn. The good seems balanced out by the bad, lol. I’m gonna keep it a bit more & play with it to see if I can find a setting I like, but I may just return it & save that up for some of the other “up-close” samplers I have my eye on.

I haven’t tried the Production Grands, but it’s on my list. However, for the price and the fact that they don’t offer return, it’ll be a while before I try it. They offer a demo, and I’m curious to try it, despite the fact that it lacks the velocity layers & complexities of the full version. I figure if the demo is good, then the full version will be even better, but it’s hard to know if your system will be able to handle the full version when the demo version is a limited, less powerful version on a completely different software (sforzando versus Kontakt).

I’m thinking I’ll just try the demo in a few days and see how I like it.

It’s definitely another one that has that great super up-close, authentic, player-perspective, physical-sounds-and-resonances vibe that I like.

I’ve also got my eye on the Imperfect Fazioli, but again, the price for the software plus the full Kontakt rivals the price of VSL’s full versions. But unlike VSL, it lacks the very detail demos & examples to really help you make an opinion. I really wish companies offered demos or gave more comprehensive demos of their software. VSL is expensive, but at least their demos are huge and include videos of people playing.


Thanks for this! They do seem very user-friendly. I may be returning mine for the same issues you mention, despite the positive elements of it.

@Taushi -- I forgot to mention it in my other post, but make sure you use Kontakt's built-in velocity curve editor! Works with Kontakt Player too. It's been a lifesaver with the embertone, and other libraries even if it doesn't *fully* solve the problem but it gets me a lot closer.

In Kontakt, on the upper left of the window you'll see a button that says "KSP" tap that, select presets> Factory > Transform > Change velocity

You'll then see a velocity curve you can curve and draw manually as well. ProTip -- right click to draw a line over a range of velocities rather than trying to draw the fully thing manually. I think either shift or ctrl lets you select individual velocities too.

You can then select Save preset and load it up whenever you open the embertone. Or save a new Multi to load it automatically with the walker.

My suggestion: Set Embertone's "dynamic" velocity curve to be a straight diagonal line. Basically ignore that one and just use the KSP to adjust the dynamic response.
My KSP velocity curve looks a bit like the one your shared for the VSL steinway, just less agressive.

Then use the Volume velocity curve to taste.

Currently I'm expanding the volume curve dynamic range a bit beyond the default and giving it a bit of a concavce shape. I find this helps more realistically expand the dynamic range. For all my vdigital pianos I basically try to match the response to pianoteq, which is pretty much perfect for me


It's weird that those dynamic range issues exist because it was sampled from a steinway with a high end (supposedly) performance system.