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I have not heard a better-sounding sample set in the youtube shootouts.
Find 660 of Harry's solo piano arrangements for educational purposes and jazz tutorials at https://www.patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book."
I'm very happy with Pianoteq 7, in particular the NY Steinway D Classical presets (there are two, I believe: the Classical and the Classical Recording). I see no need to invest more time and money in the endless quest for "the best". It's not even a "real" piano, so it's just one digital representation of a piano versus another.
Whatever floats your boat!
"I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel; a free man at the start of a long journey, whose conclusion is uncertain." -- Morgan Freeman's character, "Red", in The Shawshank Redemption
If you like Garritan, then VSL CFX may be for you, it has a lot of the same multi-mic, natural ambiance that Garritan has, with more options like velocity layers and mic perspectives.
Like U3, I hesitate to say that any VI is objectively "better" or "best," but I don't think anything has happened in the last 2-3 years that would make a Garritan fan jump ship (or vice versa).
A lot of people here use Garritan CFX as their main piano. It is quite good out of the box full> default >classical. The other mic positions are not so popular here.
Can't thank Ralphiano enough, as he suggested two tweaks that really clean up the sound (sounds great now IMHO):
VSL posts on this forum from time to time and I think they take our feedback seriously. VSL just released a velocity-curve feature & announced they will eliminate the USB security dongle; those changes are a huge benefit to regular piano players like us.
It's not the VI I pull up first (that's the VSL CFX), but it's very, very, good and was the first virtual piano that I got lost in when I sat down to play.
It’s a Yamaha. And it sounds like a Yamaha. For people who like Yamaha. I much prefer Bechstein. And the Bechstein Digital Grand, sampled as well as in Pianoteq.
Garritan CFX is beautiful, but these days I only play Ivory II Studio Grands. They seem more "real" to me.
Physical instruments: Roland FP-30, and E-28 Virtual instruments: "The Experience" piano collection, NI "The Maverick", Galaxy II Grand piano collection, Synthogy Ivory II Studio Grands, Production Voices Estate Grand, Garritan CFX Lite, Pianoteq 7.5.2 Focus: 1850±100 years
The problem with VSTs is that they are a moving target. Once you think you found the best, after a while you don't think that any more, and you want something else. I have a couple of different ones and I just switch between them whenever I feel like it. Garritan CFX was not among them when I had the lite version, but finally upgraded it to the full version, and I like it. I also use Pianoteq and Bechstein Digital Grand. Unlike an acoustic, a VST always sounds the same, and you brain detects this and needs something else to be excited about after a while.
Unlike an acoustic, a VST always sounds the same, and you brain detects this and needs something else to be excited about after a while.
If something gets on your nerves, it's not the right sound. Neither novelty factor nor loudness tell anything about if something is good. This is true for musical pieces in general, not just for instruments.
I've moved on from the VST world. But when I was, I used Garritan CFX Full the most. Mainly because the VSLs were too complex for me to understand and tweak. But the VSL's close mic samples are the best I've heard and always defaulted to them (select all 3). I found the pedal noise to be cleaner on the Garritan.
In my view, we shouldn't compare the VSLs with Garritan - the VSLs standout apart from others in so many different technical areas.
With Garritan, I found a preset (Solo Piano 3) that I really liked and I applied Ralph's tweaks and it worked like a charm. By far, the only problem I've had is the slow loading times on Windows. I've never seen that progress bar since my Visual Basic 4.0 programming days. But, it loaded significantly faster, with I'd say negligible delay, on my Macbook Pro :-| So, it doesn't appear to be a Garritan problem.
A man must love a thing very much if he practices it without any hope of fame or money, but even practice it without any hope of doing it well. Such a man must love the toils of the work more than any other man can love the rewards of it. G. K. Chesterton
Unlike an acoustic, a VST always sounds the same, and you brain detects this and needs something else to be excited about after a while.
If something gets on your nerves, it's not the right sound. Neither novelty factor nor loudness tell anything about if something is good. This is true for musical pieces in general, not just for instruments.
True, but the problem is more that it becomes relatively boring/less exciting than that it gets on your nerves. The brain is extremely good at remembering the exact structure of sound. There is a study that shows that participants can learn (unconsciously) to recognize specific instances of 0.5 sec white noises..., even after limited exposure.
Of course it is only a hypothesis of mine that this explains why people often fail to find the best VST, not a proven fact And there is also a 'fixed' quality effect. Some VSTs are simply better than others.
