Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Noir by Native Instruments- a small review

On the weekend , being bored and under the influence of Gamma1734’s videos , I broke down and got Noire VST by Native instruments.

First, this is without a doubt, one of the easiest VSTs I have ever played. It sounds really amazing and it just feels silky smooth when you play.

You can really play soft and go ballistic with very little effort. (Maybe not a great VST for practicing.)

It is very enjoyable. You never feel like the piano is getting away from you like other VST’s.

Despite the fact that the piano is based on a Yamaha 9–foot CFX, the sound is nice and sombre. Not metallic or too bright.

Best way I can describe it, is that the sound is smooth. There never seems to be any harshness to it.

The layout is very similar to Garritan. So very to navigate with the control settings we have come to expect and interesting and fun presets.

It’s a little pricey if you only get it for the pure piano as I did.

If you like felt, then its another great layer for you to play around with.

The particles engine is certainly fun, but I don’t see myself really using it. Lots to fiddle with here if you like that kind of thing.

The quality to me seems to be on par with other top end VSTs like Garritan and Ravenscroft. I think the closest comparable is Pianoteq, but with more warmth and character and better play-ability. (My very personal opinion)

I can recommend it for pure playing pleasure. Play-ability, sound, diversity. It’s all there and it’s all quality.

I can’t speak for recording or composing as that is not my thing,

I would not recommend it if you are looking for a VST to practice on. I am not sure why, but it almost feels like it’s cheating somehow it’s so easy to play.

Also, it’s not your classic real piano sound some people are looking for.

I was pleasantly surprised by this one and I can see myself using it a lot.

Ron

Agree wholeheartedly!
By far the best of Native Instruments/Galaxy so far, at least for me. Everyone has different tastes, but I also have it just for Pure as well. I am currently learning the Rachmaninov Prelude in D major on it. At some point, I'll post a recording of it on my youtube.
I do find the playability of Noire to be pretty close to Pianoteq's playability for classical music. For me, it sometimes just comes down to pedaling flexibility, and the scripting for Noire pedaling works well for me.

Noire does a lot of things and it does them well! When NI do their 50% off sales, there aren't many better bargains in piano VI land. Glad you're enjoying it!

Hello,

@ronlefebvre, Thank you for your nice and useful impression of NI Noire!

Cheers and happy playing,

HZ

Agreed! I was an early adopter of it, and it is still "one" of my favourite. It reduced the need for me to lust for the "popular" ones mostly mentioned on this forum. I particularly like the sound of the dampers changing the harmonic character of a note as you re-engage the strings when you let off a note staccato, this appears to respond in a varied way with release velocity and half pedaling too, reminds me of my own acoustic grand I also like the additional sound effects like the creaking piano stool

Thank you for your review, you got me curious in this VI. I've heard some demos of it and it sounds great.

Hello,

I've been curious about Noire for a year now; if only it could be demoed/tried for 14--30 days... I won't easily buy anything that can't be properly tried/tested beforehand.


😄 I would hope that can be switched off -- I have a live acoustic creaking piano bench already 🙄.

Cheers and happy creaking,

HZ

Of course!
all the effects, of which there are many, can be turned off. There's even the feint sounds of an audience listening to your playing, if you so desire

this is a really well described review. i own a clavinova cvp and have never really liked the cfx sound. the sound was always too cold and bright for me. but nils frahm managed it. the cfx sounded a certain warmth. i have configured the tone color on one of my keyboard knobs.And regardless of whether it is bright or warm, it always sounds good to me.

therefore noire is the piano which is loaded first at the start.

When will the 50% NI incentive be ?

Here is a hint... Noire is now included in Komplete 13. I upgraded from 12 to 13 on last Summer offer so I got it and several other instruments for no much more that Noire regular price.

I know this is not a way for everyone, but I say it just in case could be useful.

Black Friday would probably generate some interesting offers in short time...

The top end of Noire sounds wonderful, no brittleness. There's no honk in the lower registers. It's definitely my favourite still. I need to set the velocity to 'harder' for my Korg, and only do the slightest bit of brightening the tone from default.

It's also easy to pick up a license transfer cause you get people like me who bought a standalone license and then got Komplete, leaving them a spare one!

cool review! nice to read, and i was remembered with my own experiences while reading indeed

For those who have used Noire and Garritan, how would you compare the two? Garritan is exceptional in its playability, but I'm one of the folks who finds it to sound just a bit too pristine... but I'm not sure if it's also just that I don't like the sound of the CFX that much. Hard to tell just from the Noire demos since everyone seems to be using a different preset. Overall it seems to sound a little muddy, but still wondering whether it would be worth picking up.

This is the closest demo I've come across for Noire.
If you don't like this tone, then the VST is not for you

Hello all,
I wanted to post my latest Rachmaninov piece I've learned using Noire. For me, Noire was perfect for this piece. I was using Garritan CFX when learning the piece (6 months) but later switched to Noire after stumbling through this Noire thread. For me, it felt more intimate. Just wanted to share as the learning process was quite grueling as well!

My wallet wants to say thank you guys.

This thread got me interested in noire again.


Anyone has an opinion on how it compares to the vsl and garritan cfx? I have those but I never play the garritan anymore because i think the vsl is much better, like not in the same league better, which is also the reason i'm kinda hestitant to buy another.

But this does sound nice indeed in those videos, nice playing Bostonmoore!

The noire seems to have a nice presence and (intimate) character to it.

I have to say, the Noire took me by surprise. I'd listened to seemingly every YouTube demo, and not only did I not connect with the sound; I flat out disliked it. Personal taste and all, but with a few exceptions, it almost always seemed just kind of... Dull. Muddy. I suppose that's what some people considered intimate but it didn't seem useful for any kind of dynamics.

Still, a lot of people like it so I figured it couldn't be *that* bad. Took advantage of the holiday discount and my first impression was exactly what's I'd feared. It was much too thick and dull.

What is underestimated was the flexibility in shaping its sound. I normally avoid timbre shaping tools like because I tend to feel they do more harm than good, but on the Noire they are well implemented a few tweaks were all it took to get it to sound quite lovely for my tastes. I particularly like the ability to mess with the overtone levels and such.

Curiously, the Noire is the only library I've ever used where I had to set the velocity curve to be concave (I use the 'hard' setting on my PX-560, which shifts velocities upwards). Usually it's linear, or a bit convex.

After some tweaks, I personally like the Noire much more than the Garritan. I was convinced I just didn't like the CFX sound, and the Noire still isn't my ideal piano sound, but it definitely has much more character than the Garritan imo. The resonances are richer, imo. The Garritan still sounds better if you want great ambient reflections, but the Noires reverbs are solid and the built in production tools like the compressor and noises are a nice touch.

I haven't tried the VSL CFX, but compared to the VSL Bosendorfers imperial and 280VC, I think the Noire holds up surprisingly well. Layers and mic positions aside, I think playability is comparable though pedaling is definitely better on the VSL (perhaps simply because you can customize the pedal range on a continuous pedal). On the other hand, I prefer how Noire handles resonances. But then VSL does releases a bit better too =]

As always, there's never a perfect VST!

Noire is very nice to play.
I don't have the vsl pianos. In comparison to Garritan CFX, noire is a little more dark. You can do some tweaks to give it some brightness but its DNA is darker. The sampling is well done, but I can feel some kind of velocity jump on the ff zone. The response to velocity is a little better on Garritan CFX in this regard. The samples are clean, there is no noise in the samples.
I just noticed 2 small things:
- The latency is a bit more longer than with the other vst I play.
- The repedalling function is not on the top. In consequence, there is a loss of resonance when the I repedal. In this subject Pianoteq is a joy to play, but that's not the subject here.

Globally Noire is nice to play. For me it surpasses Garritan CFX wich I find noisy and sterile