Piano VSTs

Hello my beloved audiojungle friends!

I was playing some piano improvs today on my midi keyboard, to hopefully brainstorm ideas for some solo piano pieces. I’m currently using Pianoteq 2 and I’m quite happy with it. It has a quite realistic feel to it, without needing GB of data (“based on physical modelling and real time sound generatio”).

I’d love to know though:

Which Piano Vst do you use for recordings? Do you use it for solo piano pieces as well? Do you have a real piano? Do you prefer recording this with microphones or using a sample library?

Of course I don’t intend to start a thread where people argue about which piano vst is the “best”. I started it mainly out of curiosity to see what other musicians here prefer – and who knows, maybe we’ll help someone out there looking for a Piano VST .

From the demos and reviews that I’ve heard/read I think I would also love Synthogy Ivory, and Native Instruments Alicia’s Keys… Especially Alicia’s Keys seem to have that deep mellow expressive sound I really like – and the price is quite nice.

Alkis

I use EWQL Pianos from EastWest productions. I never owned a piano VST before that, but it’s pretty nice. It does take up a lot of space for the samples though.

www.soundsonline.com

- Derek

Yes, the Alicia Keys sample lib is great. I also really like the Reason Pianos, it’s excellent!

Hi people, I also love the Pianoteq due to its light footprint on CPU , small size and really good quality. If I need more artificial or processed piano sound, I tend to use reFX Nexus quite a lot or mess with various VST effect chains. I`ve heard that Alicia Keys is exceptional and is on my purchase list.

Old VSTi Plug Sound Keyboards. Piano not very good, but if you use an equalizer, it sounds fine.

#1 choice— EWQL Quantum Leap Pianos (especially the Bosendorfer)

http://www.soundsonline.com/Pianos

The best, most detailed and most expressive piano I’ve ever used. I don’t care for the Bechstein or Yamaha piano in the set, but the Steinway is great, and the Bosendorfer’s rich sound is absolutely unbelievable. By far the best sampled pianos. They do take up a lot of space (all 4 pianos is about 250 GB), but you might never need another piano sample library again.

#2 choice—Tonehammer Emotional Piano

http://www.tonehammer.com/?p=3575

Very intimate sounding piano, perfect for soundtrack work, particularly if you like the Yann Tiersen sound, or the Tom Newman ‘American Beauty’ sound.

#3 choice—Tonehammer Montclarion Hall Piano

http://www.tonehammer.com/?p=5099

This piano has a very distinctive ambience. You can’t use it for everything, but the sense of space that surrounds it is spectacular. Also, it has a patch where the piano strings are muted, and it’s an incredible Tom Newman-esque type of sound.

I own all of these piano libraries, they are all good for different purposes as they are all recorded in slightly different ways. I can supply demos of each if necessary, but Tonehammer’s demos are always excellent and advertise the product very well, and the Eastwest Pianos also have great demos.

I’ve never been a fan of Synthogy Ivory (it’s what I used before switching to Eastwest) – it just sounds tinny and boxy. There is also the monstrous Vienna Symphonic Library Imperial Grand. I haven’t tried this, but this is a huge library which requires a monstrous system. I’m sure it sounds good though!

There are lots of other libraries out there, but the three I mentioned above are what I think are best.

garethcoker said

#2 choice—Tonehammer Emotional Piano

http://www.tonehammer.com/?p=3575

Very intimate sounding piano, perfect for soundtrack work, particularly if you like the Yann Tiersen sound, or the Tom Newman ‘American Beauty’ sound.

Wow. Tonehammer and Soniccouture never cease to amaze me…. I particularly liked the amazing details that can be heard on Tonehammer’s “Soft Skin” mp3 demo.

garethcoker said
#3 choice—Tonehammer Montclarion Hall Piano http://www.tonehammer.com/?p=5099

I have a lot of Soniccouture’s stuff, and…...it’s just lacking ‘something’ that Tonehammer ALWAYS has in their products.

The Montclarion’s prepared piano section is HUGE . It’s a tremendous library (like all of their other stuff).

Also, as usual with Tonehammer, they have a bunch of sound-designy patches as well that make the piano more like a synth. Great stuff.

I own every single product in the Tonehammer catalogue, yes, I’m a bit of a fanboy, but I’ve also managed to use EVERY one of their products in commercial products over the last 2 years (they came onto the scene in October 2008).

(I own a lot of other stuff too, and the shopping list never decreases unfortunately!)

Yes I’ve spent hours maybe visiting their (Tonehammer’s) website to listen to their demos and read the product info, I’m saving to buy some of their libraries but don’t know yet where to start, haha! I think my first order will be AlienDrum (Hang Drum library), I love it and unfortunately can’t get my hands on a real hang drum yet.

Cheers, thanks for your detailed inputs btw, and thanks to all of you for replying so quickly, this is an amazingly active forum, I love it!

Tonehammer are having MASSIVE sales and freebies for the whole of December. You will need to check back every day because you might catch some big discounts.