Piano shootout: Pure Piano (iOS) vs NI New York (Mac)

[Reezekeys]

I have way too much time on my hands these days. I was gonna type up another super-long post with all the details of what went into this video comparing (perhaps unfairly) the two pianos, but figured I'd just put it up here without boring anyone more than they might already get bored watching this!

 

One quick explanatory note - I start with some chords I bang out to see how the pianos react to different velocities. Maybe not the best way to segue into a Brazilian jazz song, but this is more of a "science experiment" than a showcase for my keyboard playing!

 

[brenner13]

Gorgeous. I got distracted by the beautiful tune and fine playingâ¦forgot I was supposed to be comparing the two pianos.

At first, like the first three takes, NI was most appealing to me. A bit brighter and more detail of overtones. However, by the last couple of comparisons, Pure Piano surprised me how expressive you made it. Love that low end.

I"m little help.

 

edit:

Oh, that damper noise on Pure Piano is a tad too much in my hack opinion.

 

edit2:

On second listen, Pure Piano has better key-off, but I still like NI"s overall tone best of the two.

[Reezekeys]

Thanks a bunch for the kind words. I discovered this tune very late in life, it seems. It was covered by quite a few jazzers back in the day. I think Stan Getz did a version - played at a much faster bossa tempo (almost a samba).

 

You confirmed what I started typing up in the post I almost made - that some folks would prefer Pure Piano (or at least some of the elements of its sound). I believe the damper noise is non-editable although I did not try the "morph pad" (it was left at the default "pure" setting). I hear it but it doesn't bug me.

 

There are a few spots where the coarser sample layering of PP is obvious, like the last low E in the tune. And, other sections that seem louder than the same sections played by NY piano. What shocked me is that PP seems to have more dynamic range than NY (you can hear this with my opening chord salvo) - but imo it's "expanding" the volumes of fewer velocity layers to do this. I know in a previous thread I complained about its lack of dynamic range! I think I just never hit it with velocities over 110 or so at that point.

 

Other things I noticed - PP has almost no high end! I did some extreme EQing to try and bring out a more balanced high end but there's just nothing there to EQ. It sounds like there's nothing happening beyond 5 or 6 KHz. Paradoxically, it's treble (meaning, the higher strings) have a much nicer sustain than New York's! That's the weakest part of NY Piano imo (and very much improved in the current NI flagship, the "Grandeur").

 

A few more notes - both these pianos were rendered from the same midifile I recorded as I made the video. And there is no reverb on either of them â just the aforementione EQ on Pure Piano.

[Groove On]

For me the NI New York was 'timbre-iffic' and overall won the comparison, but Pure Piano impressed me, it"s wonderfully close and was only edged out by small nuances in the NI New York. It"s also interesting since you"re comparing iOS to MacOS and this comparison was very encouraging. I did hear a slight drop out between 1:10-1:15 after the sustained FF in the bass - I wonder if you redlined the iOS CPU there.

 

It"s a bit more effort - but like they say if there are no videos/photos, it didn"t happen. So thanks for doing the video.

 

How do you feel about the playability and responsiveness between the two pianos? Did you feel one respond better to your 'musical intention' than the other?

[Tusker]

Gorgeous. I got distracted by the beautiful tune and fine playingâ¦forgot I was supposed to be comparing the two pianos.

 

Heh. Same here. Had to listen again.

 

My takeaway is that while there are differences they are both very good in good hands. For a lot of use cases, IOS appears to have come of age.

[Al Quinn]

Rob, I was distracted by your beautiful playing and had to listen a second time to focus on the software pianos.

 

Overall I liked the NY Piano best but not by a lot. I thought it was a good showing for the iOS Pure Piano.

 

I don"t know how you"re able to play with such accurate and expressive dynamics on the A-800PRO. When I played it I found the action uncomfortably stiff when I played anywhere on the inside half of the keys, and especially so with the black keys. Clearly, you don"t have this struggle!

[drawback]

Beautiful playing, Rob. And a great way of comparing each piano. I wish more YouTube 'shootouts' were edited like that.

 

I"m surprised at how much I liked Pure Piano, especially with the dynamics you pulled out of it. Did you use StreamByter?

[AnotherScott]

Wonderful playing, and proof that one can play expressive piano on non-hammer actions.

 

I wonder what other Rolands use this action. Unlike their hammer actions, Roland doesn't give their different non-hammer actions different names, so you can't look at the spec pages and see which boards use the same kinds of actions. So, I wonder, is this the same action as in the Juno DS61 and VR09 (albeit with aftertouch), or something different?

 

What shocked me is that PP seems to have more dynamic range than NY (you can hear this with my opening chord salvo) - but imo it's "expanding" the volumes of fewer velocity layers to do this. I know in a previous thread I complained about its lack of dynamic range! I think I just never hit it with velocities over 110 or so at that point.

That opening salvo on PP reminded me of what I don't like about some of the Roland piano sounds... the tonal difference from the quietest to loudest notes seems exaggerated. NY's tonal dynamic range seems more realsitic/natural to me.

 

Other things I noticed - PP has almost no high end! I did some extreme EQing to try and bring out a more balanced high end but there's just nothing there to EQ.

I did notice on the section immediately following the opening salvo that PP sounded muffled compared to NY, though I didn't really notice that in the other clips.

 

Paradoxically, it's treble (meaning, the higher strings) have a much nicer sustain than New York's!

OTOH, at the clip at about 6:20, I found PP's top notes kind of piercing.

 

Overall, I preferred NY, it sounded closer to a real piano. The decay envelopes were better, PP often seemed to often drop off a bit too quickly. The word that came to mind for PP was "clangy."

[AnotherScott]

How do you feel about the playability and responsiveness between the two pianos? Did you feel one respond better to your 'musical intention' than the other?

That's a great question. What sounds better to the listener is really a different question from how well it captured the player's intention. Related...

 

both these pianos were rendered from the same midifile I recorded as I made the video.

Which piano were you listening to as you were actually playing? There is usually a kind of feedback between the sound and the player. If you're playing a particular VST, without even realizing it, you will likely subtly alter your playing to get the sound/response you want out of it, so a MIDI file created while playing that VST may not capture exactly how you would have played the piece on some other VST if that VST were the one you were listening to as you played. For the purposes of this comparison and the kind of comments I made, I don't think it would make much difference to us as listeners (characteristics like tone and decay would survive that "flaw"), but the "expressivity" and how it would feel to the player relative to his intent are things that are not as clearly known.

[drawback]

both these pianos were rendered from the same midifile I recorded as I made the video.

Which piano were you listening to as you were actually playing? There is usually a kind of feedback between the sound and the player. If you're playing a particular VST, without even realizing it, you will likely subtly alter your playing to get the sound/response you want out of it, so a MIDI file created while playing that VST may not capture exactly how you would have played the piece on some other VST if that VST were the one you were listening to as you played. For the purposes of this comparison and the kind of comments I made, I don't think it would make much difference to us as listeners (characteristics like tone and decay would survive that "flaw"), but the "expressivity" and how it would feel to the player relative to his intent are things that are not as clearly known.

 

Great point.

[Theo Verelst]

Hi Reeze It would be interesting to have an idea of the particular sound synthesis method both piano variants are made with, because they sound strangely alike! I haven't used a Mac in a long time so I'm not knowledgeable about it's programs. In general piano sofware plugs don't appeal to me much, with some exceptions, because samples without any intelligent processing will not be very interesting chord-wise and missing the resonance of the strings doesn't make for a very strong and versatile sound. More intelligent signal path with possibly simulation of some of the piano might be more fun like the VPiano and there's the Kurzweil "hide studiio bands in the samples and have many thousands of elements coded in" approach that's been mostly dysfunctional since haflway the companies' life time...

 

T.

[Charleston]

After one of the NI upgrades a while back, they deleted the New York Grand. It was my favorite NI piano.

[drawback]

Further to this topic, when watching reezekeys" video on YouTube I noticed a couple of others that should be of interest, based on earlier threads about iOS piano comparisons.

 

 

 

[Reezekeys]

Thanks to all who've commented so far. I took the day off from screens yesterday, visiting my daughter at her college. Buckle in, this might break my record for longest post.

 

The first thing I should mention is that my aim was to see if I could be happy playing a gig with Pure Piano (or another iOS piano). So for this video, I hauled my QSCs into my house and set them up behind me like I usually do on gigs, and monitored both pianos through them - not headphones, not studio monitors. My NY Piano, being my go-to for the last 15 years or so, was sounding fine to me but as I mentioned, I went to town on the EQ for Pure Piano in order to get more high frequencies in the sound. Again, as I noted, this is not the same as wanting the treble end of its register to be much louder - it"s about EQing to make all the overtones across the entire range more audible and the sound 'richer' in general. I feel safe saying not one person listened to this youtube video through a PPA! I still think it"s obvious, especially when A/Bing some of the stuff I play in the middle registers, that PP is lacking in overtones. And I can also see anyone calling the upper end of its range 'piercing' â now that may have something to do with my EQ! Here"s a screen grab of that. I even added another EQ through AUM, which is also in the pic below - another 2db boost around 2Khz:

 

 

All this to get PP to sound good to me through my K8s.

 

Lots to respond to so here goesâ¦

 

I did hear a slight drop out between 1:10-1:15 after the sustained FF in the bass - I wonder if you redlined the iOS CPU there.

This might be my impaired hearing abilities, but I heard no such dropout. I do hear certain parts of the PP performance have a slightly noticeable drop or increase in volume which I take to be products of the velocity switching.

 

How do you feel about the playability and responsiveness between the two pianos? Did you feel one respond better to your 'musical intention' than the other?

No surprise, NY Piano felt better to play. Again, I"m suspecting the reduced number of velocity layers to switch between in PP - though I can"t rule out the possibility that the more I play PP, the better I"ll get at varying my dynamics to make the transitions less noticeable. I could also experiment with different velocity settings in my A800. Seems like a lot of work though, and the motivation isn"t there â seeing as I"m happy and very much in tune with the 'feel' of NY Piano.

 

Rob, I was distracted by your beautiful playing and had to listen a second time to focus on the software pianos.

Thanks AL, I really appreciate that!

 

I don"t know how you"re able to play with such accurate and expressive dynamics on the A-800PRO. When I played it I found the action uncomfortably stiff when I played anywhere on the inside half of the keys, and especially so with the black keys. Clearly, you don"t have this struggle!

What"s interesting is that I have two A800s - one of them is 'retired' and stays at home (I got my second one when the USB jack on my original was damaged and stopped passing data). I"ve had both of them set up together a few times and comparing their keybeds, they are not the same! My older one is stiffer (i.e., seems like the springs are 'tighter')! This makes no sense if you think about how springs might wear and maybe get less tight with time. I hear what you"re saying about playing on the inside half of the keys but either I"m oblivious, or don"t tend to play much there. In any event, the springs on both my A800s are tight enough to give me a decent feeling of resistance as well as a quick return when I release the key. I also owned an Edirol PCR-M80 before I had my first A800. I believe it had the same keyboard assembly as the A800s (it sure felt like it), which means this keybed has been on all my main axes for 15 years â I think that"s enough time to get used to a keyboard"s feel!

 

Beautiful playing, Rob. And a great way of comparing each piano. I wish more YouTube 'shootouts' were edited like that.

I"m surprised at how much I liked Pure Piano, especially with the dynamics you pulled out of it. Did you use StreamByter?

Thanks! No, I used StreamByter in AUM to scale my velocities for the free Korg Module since its velocity curve screen isn't active when loaded in AUM as an AUv3. I did mess with Pure Piano's velocity curve a bit though (it"s still shown when PP is an AUv3) - this was my setting:

 

 

As you can see I only raised the 'floor' at the low end. That"s because when I played softly the notes barely sounded at all - it felt very unnatural. That"s also what I did with Module using StreamByter. In retrospect this means I may have missed the first velocity layer but I can"t help that - it felt really weird to play with any kind of curve that didn"t let me start out with a slightly higher velocity hitting the plugin at the low end of its range. I didn't want to mess with the curve in my A800 since it was set up for NY Piano and I was fairly certain it matched my playing dynamics well.

 

Wonderful playing, and proof that one can play expressive piano on non-hammer actions.

Thanks Scott! I"ve said this a few times here - a virtual piano only sees a note number and a velocity. IMO there"s nothing inherent in a hammer action keyboard that would make a virtual piano sound more expressive. For myself, I would say that it"s 15 years of playing the same keybed, along with lots of experimenting with the parameters that affect how my keyboard playing affects the sound of my VIs.

 

I wonder what other Rolands use this action. Unlike their hammer actions, Roland doesn't give their different non-hammer actions different names, so you can't look at the spec pages and see which boards use the same kinds of actions. So, I wonder, is this the same action as in the Juno DS61 and VR09 (albeit with aftertouch), or something different?

I don"t know the answer to this. I"ve been happy with this action, and I also know that I"ve played some controllers in the A800s price range or slightly below, whose action was imo much worse - spongy, or with noticeable lateral play. That"s not what I experience on the A800, but whether or not this action is used in their higher-end synths, I don"t know.

 

What shocked me is that PP seems to have more dynamic range than NY (you can hear this with my opening chord salvo) - but imo it's "expanding" the volumes of fewer velocity layers to do this.

That opening salvo on PP reminded me of what I don't like about some of the Roland piano sounds... the tonal difference from the quietest to loudest notes seems exaggerated. NY's tonal dynamic range seems more realsitic/natural to me.

That"s interesting because I kind of liked PP"s loudest layer more than NY"s right there! It felt a little more natural in relation to how hard I hit those last two chords (in case it"s not obvious, I hit them very hard - so hard that I doubt I would ever hit that layer playing PP normally).

 

Other things I noticed - PP has almost no high end! I did some extreme EQing to try and bring out a more balanced high end but there's just nothing there to EQ.

I did notice on the section immediately following the opening salvo that PP sounded muffled compared to NY, though I didn't really notice that in the other clips.

The more I listen, the more muffled PP sounds to me (in relation to NY)! Especially in the middle register. My hearing is suspect though, so I had the thought of using a spectrograph app to see how many upper harmonics are in both pianos.

 

Paradoxically, it's treble (meaning, the higher strings) have a much nicer sustain than New York's!

OTOH, at the clip at about 6:20, I found PP's top notes kind of piercing.

I wanted to hear what you were talking about but my video is 4:45 long! In any case, it"s probably the extreme EQ. I might try a quick pass of a "piercing" portion of the midifile with EQ flattened & see if it makes a diff.

 

Overall, I preferred NY, it sounded closer to a real piano. The decay envelopes were better, PP often seemed to often drop off a bit too quickly. The word that came to mind for PP was "clangy."

I completely agree. This as a listener, not just as the one that played it. PP"s samples lacking overtones is probably something that would go unnoticed on a gig if it was the 'only piano in the room.' Hard to describe in words, but my vain attempt would be to say that the sonic character of PP seems 'flat' or one-dimensional when l hear it A/B"d against NY. That"s not to say it wouldn"t work on a gig though, especially if one wasn"t used to playing a higher-quality sample set for the last 15 years!

 

both these pianos were rendered from the same midifile I recorded as I made the video.

Which piano were you listening to as you were actually playing? There is usually a kind of feedback between the sound and the player. If you're playing a particular VST, without even realizing it, you will likely subtly alter your playing to get the sound/response you want out of it, so a MIDI file created while playing that VST may not capture exactly how you would have played the piece on some other VST if that VST were the one you were listening to as you played. For the purposes of this comparison and the kind of comments I made, I don't think it would make much difference to us as listeners (characteristics like tone and decay would survive that "flaw"), but the "expressivity" and how it would feel to the player relative to his intent are things that are not as clearly known.

This is a fair point. As I showed earlier in this massively long post, I did use PP"s velocity curve screen to get my playing to 'feel comfortable', i.e., the velocity-to-timbre feedback loop felt as good as I could make it. I did this by spending time beforehand playing that piece through on PP only while tweaking those settings. It"s true that I was using the same curve settings in my A800 that I use with NY Piano and I was listening to NY Piano as I recorded the midifile. My feeling is that the result of this experiment wouldn"t be much different if I had recorded it listening to PP instead, but I maybe I"ll give it another shot doing that.

 

Hi Reeze It would be interesting to have an idea of the particular sound synthesis method both piano variants are made with, because they sound strangely alike!

In my ignorance I"m thinking these are both using sample playback engines, there"s no 'synthesis' happening. Of course the app developers are constrained by what the hardware is capable of, and it"s obvious there are differences between a PC and an iPad. To me there"s a big difference in sound between the pianos but whether that"s due to software design, hardware, or the sampling process itself I certainly can"t say.

 

I haven't used a Mac in a long time so I'm not knowledgeable about it's programs. In general piano sofware plugs don't appeal to me much, with some exceptions, because samples without any intelligent processing will not be very interesting chord-wise and missing the resonance of the strings doesn't make for a very strong and versatile sound.

The Mac program I use for my piano is Kontakt and it"s cross-platform. I think my NY Piano sounds pretty much the same coming out of a Windows PC as long as the analog audio circuitry has reasonable specs.

 

If I'm understanding you correctly, the resonances you speak of are a feature of the higher-end piano plugins and from what I"ve seen, they"re done by either using actual samples that are triggered using scripting techniques, or sometimes by convolution.

[AnotherScott]

OTOH, at the clip at about 6:20, I found PP's top notes kind of piercing.

I wanted to hear what you were talking about but my video is 4:45 long!

Whoops! That was supposed to say 3:20.

 

I was thinking, would you be up for sharing that MIDI file? It could be interesting to run it on some other stuff for comparison.

[Reezekeys]

I was thinking, would you be up for sharing that MIDI file? It could be interesting to run it on some other stuff for comparison.

 

Sounds like a good idea, I'd be curious to hear it on other pianos if anyone wants to check it out:

 

"The Dolphin" by Luiz Eça, Dropbox link

 

BTW, this is probably a topic for another thread (if I thought anyone cared!), but I may have been completely wrong about Pure Piano's "velocity layers"... looks like there are none â or maybe two or three max. Hard to tell exactly with the tools I have, but I'm starting to think increasing velocities are only opening a filter and maybe subtly altering the volume envelope of the same sample!

 

PS - for the folks that may be familiar with this tune... yes I know it's in A and I ended on an E major â sorry about that Luiz â that's jazz!

[uhoh7]

It's nice to see some very decent DPs for IOS, which is so much nicer to move around than a laptop.

 

I also have an Apro, 61 key, which I have slowly warmed to playing. My most used light controller is a Nektar T4, which really has remarkable feel, though it is far simpler, no sys ex. But I now have the Roland setup in my bedroom with a JV1010, as I like to play in diiferent spots and postures, and I'm liking it fine.

 

I was playing my upright most often in spring and summer, but with a current focus on figured bass and 18th century fundamentals I use the Hammond and my two controllers lately--the nektar is running a micropiano and old proteus.

 

The AP can be quite addictive, as it does create such a rich palette, no other keyboard in the house is so complex. I learned to tune it, but made the stupid mistake of pulling it from about 435 to 440, which took many re-tunes to settle. It's a mid 80's Young Chang clone of the U1 with a humidfier I bought new.

 

Thanks so much for your post.

 

I should ask: do you notice any lag with either? My big sampled laptop pianos can lag, though the old modules with DIN midi, never lag that I can notice.

[Tusker]

Thanks to all who've commented so far. I took the day off from screens yesterday, visiting my daughter at her college. Buckle in, this might break my record for longest post.

 

The first thing I should mention is that my aim was to see if I could be happy playing a gig with Pure Piano (or another iOS piano).

 

Great post! Thank you! Based on this shootout, and understanding that you have developed muscle memory with NY Piano over several years ... when you think YOU would be happy with PP and when do you think you would need to take your Mac?

[Reezekeys]

It's nice to see some very decent DPs for IOS, which is so much nicer to move around than a laptop.

 

I also have an Apro, 61 key, which I have slowly warmed to playing. My most used light controller is a Nektar T4, which really has remarkable feel, though it is far simpler, no sys ex. But I now have the Roland setup in my bedroom with a JV1010, as I like to play in diiferent spots and postures, and I'm liking it fine.

I have a JV1010 as well, it's been an "emergency" backup device for many years and lives in my small accessory case. Every few years I set it up to make sure it still works. All the acoustic & electromechanical instrument emulations sound dated to me (no shock there) but I still like some of the synth pad sounds. Anyway, thanks to my recent acquisition of Pure Piano and VTines, my iPhone makes a good emergency backup device so I might just leave the JV home.

 

I should ask: do you notice any lag with either? My big sampled laptop pianos can lag, though the old modules with DIN midi, never lag that I can notice.

DIN midi has always felt OK to me. Maybe it's psychological - I never noticed the latency because I wasn't trying to notice it! I use DIN midi from the A800 for my touring gigs, but it's going into a USB midi interface into my Mac - so I'm dealing with both protocols there. On local gigs I go direct with USB from my A800. I keep my buffer at 128 for local work and 256 for the touring, as that gives me an extra margin of safety. It still feels OK to me, however if I listen for it I'll notice a very slight difference. For these recent iPad experiments, I had Pure Piano or AUM at a 128 buffer. I do notice slightly more latency with the iPad at 128 vs 128 on the Mac, but it's not enough to bug me. I'm assuming there are additional i/o buffers that are invisible to the user and I'll guess those are responsible.

 

Your comment seems to imply that "big sampled" laptop pianos might lag due to their being "big." The size of a piano (in terms of the samples) shouldn't have any bearing on latency. If there are issues streaming the required files from the disk I think you'd hear the audio break up or voices get killed. You've tried reducing your buffer size until you hear audio breakup, then bumping back one setting?

[Reezekeys]

Thanks to all who've commented so far. I took the day off from screens yesterday, visiting my daughter at her college. Buckle in, this might break my record for longest post.

 

The first thing I should mention is that my aim was to see if I could be happy playing a gig with Pure Piano (or another iOS piano).

 

Great post! Thank you! Based on this shootout, and understanding that you have developed muscle memory with NY Piano over several years ... when you think YOU would be happy with PP and when do you think you would need to take your Mac?

I'll put it like this - if PP was the only piano available to me, I'd put in the time and make it work. My first sampled piano was an Ensoniq Mirage! I also have to remember that I paid $14 for Pure Piano. Maybe a little perspective is in order here. Unfortunately my opinion is colored a little by my having happily played NY Piano on all my gigs for the last 15 years. At this point I'll guess that any iOS piano is going to fall short. I'll be happy if I'm proven wrong though.

 

My first (and last, for now!) attempt at playing an iOS-only gig was with Ivory American D and it didn't go well. I might have a gig coming up where I'll be able to try PP, but I'm not getting my hopes up, and for sure I'll have my Mac with me and expect to use that for most if not all the time.

 

As you might guess by now, the answer to your question of when I'd be happy leaving my Mac home and using PP only is most likely "never." However, I won't rule out certain kinds of gigs, like a wedding ceremony outdoors where I need to plunk out Taco Bell & Wagner for 20 minutes; no sense hauling a computer around for that!

[SteinwayB]

Still anxiously awating Reezekeys impression of Ravenscroft before writing off IOS for piano!!!

[Reezekeys]

Further to this topic, when watching reezekeys" video on YouTube I noticed a couple of others that should be of interest, based on earlier threads about iOS piano comparisons.

 

 

 

These are interesting and I think are done pretty well, though the first video has a lot of playing of heavily pedaled passages that make it hard to hear how individual notes decay. Not to mention that some of the harmony I'm hearing is.... "unusual", lol. My impressions of the first video is that Colossus and Ravenscroft both have the edge over Ivory. The Colossus samples seem a little closer-miced than Ravenscroft which imo is better for gigging. Interestingly, the Colossus piano looks not to be their flagship, but what they call the "Japanese" grand, and I like it. The big Colossus, to my ears, has some issues with a few unisons, and the low end seems kinda thin and has some janky inharmonics I wouldn't expect to hear in a "concert" grand. Of course I'm only reacting to what I hear - not what I hear as I play. That's the big "gotcha", there's no substitute for that. Many of these iOS pianos sound very good but don't satisfy when you're actually using your fingers to make them speak in a way you're used to hearing.

 

The second video is where I can compare Ravenscroft to Pure Piano and I will say that Ravenscroft does sound a little better to me. The notes are more "up front" and seem to have a slightly longer decay when held. They both do better than Ivory (and Pure Synth) in that regard, imo (listen at :36). However the same caveats I mentioned in my last paragraph apply; what makes a piano feel good to play is to hear the timbres and attack sounds evolve in a natural way as you vary your dynamics - and unfortunately that knowledge can't be gained from watching a youtube video!

[AnotherScott]

My impressions of the first video is that Colossus and Ravenscroft both have the edge over Ivory. The Colossus samples seem a little closer-miced than Ravenscroft which imo is better for gigging. Interestingly, the Colossus piano looks not to be their flagship, but what they call the "Japanese" grand, and I like it....The second video is where I can compare Ravenscroft to Pure Piano and I will say that Ravenscroft does sound a little better to me.

Ravenscroft has been my favorite iOS piano, though I like its 2nd patch more than its default. (There was also a SampleTank piano I remember liking, I should go back and see if I still do!) One thing that video did, though, is persuade me to buy that red Japanese grand Colossus IAP. I don't have PP or that Ivory piano, though I have the other Ivory one, which didn't knock me over.

[Reezekeys]

One thing that video did, though, is persuade me to buy that red Japanese grand Colossus IAP.

Yea, $36 for Ravenscroft vs $13 for the Japanese Colossus... tempting.

[o0Ampy0o]

NI New York has more sonic sparkle.

 

Love what and how you played. I suspect you would turn heads and stop conversations playing like this live around people.

[Reezekeys]

If I've ever stopped conversations or turned heads I'm not aware of it, but that's very nice of you to say â thanks! I've been at this longer than I want to admit, and am still learning and trying to get better. I'm thankful the technology exists that lets me put on a pair of headphones, sit at a 10 lb plastic keyboard and actually feel like I'm playing a really nice piano. I have a Steinway here, but am ashamed to admit that, until I can afford the work it needs, I'm happier playing my Roland and hearing the New York or Grandeur piano.

 

As usual here, someone comes along and says in a few words what takes me too many: you nailed it exactly with the comment that New York has more "sonic sparkle" than Pure Piano. That's pretty much it in a nutshell! I think the Grandeur is even better, but as I've said a few times in threads here, it doesn't satisfy as much as New York when the sound is coming out of my K8s on a gig. On a recording, or listening on good headphones or studio monitors at home, the Grandeur is my go-to right now.

[AnotherScott]

One thing that video did, though, is persuade me to buy that red Japanese grand Colossus IAP.

Yea, $36 for Ravenscroft vs $13 for the Japanese Colossus... tempting.

I think maybe Colossus gets overlooked a bit because it is so associated it with the 14GB $49 piano, and people are scared off by either the price (esp. with no way to try it first) or the the size. But it can also be merely a high quality 1GB $13 piano, which I'd say is already better than their own $15 CMP Grand Piano.

 

OTOH, one problem is that (at least for me) it needs immediate velocity tweaking, because too much of the velocity range is too soft. If you're running it standalone, they have a velocity curve control, which while not as finely adjustable as I'd like, is sufficient to get a nicely playable piano out of it. But if you put it into Camelot, you don't get the benefit of its own velocity curve function, so you need to have one somewhere else. Also, regardless of curve and no matter how hard I dig in, it seems like it's missing the brilliance I'm looking for on the high end of the velocity range. OTOH, overall, it's very natural and realistic sounding. More so than Ravenscroft (though Ravenscoft has better playability "out of the box," and more punch at higher velocities). First impression is that Ravenscroft might be more suitable for live rock/pop performance, while Colossus Red is more authentic sounding overall, albeit needing velocity tweaking.

[Reezekeys]

OTOH, one problem is that (at least for me) it needs immediate velocity tweaking, because too much of the velocity range is too soft. If you're running it standalone, they have a velocity curve control, which while not as finely adjustable as I'd like, is sufficient to get a nicely playable piano out of it. But if you put it into Camelot, you don't get the benefit of its own velocity curve function, so you need to have one somewhere else.

Thanks for the report! I may just grab that CB Japanese piano then. I'm not surprised it needs work with velocity scaling â there's no way a dev can come up with a setting that covers everybody's range of playing styles and controllers' own force-to-velocity mapping. I'm sure StreamByter can do this without any trouble, and I like the challenge of putting on my nerd cap and plastic pen protector. I got help from a user on their forum â he gave me a script that variably scales my velocities so I can add about 15-20 ticks on the low end, to zero as my actual velocities get to 127. That's what made Ivory on Module playable since, similar to Colossus, it doesn't let you access its own velocity curve setting when running in an AUv3 host.

[uhoh7]

I should ask: do you notice any lag with either? My big sampled laptop pianos can lag, though the old modules with DIN midi, never lag that I can notice.

DIN midi has always felt OK to me. Maybe it's psychological - I never noticed the latency because I wasn't trying to notice it! I use DIN midi from the A800 for my touring gigs, but it's going into a USB midi interface into my Mac - so I'm dealing with both protocols there. On local gigs I go direct with USB from my A800. I keep my buffer at 128 for local work and 256 for the touring, as that gives me an extra margin of safety. It still feels OK to me, however if I listen for it I'll notice a very slight difference. For these recent iPad experiments, I had Pure Piano or AUM at a 128 buffer. I do notice slightly more latency with the iPad at 128 vs 128 on the Mac, but it's not enough to bug me. I'm assuming there are additional i/o buffers that are invisible to the user and I'll guess those are responsible.

 

Your comment seems to imply that "big sampled" laptop pianos might lag due to their being "big." The size of a piano (in terms of the samples) shouldn't have any bearing on latency. If there are issues streaming the required files from the disk I think you'd hear the audio break up or voices get killed. You've tried reducing your buffer size until you hear audio breakup, then bumping back one setting?

 

I have not, but thanks to you I will!

Thank you, Sir.

[Theo Verelst]

For those with the interest in the subtleties of piano tones I made a digital recording (44.1/16 stereo) of the Kurz PC3 through a double Lexicon effect, no processing at all further of my latest sound correction attempts, for you to listen to. It's the above given Midi file with no changes, playing from Rosegarden (Linux sequencer) over Usb Midi to the PC3, digital out of that to the Lexicon digital in, and it's output to a Omega digital input straight into the recording with only a volume boost.

 

The wonderful plugin properties aside, sounds more balanced and way more musical to my ears:

 

dolphin.wav CD quality .WAV 2min9s (don't download all at once My Adsl uplink allows roughly one live play at a time...)

 

Theo V