cnegrad Posted October 3, 2005 Share Posted October 3, 2005 Greetings, I was able to spend some time demo-ing Synthogy's Ivory in NYC's Sam Ash this past weekend, and frankly I was blown away. I own several of the larger sampled pianos, but Ivory was far and away better than any of them. Talk about realism! Though it has samples of three grand pianos (Yamaha, Steinway and Bosendorfer), there are multiple variations of each one, resulting in about 20 or so presets. The GUI is very intuitive, and downright simple to operate. What surprised me was this: Prior to trying Ivory, I tend to prefer Steinways and Yamahas to Bosendorfers. I usually find the Bose's to be too dark for use in anything but an intimate context. But in this case, I kept coming back to the Bosendorfer time and time again. The other two just sounded too bright and lacking body by comparison. Of course, I don't know anything about Sam Ash's monitoring system; for all I know someone may have a hidden EQ setting that I couldn't see. The only "glitch" in my experience was that Sam Ash's Mac was low on ram, resulting in occasional "skips" in sound, or "bursts of static". But man, overall this was a jaw-dropping, completely inspiring experience for me. Assuming that it runs bug-free on a dual 2.7 G5, this is definitely a Must Buy for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gangsu Posted October 3, 2005 Share Posted October 3, 2005 It's cool to hear you downright excited about something. "........! Try to make It..REAL! compared to what? ! ! ! " - BOPBEEPER Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnegrad Posted October 3, 2005 Author Share Posted October 3, 2005 Ouch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gangsu Posted October 3, 2005 Share Posted October 3, 2005 Originally posted by cnegrad: Ouch! Hey, I'm trying to be nice here. You're the one who's often grumbling about the sorry state of the music industry. Today I forgive you. "........! Try to make It..REAL! compared to what? ! ! ! " - BOPBEEPER Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gangsu Posted October 3, 2005 Share Posted October 3, 2005 uh-oh. Why do I do this. Please cover up my post. You can have the last word, I promise. "........! Try to make It..REAL! compared to what? ! ! ! " - BOPBEEPER Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Zero Two Posted October 3, 2005 Share Posted October 3, 2005 Yeah but where's the PC version? Grumble grumble.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnegrad Posted October 3, 2005 Author Share Posted October 3, 2005 PC version is coming; just not as quick as originally hoped. Sue, forget it; we're cool. I just wasn't aware that the majority of my posts were evidentally so negative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeke Smith. Posted October 3, 2005 Share Posted October 3, 2005 Getting Ivory to work on your computer is a delicate dance between memory and CPU overhead. Having a lot of both gives you lots of options. I have it running on both my G4-1.5GHz Powerbook with 1.5GB RAM (but only barely!) and on my G5-dual 2.0 GHz with 2.5 GB RAM (where it runs easily). Get as much RAM as you can, and it'll run fine on your G5-dual 2.7. You can tweak with Ivory's buffers to get the best balance of CPU performance and RAM usage for your particular situation. The other thing I've learned is that you really need to stream the Ivory library from a dedicated SATA or FW800 drive. On a FW400 drive, the smaller 6-layer libraries work fine all the time, but turning on the release samples or going to the 8-layer libraries can bunch the thing up on occasion. The final thing I've learned is that playing with the "key noise" and soundboard parameters made a big difference in how much Ivory felt like a real piano, as opposed to it just sounding like a great sampled piano. Especially with the Steinway and Yamaha. I'm pretty finicky as well, having played some great grands over the years, and messing with some of these settings has made the thing fool me a couple times. Current live rig: Roland RD700SX, Hammond XK-3 with Leslie System 21, and Muse Receptor. Also a Nord Stage 76 other times instead. And a Roland FP-7 for jazz gigs. HOME: Kawai MP8 + a bunch of VI's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverDragonSoun Posted October 3, 2005 Share Posted October 3, 2005 Cnegrad - perception is everything. Negative is one way to look at it. I prefer to look at it as passionate. You have high expectations and don't want to settle. While I could understand how your posts could be construed as negative, I prefer to view them another way. As for the PC version Begin the day with a friendly voice A companion, unobtrusive - Rush Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lvercaut Posted October 3, 2005 Share Posted October 3, 2005 Does it sound better than the Promega 3 ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnegrad Posted October 3, 2005 Author Share Posted October 3, 2005 Zeke, Thanks for your reply! My Dual 2.7 G5 has 5 gigs of ram, so I think I'll be okay. Question: You referenced using a FW800 external drive. Will that perform better than the built-in Apple Superdrive? Chris, Thank you as well. You are an insightful and perceptive individual. Ivercaut, Does it sound better than the Promega 3 ? 1) Since I'm not aware of anyplace one can hear a Promega product in person, I can't answer your question definitvely. 2) Based on the onilne samples I've heard; yes Ivory is better. 3) Piano quality is highly subjective and subject to opinion. Based on how *I* feel a piano should sound, Ivory is perfect for me; moreso than what I've heard from online clips of the Promega 3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lvercaut Posted October 3, 2005 Share Posted October 3, 2005 Thanks cnegrad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazz+ Posted October 3, 2005 Share Posted October 3, 2005 But Does Ivory Cut It Live: http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/18/t/015245.html Find 660 of my jazz piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnegrad Posted October 3, 2005 Author Share Posted October 3, 2005 Not an issue for me personally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c4 Posted October 3, 2005 Share Posted October 3, 2005 For the pc check out the new sampletekk piano. It has 31 velocity layers (ivory has 8 I believe). Its also about 1/3rd the price..should be shipping in mid october. http://www.sampletekk.com/products.php?cat=32 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnegrad Posted October 3, 2005 Author Share Posted October 3, 2005 Yup, I'm waiting on that one too. It's called "TBO" (The Big One). It's a Yamaha C7, but it was recorded through a Neumann U87 to add warmth. The online demos sounds great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeke Smith. Posted October 4, 2005 Share Posted October 4, 2005 Cnegrad- The SuperDrive is the optical CD/DVD drive, and you definitely can't stream Ivory from that. Let me know if I missed something or misunderstood. You could try streaming it from the system drive, but I'd be less than confident about how well it will work, especially if you're running other virtual instruments on the same drive, or have lots of apps running. With the amount of RAM you have, you can probably get away with more than most people. I have not tried streaming from the system SATA drive. The cheap and effective way out would be to add a second SATA drive internally if you haven't already. If you have, and are streaming things like audio from it, this isn't an option. I guess maybe you should give the system drive a try, and if it doesn't work out, you've lost nothing, and can try another option. I have my G5 set up so that the "lightweight" virtual instruments like all the Spectrasonics stuff stream from the system drive, since they mostly operate from RAM anyway, all my audio tracks are fed from the second internal SATA drive, and Ivory is fed from an external drive. My plan is to upgrade to either another SATA or a FW800 for Ivory only. Live, I just use the 6-layer libraries with no release samples, and it works okay from the FW400 drive. Current live rig: Roland RD700SX, Hammond XK-3 with Leslie System 21, and Muse Receptor. Also a Nord Stage 76 other times instead. And a Roland FP-7 for jazz gigs. HOME: Kawai MP8 + a bunch of VI's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnegrad Posted October 4, 2005 Author Share Posted October 4, 2005 Zeke, Excuse my stupidity; I've had very little sleep in the last week or so. Disregard the Superdrive comment; I meant the internal hard drive. I'll give it a try on the internal drive and if that isn't sufficient, I'll spring for the external drive. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linwood Posted October 4, 2005 Share Posted October 4, 2005 I've got mine working on a GT050 and have no problems at all with it. That's w/a G5 dual 2.5 w/4.5 gigs ram. It really is a great VI and Zeke is right on about the key noise knob. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnegrad Posted October 4, 2005 Author Share Posted October 4, 2005 Linwood, What's a GT050? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linwood Posted October 4, 2005 Share Posted October 4, 2005 It's a Glyph firewire (400). I've got a couple of them for samples. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnegrad Posted October 4, 2005 Author Share Posted October 4, 2005 Gotcha; g'night! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergievsky Posted October 4, 2005 Share Posted October 4, 2005 If you don't already have a SATA internal in your G5 I would suggest getting that, but the 10k rpm one. Raul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnegrad Posted October 4, 2005 Author Share Posted October 4, 2005 How does one find out if one has an internal SATA or not? (Please define SATA.) Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linwood Posted October 4, 2005 Share Posted October 4, 2005 It's a extra Serial ATA.(SATA) You can add one to your G5 or you can buy a G5 bracket and put three of them in there. I've got one 10k drive in mine where EWQLS lives. I'd like to add another 10k drive one of these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twbrzkdm007 Posted October 4, 2005 Share Posted October 4, 2005 I think all recent G5s have a SATA hard disc standard. For all the Ivory sample data I bought an internal Western Digital Raptor 73GB SATA 10K RPM for the "lower" position in the G5. Installation took 5 min mix (all cables are there and you can use the rubberized screws that come with the G5). I can play big chords and do runs as fast as I am capable of and Ivory just flies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erroll Posted October 5, 2005 Share Posted October 5, 2005 Is it??? I listened to the demos, visited Burningbush's excellent site, and felt PMI Boesendorfer was the most faithful to the real thing. Anyone actually played a 290 Imperial Grand, or two? "To Do Is To Be." --Socrates "To Be Is To Do." --Sartre "Do Be Do Be Do." --Sinatra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnegrad Posted October 5, 2005 Author Share Posted October 5, 2005 I've learned that hearing the sounds is only half the battle. The other half is the playability of the sounds; how you feel when you physically play the samples with your own two hands. I've purchased several great sounding gigasized libraries that just dont FEEL right when I play them. They've really made me rethink purchasing any further piano libraries. But IMHO, Ivory felt great. As I mentioned above, the TBO library also looks promising, and I look forward to checking that out as well. Remember, taste in pianos and piano samples is very subjective. FOR ME, Ivory is incredibly inspiring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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