KVR Audio

backsliders · Post by **backsliders** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 8:13 am

I guess this is just a bit of a disappointed rant. I tend to move house often, and I keep having to go to a friend's house or go to a studio to record a piano part. I'd love to have a piano library that can satisfy my needs for something realistic, but I keep coming up short. Every piano library I demo seems to be missing something.

Most piano libraries are focused on getting the most cinematic, flawless grand piano sound one can get. I understand that's a marketing issue, because hey, that's where the money is. Wouldn't want to spend a bunch of money to make a library that nobody with loads of cash would want. Right? People with money want that super cinematic, completely unrealistic, overly detailed, no sympathetic resonance, wider than wide, cathedral reverby piano. I suppose that sounds ideal, but the cleaner it is, the more it sounds like a really expensive Casio keyboard. Less what a piano sounds like, and more like what people think a piano should sound like. To say, if you recorded a song with a bunch of real instruments, and had the piano library, it would stick out like a sore thumb. It sounds really professional and polished, just no one would believe it's real and someone is playing it.

All of the piano libraries I find are far too clean and perfected for my taste. Like, way moreso than if you were actually recording a real live session. Even the rare upright piano libraries are far too clean to sound realistic. Usually sounds more like a muddy console piano than an upright. It kind of has that guitar rig preset problem. It's made to sound good on its own and nothing else. Especially with mono-compatibility. Most of these libraries are constructed to sound really larger than life, so they're almost completely useless and phasey when collapsed to mono or in a full band setting. This is especially bad if you were to use the library to play a gig, where they only take one line out. Most likely, if you listen to any popular full band song with piano (Bohemian Rhapsody, Hey Jude, Coldplay stuff, etc), whether it has piano solo parts or not, the piano will be either in mono, or spread very conservatively.

I own and like the Imperfect Samples upright. It's the closest to what I could say I want; Lots of velocities per key (except one low note that seems to blast when played semi soft), high detail, sounds like a real studio or home piano... but it's still very wide-spread and completely falls apart when summed in mono. Due to this, I can never use it for recording purposes and always end up having to record at someone's house or studio. I honestly wish someone would just set up a library as a normal recording session, and just sample it like that.

I know this is very idealistic and picky. I feel as though mixing and recording is a practice in perfectionism, though. I know most think "if it sounds good, it is good." But that's the thing: It doesn't sound good.

Not to me, at least. Any thoughts to add to my novel, here?

Atza · Post by **Atza** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 8:18 am

Interesting opinion. I have always thought piano synths to be the best out there. Maybe its because I'm not a pianist myself so I miss completely the feeling when they are actually played

backsliders · Post by **backsliders** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 8:36 am

I guess I do sound a good bit whiny. But I guess I'm not complaining that they don't sound good. I just have never played or heard anyone play an upright or grand piano that sounded like most sample libraries. They sound ideal, but they don't sound real.

Strange, I guess my gripe is that they paid way too much attention to get every note to sound right, and to me it ended up making it sound wrong because that's not how a piano is recorded or heard.

trusampler · Post by **trusampler** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 8:40 am

I personally love the sound of alot of whats out there, like Ivory, Alicia Keys,Avid's Mini Grand, Motu's stock piano in Mach Five 3, the list goes on, plenty of great sounding sampled piano libraries imo.

With that said, don't forget a good midi controller that actually produces proper velocities is a must for piano,as well as every other sampled instrument imo.

backsliders · Post by **backsliders** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 9:13 am

Agreed, trusampler. I imagine a lot of people new to the game can easily overlook the importance of shelling out a little more money for a true-velocity sensitive board. I personally enjoy the weighted keys of my midi keyboard (plus the after-touch for other instruments!), and I feel it lets me strike notes more akin to a real piano, though I understand that some feel weighted keys can be restrictive if you're more used to playing on a keyboard than a piano.

It was surprising how when I tried Alicia's Keys, it was much better sounding to me than the other NI piano libraries. It still sounded a little meticulously polished for my taste, but again... taste. I wouldn't say really anything out there sounds bad to me. A lot of sfz files and one-shot recordings sound pretty good. A lot of those 200+GB libraries sound good. But when I want something to replace a real piano, I want to be fooled, myself.

I'm in no way a great pianist, the same as I'm in no way a great violinist, but when I hear a prepared demo of a solo violin sample library, so far I've not been fooled yet. I can see how it would fool a lot of people, but my brother is a classical violinist, and he'd probably laugh if I showed him a blind demo recording from a company and said it was real.

What I'd love to hear from companies is a side by side comparison of their libraries to the instruments they're sampled from. Like, hear a cellist play something on a cello they sampled, then hear the live passage recreated via midi, prepared or otherwise. I think that'd be fantastic.

N.E.X. · Post by **N.E.X.** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 9:18 am

I use XLN Addictive Keys Studio Grand, I can really recommend it. Small (few GBs) but incredibly flexible. 6 microphones position, lots of EQ, mixing, sample shift, compresion, tube, distortion, reverb, delay, FX and more. Power of the library is in the versatility. Not always sounds that much real but fits in EVERY mix, we can tweak literally every sounds from this - boogie woogie, blues, ballad, pop, jazz, retro, dark, light and many more. If you use it properly it shines.

Usefulness depends on what you need but in my opinion it's great alternative to big libraries with narrow purposes, and as you say, cinematic sounds only. Check this if you need more elastic piano for every mix and wide application.

Cri · Post by **Cri** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 9:23 am

backsliders wrote:What I'd love to hear from companies is a side by side comparison of their libraries to the instruments they're sampled from. Like, hear a cellist play something on a cello they sampled, then hear the live passage recreated via midi, prepared or otherwise. I think that'd be fantastic.

That would be fantastic. But I don't think it's going to happen with most companies

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 9:55 am

I agree more with the OP. Kontakt, XLN, & Dimension are lacking at best.

pendle · Post by **pendle** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 10:10 am

I hate to be the guy spamming an interesting thread with products , but I totally agree with you about the over pristine-ness of most piano libraries.

That's why my Sound-Dust sample libraries are made with a bit of soul in them...

You should have a listen to Ships Piano, its a kind of semi-ancient pocket piano , as favoured by Scott of the Antarctic, and is sampled to sound like it really sounds , warts and all, rather than an over polished artifact.

http://sound-dust.co.uk

Coincidentally i'm just working on a slightly updated MK2 version of it at the moment, which will of course be a free update.

cheers
Pendle

AnthonyD · Post by **AnthonyD** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 10:14 am

I totally agree with the sentiments that you are expressing, backsliders. I think that it extends beyond just piano libraries though, and the problem is compounded by the fact that I really like my music to sound as if it were recorded in a concert hall by players on a stage. You aren't going to hear the release of the keys on an oboe from the back of a concert hall with the whole string section playing, but every new library seems to feel the need to add this feature and then release a demo where the key releases are almost as loud as the samples themselves, and don't even get me started on the overused and abused "True Legato." I better stop now before I start getting bashed for not singing the praises of these things

. I, of course, understand how these things are attributes of the library and how useful they can be for a certain sound, they are just not the sound that I am after.

backsliders · Post by **backsliders** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 10:30 am

Pendle. I normally am the first to cast stones at product pushing, but I have followed your libraries for years and I was an early adopter of the Ships Piano. Unfortunately, I remember it not having release samples and was limited in it's velocity layering, but the sound you got out of it was fantastic. I obviously wouldn't use such a library to replace a grand piano or the like, but though it has a niche usage (old broken piano), it does it what it does phenomenally well. It's a piano that the second you hear it, gives a feel for the piece you're playing.

This is a good example of what I'm getting at. When you released Ships Piano, I was struck because this was the first step in the right direction I've seen out of sample libraries. Each instrument, whether it's a guitar, bass, piano, violin, all have their characteristic sound. People swear by their Casino guitar because it has such a different natural sound than a tele. It's their sound. While a lot of companies try to play up the flexibility, precision, and polished tone of their libraries, libraries that feature the accurate representation of the character of the instrument are unique and get my wallet out.

solidtrax · Post by **solidtrax** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 10:31 am

For what it's worth, I used the re-mike option of the UAD Ocean Way Studio's plugin on NI Alicia Keys, the result is stunning. The typical "in the box" sound is gone, it suddenly sounds like I recorded a real piano in a realistic setting.

Don't know if you have an UAD-2 card, but in my opinion, the Ocean Way Studio's plugin alone is already worth it!

backsliders · Post by **backsliders** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 10:48 am

AnthonyD: I agree wholeheartedly. I feel their fault lies in trying to be too flexible when they can only pick one in the end. They record everything in ways they never would in a real life setting, so it sounds unrealistic. I love the sound of an ensemble on stage, but it never really sounds that way. I mean, yeah, if you had a million dollars and had the greatest players on earth to play all the instruments perfectly in tune and in time, it might sound like that... but I don't think most ensembles sound that way, and that's what makes it so realistic and recognizable. If you say you hired an acoustic guitarist and didn't hear any slide squeaks, or a violinist with perfect vibrato/bow-changes/pressure, Imma call you a liar. Choirs don't sound right if it's all the same person.

backsliders · Post by **backsliders** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 11:02 am

Solidtrax: I think just about anything will sound good in Studio B.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 11:09 am

I agree with OP, and that's why I don't use any piano sample libraries at all. Pianoteq 4 Pro here deals with anything I need regarding piano, harpsichord, clavinet, vibes, rhodes, wurly, chromatic percussion, etc. It is a splendidly flexible and great sounding tool, and its responsiveness to touch is unmatched by sample libraries. It can be as imperfect as you want it to be.

Piano libraries are too fake (opinion)