Comparing Native Instruments Acoustic Pianos

[UltimateOutsider]

Now that Komplete 10's out, I was curious to hear how NI's three new pianos stacked up against the various other sampled pianos you can find in Kontakt and Komplete 10 Ultimate.

I went through all the current and recent Native Instruments pianos from Komplete 9 & 10 Ultimate and compared them by features and sound.

Here's the resulting article: Native Instruments Acoustic Pianos Compared

Inside you'll find screenshots and sound clips of every piano, as well as details like where you can find them and which original piano models they're based on.



Which one's your favorite so far?

[emasters]

Interesting read - thanks for taking the time to compile and publish this information.

[mellotronaut]

my favs (after listening to your demos): 1)The Gentleman, 2)The Giant, 3)Alicia's Keys, 4)The Maverick, 5)The Grandeur and 6)Cuba Upright.
thank you very much!

[UltimateOutsider]

Yeah, I really love the new The Gentleman, and am still a huge fan of Alicia's Keys. Not sure I have the right words to describe their sound, but I really like their gentle, muted vibe. For a totally different feel I also really like that Cuba Upright!

[kbaccki]

Some good info there. BTW, your "Size in RAM" field is simply the total buffer memory used, which is not reflective of the total instrument size (more interesting info) nor is that buffer usage constant across kontakt installs. In kontakt you can change buffer settings, even at the instrument level IIRC, so that RAM usage value is a bit meaningless.

[UltimateOutsider]

Some good info there. BTW, your "Size in RAM" field is simply the total buffer memory used, which is not reflective of the total instrument size (more interesting info) nor is that buffer usage constant across kontakt installs. In kontakt you can change buffer settings, even at the instrument level IIRC, so that RAM usage value is a bit meaningless.

Hmm. I didn't know it was variable.

Can you recommend a more reliable/meaningful metric? I only included that to give a general picture of the difference in sample data- but I do want something that is at least constant.

[kbaccki]

Well, generally people don't screw with buffer settings, so those are probably valid values for default setups. In any case i would just hunt down the total size of each set... Maybe that's a bit tough for mix n match factory patches, not sure. If you have enough physical memory you could just turn off DFD and load each entirely into RAM.

[UltimateOutsider]

Well, generally people don't screw with buffer settings, so those are probably valid values for default setups. In any case i would just hunt down the total size of each set... Maybe that's a bit tough for mix n match factory patches, not sure. If you have enough physical memory you could just turn off DFD and load each entirely into RAM.

I'm gonna mess with it a bit tonight. Thanks.

[Melodyshine]

I think that the midi file doesn't show the potential of Galaxy Instruments pianos. In terms of playability and realism they are superior to Alicia's Keys, etc.. (I only know The Giant and the Galaxy vintage D(not by NI), but I am sure their new pianos are similiar). The release samples of Alicia's Keys are awful (especially the low notes) and Alicia's Keys often sounds dull, you can't play it as hard as Galaxy pianos. You won't notice this from that midi file. Alicia's Keys is not so much better than for example New York Concert Grand, just a little bit.

[UltimateOutsider]

Just updated the post with true sample content size of each instrument, along with sample rate, bit depth, velocity layers, etc. Also confirmed the source pianos used in all but two of the instruments and finally got the August Foerster working properly (had to double the voice count in order for sustain to work).

[Great Galactic Ghoul]

Interesting read - thanks for taking the time to compile and publish this information.

+1

[sempondr]

This deserves a bump.
Thanks, really helpful stuff.