It looks like Native Instruments has released a new piano sample library called "The Giant", and it's an upright.

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/pow ered-by-kontakt/the-giant/?utm_medium=email&content=1981&utm _source=newsletter&utm_campaign=THE+GIANT+&page=4847

▪ Two Instruments: THE GIANT and THE GIANT Cinematic Effects
▪ 13 velocity zones for an extraordinary dynamic range
▪ 5 release samples for each key, with a length of up to 20 seconds
▪ Special resonance samples
▪ Halfpedal and Repedal
▪ Color control for easy variation of the timbre
▪ Real overtone samples
▪ Controllable piano noises like pedal, damper, string or hammer noises
▪ Compressor for pop piano sounds
▪ Global Preset system
▪ Based on the Galaxy Pianos engine
▪ 8GB sample content (4GB compressed)

What does everyone think of this? Is it an improvement over the older libraries such as Alicia's Keys?

Well, I'm sure it will be a fine library for many but it does nothing for me.

Not sure if I 'like' or 'not like' it.

Well hopefully someone makes up his mind . People will buy it eventually.

Surprised there is a market for more pianos, Komplete comes with a few good ones anyway

Does anyone else have the sneaking suspicion that NI takes the same piano and eq it a bit differently and market off as new?

Totally.

I see that you all don't like it very much. ha It's not very realistic then?

Well it's probably better than the ones that came in Komplete 7, Alicia's Key's is nice, I'm sure its a great sample library.

Audio demos sound lovely to my ears. The cinematic sounds are really nice too.

This just seems like such an esoteric instrument for NI to sample. I mean, how many people have ever heard of this 9 foot tall upright piano? Is there even a market for one? I would have preferred a nice set of warm Baldwin upright piano samples or something along those lines.

From the demos I've heard on the NI site I'm not overly impressed either. The piano sounds great in the jazz demos but just doesn't really do it for me elsewhere.

My problem with NI is that those demos ALWAYS sound nice to me. Then you get the product and it's like "MEH". The pianos are especially that way to me. I love the vienna demo........HATE that piano

I'm referring to the addons btw, the actually products are generally good imho (fm8/etc)

Just bought and installed it. Sounds just fine to me.

I only watched the video they posted on YT.
Sounded totally uninteresting to me.
I am not much of a Piano player, though.

I use piano a good bit (certainly not every song) but it's just too hard to tell how much that would be used for 119 bucks.

Then again, I'm kinda lucky from time to time. I got the kawai piano back when that company was smart enough to use kontakt (I hate the idiotic idea that you need a f**king ILOK "2" for a sample library )

It's wonderful sounding........seems to always fit.