I tried Piano One which is often recommended for free piano, but honestly, i dont know how anybody can use that thing for finished songs

is there anything useable free or do I need to buy truepianos or something?

also, looking for a synthesis option, i suppose that limits me right away, i hear samples are the way to go for piano.

maybe i just wont use any piano on this record

With this in mind, then you can use almost anything out there - you obviously are not going to feature piano, if you are considering bailing on piano altogether.

A great place to start is Sampletank Free. The piano is a little bright, but you can tame it easily with a low pass filter. I used it in the background of this demo track, with a low pass in place. That was a one-pass demo so don't look for great technique. http://rockstarnot.rekkerd.org/fawm2012/Another%20Sunny%20Da y%20-%20Scott%20Lake.mp3

Another option is to use a sf2 player vsti like the freebie sfz from Cakewalk and one of countless piano sf. Warren Trachtman has a nice 'distant mic recorded' sf for free on his website. For the opposite effect, there is a well-known 'splendid' soundfont that is close-mic'ed.

But simply start with Sampletank free and you can do fine with that most likely.

-Scott

Tascam's CVPiano; not available any more, but Google is your friend! Needs some tweaking (low-pass, mostly), but workable in solo or a mix. Great sound, if a bit tame (you probably won't be playing "Love, Reign o'er Me" on it).

+1 to the Trachtman pianos (of which there are several).

Believe it or not I used to use mda piano a lot.

It's the most fake sounding piano in the world but sat in a mix it manages to say "piano" to you as long as it's fairly buried.

Plus it depends on what you want, sometimes the most realistic sounding piano isn't the way to go.

http://www.kvraudio.com/product/piano-one-by-sound-magic

try this ONE

IMHO the best free piano (good sympathetic string response)

www.myspace.com/tombalcony

with a little tweaking....EQ..compressor...tape-simulation...good algo-reverb, you can get a very convincing sound out of piano-one.
i was fooling real pianoplayers several times, make them believe it's a
"real recording" !

www.myspace.com/tombalcony

I'd try the free version of the Addictive Keys Studio Grand! Loads fast and sounds really great! And it's pretty looking, too
It also comes with a standalone version that has a recording feature to capture your ideas. Really useful to me.

Find the details here:
http://www.xlnaudio.com/products/view/35

Thanks for that tip! I also selected the free version of Addictive Drums for download as well.

You're welcome! Yeah, Addictive Drums is awesome, too!

As soon as I load in Addictive Keys free piano into my host, it tells me the trial is expired and no sound results. Waiting for a reply from XLN tech support.
Standalone version sounds great.

My fav free piano
http://www.store.precisionsound.net/amoreinfo.php

You'll need the free Kontakt player to use it.

if u have a decent sampler(like kontakt for example) search the internet for "gig" files and EXS24 files

they are old sampler forma. some are multi-layered and some are really in-depth with those keyswitching/release samples-wutevers that makes the sound react like a real acoustic piano

though don't forget if you're using a piano like that on its own it will sound good, but in a mix of a different style it might need processing(EQ compression)

one of the reasons people still use Rompler(harware synth with acoustic sounds) they've been already processed to "cut" a space in a mix

Depending on your needs and preferences, there might be something in Proteus VX that you could use:

http://www.creative.com/emu/proteusvx/

They don't sound particularly real in isolation, but many of the included piano patches work quite well in certain settings.