Ultimate Sound Bank has announced the release of Grand Piano Collection, the latest UVI Soundbank release for UVI Workstation.

"In the maze of piano sample libraries, Grand Piano Collection has a very unique place: the UVI philosophy regarding pianos is to propose truly musical and excellent sounding presets, but with a convenient and "realistic" size (around 20 GB for 5 instruments). It's also the most versatile library, thanks to the choice of very different sounding instruments", said Alain Etchart, Founder and Director of Marketing at Univers Sons / Ultimate Sound Bank. He continues: "Grand Piano Collection features surely some of the best sounding sampled pianos in the market. True to our beliefs, we don't think it's about figures (like velocity, memory, number of microphones) but about feeling. A good sounding piano is a rare alchemy between the instrument, the acoustic in the recording studio, the microphones and above all, the engineer's taste. These pianos are not our first endeavour, in fact we did sample many more, so we had the chance to see the expertise turn up."

Grand Piano Collection highlights five instruments:

• Steinway D Concert Grand
• Fazioli F278 Concert
• Erard Baby Grand Piano
• Seiler Upright Grand
• Japanese Upright

For everyone of them the same method was used: First, the right instrument had to be found. Two different classical and jazz pianists, both outstanding concert performers, gave a hand finding the ideal one. After some research and dozens of pianos reviewed, the models that all the consultants loved appeared obvious. Then there were several days of booking in some of the best recording studios in Europe, (for example www.guillaumetell.com for the Steinway). The best qualified person did the tuning work, that essential part of the process.

During the recording the very best sounding quality gear was used, but with a different set up for each piano, to give different colours for each of the five instruments. Thanks to UVI Engine's advanced keygroup layers and rule switching, the sustain pedal and release samples are said to perform and "feel" like a real piano.

At the end of the process, during the editing of samples, a great instrumentalist tested the result of this work, allowing in response improvement in the instruments to make it really enjoyable.

Ultimate Sound Bank says the result is five excellent sounding pianos, with soul and a musicality.

Grand Piano Collection is now available for $249, and includes the full version of UVI Workstation.