Steinberg Media Technologies has announced a major update to its The Grand virtual piano. The Grand 3 offers the sound of five legendary pianos including Yamaha C7, Steinway Model D and Bösendorfer 290 Imperial grands, as well as the Nordiska Upright and the famed Yamaha CP80 electric piano. Each piano has been recorded in first-class quality using two microphone positions, with a stand-alone mode, equalization tools, tuning editor as well as a range of technologies to enhance computer resource efficiency.

The Grand 3 supports VST3, VST2, AU and ReWire and will be available Q3 2009 for Mac OS X, Windows XP and both Windows Vista 32- and 64-bit versions.

"We set ourselves very ambitious goals during the planning and development of this product, namely to create the ultimate virtual piano suite that matches breathtakingly sound quality with additional features that make playing and using The Grand 3 perfect," comments Nadine Roos, Steinberg's Product Marketing Manager for The Grand.

The 88GB content for The Grand 3 was created using audio material in a special recording space designed specifically for the purpose. "We want to offer an unforgettable playing experience, and the content had to capture the full-length sustain and decay without use of any looped samples," says Roos. "A huge amount of effort went into creating the perfect recording environment for this library, and allowing The Grand 3 to capture the last nuance of every single note in up to 20 velocity layers in two microphone positions." Also included are sustain and sostenuto pedal support, true note resonance as well as the subtle mechanical noises of each piano, further adding to the unique tonal character of each model.

The Grand 3 also includes many features that enhance efficiency such as RAMSave and an Eco mode, as well as a special compression technology that makes installation of the full library easy and quick. A tuning editor and a full set of equalization tools are also included. The stand-alone mode includes a scratch pad to record musical ideas, as well as a metronome for playing without a host application such as Cubase 5.

Please note that these screenshots are subject to change.