What's your favourite, realistic Grand Piano in st2?

[The Beatsmith]

Hey

I like the steinway grand, but what's your favourite, go to piano?

The logic pro yamaha grand piano on the exs24 is also very nice.

Thanks

Edd

[harmony gardens]

My very favorite piano is "A Nice Stnwy D" from the Piano Expansion Tank. One of the child settings, "Concerto Practice" is excellent, if you back the reverb time off a bit. It has a sort of mellow tone that suits my style of playing quite well.

[Squids]

Actually, I think we did the piano for the EXS too. But, in ST2 there are a lot of really nice pianos. I like the Steinways, Kawai and the old upright is also really great. But, the Yamahas are nice as well. I like "The One" on Sonik Synth 2 and I REALLY like the concert grand on Miroslav Philharmonik which is coming out. www.philharmonik.com

[jeslipa]

I like the Shimmering Steinway from the Piano Expansion Tank, I really like the darker sound of the lower registers.

[zai]

I have been playing with "The One" for the longest time...it give me great pleasure to hear the nice sounding piano playing.

I'm "still" looking for the perfect keyboard controller that has the right sensitivity for me...using M-Audio's 88es right now, not bad...but to me, the lower register is somehow "lighter" (which produce "louder" lower notes), maybe I should lighten my playing with my left hand.

Really want to check out the new Yamaha's S90ES, or Roland's RD300SX/RD700SX.

"The One" is the one that I'm using....

Zai

[Kim Lajoie]

I like most of the pianos in Sonik Synth 2. I can't choose just one though - they all have such character that they're all useful in different situations. Sometimes I need a bright hard piano for a pop song. Sometimes I need an old beat-up piano that sounds like it's on a vinyl record from the 1920s. Last week I needed a rich mellow piano for a film I'm scoring at the moment. It's awesome that I can have such a variety of top-shelf pianos all in one place, all under my mouse.

-Kim.

[harmony gardens]

I've actually had some playability issues with The One. I loaded it up again tonight, and had the same thing happen. Sometimes if I'm playing arppegios with the sustain pedal on, I will strike a note and have it cut off really quickly. It's as if the note gets a note off message, even though the key is clearly depressed. I've had the same issue with a few of the guitar capsule sounds. Anyone else had that??

[Kim Lajoie]

Maybe you're running out of polyphony (which can cause notes to be stopped before they're finished ringing out). It might also be your MIDI controller keyboard - some (mainly older) keyboards can send "note off" or "all notes off" messages at the wrong time.

I'm guessing it's polyphony, because playing arpeggios with the sustain pedal down is a really good way to use up lots of notes. You could even be using more notes than you can hear if you're playing each note several times (going back over some notes).

-Kim.

[harmony gardens]

That's a good thought. I'll give that a try... the only thing is that if something was running out of polyphony, wouldn't it cut off a note that was sustaining, and not the most recently played note???

[Kim Lajoie]

There are a few different ways for choosing which notes to cut off. Some synth/samplers steal the oldest note. Some steal the quietest note. Some kill the lowest or highest note. Some are clever and use a combination of the above. I don't know what polyphony management system SampleTank2 uses. It's really easy to simply increase the polyphony allocation for any parts that need a lot of notes.

-Kim.

[Mr. Tunes]

my favorite piano in ST2 is the 1920's Upright, but i dont think that is a grand piano.

my family owns a Yamaha Baby Grand, it's the set of keys i learned how to play on. It was aquired in the mid 80's from a former Miss Canada pageant winner who got it as a prize. she didnt want it anymore and we gladly took it from her at a cheap price. of course, the value of it has skyrocketed since the 80s and we are quite happy about this. it is tuned every year, that's really important when you own a piano.

There are grand pianos all over ST2, SS2, Piano Collection that remind me of the real thing. they do great work at this. i'm just lacking in the controller department unfortunately with a keystation 61es

[Pete C]

'The One' is definitely the best out of ST2 and SS2. I don't bother with the rest for practicing. In a mix I like some of the others that cut through more, but for solo work 'The One' is hands down the best.

Harmony Gardens, I know exactly what you are talking about, but I have never had it happen while I am playing live. I have had it happen when I sequence sustained notes in Tracktion. During playback, the note will cut off mysteriously sometimes. However, I don't think it is just for The One. It is a general issue with the ST2 engine and Tracktion in my case.

[harmony gardens]

I tried Kim's suggestion, and it definately helped. I set the poly up to 96 and it didn't happen in an hour and a half hour of trying. I'm using an old Roland RD 300 as a controller, and have to use the tencrazy sustain fix. I'm lovin The One now! Thanks Kim.

[Kim Lajoie]

96 notes ought to be enough for anybody...

Glad you got it working, HG.

-Kim.

[Caleb]

Yeah - I always up the polyphony when dealing with any piano samplesets. It's just to easy to hit 32 even though initially that seems ludicrously big.

All you need to do is put your foot on that sustain pedal and bang! Through the roof!

Caleb