Best iOS piano

[audiob0t]

My girlfriend is currently using a Yamaha KX8 as a piano controller, connected to a laptop running a piano VST via a host.
The laptop setup is overkill frankly for her needs and I was thinking about replacing it with our iPad 1.

Can anyone recommend a decent (acoustic) piano app? Have Garageband already, but was wondering if there were any nicer sounding alternatives. I presume sampletank has a good grand piano, but I'd have to consider installing a 750 MB soundset just for the piano.

I know there are piano specific apps such as Pianist Pro and 50-in-1 Piano, but not sure if these are geared more towards learning as opposed to being focused on sound quality.

Your opinions are appreciated.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

I presume sampletank has a good grand piano, but I'd have to consider installing a 750 MB soundset just for the piano.

Might be worth it though... And this is the same controller, coincidentally

[UltraJv]

Seems to me that the ipad as a piano would be overkill. I think youll just exchange one set of problems for another set AND have to pay for the privilege. If it aint broke, dont fix it.

[audiob0t]

Seems to me that the ipad as a piano would be overkill. I think youll just exchange one set of problems for another set AND have to pay for the privilege. If it aint broke, dont fix it.

Fair point... though just to clarify, we do own the iPad already. It wouldn't be devoted to being a piano of course, just used for that purpose when she wanted to play. If by paying you meant the software, it's not really an issue at $10 or so for the cost of an app.

The reason I want to get rid of the laptop is because its old and clunky, has a long bootup time and requires starting a sequencer and then loading a song to get the vst up and running. Not very conducive to spontaneous playing, in the sense of "sitting down at the piano"...

My thought was, with the iPad already charging close to the keyboard anyway, just connecting it and firing up an app would be much quicker and less fiddly. Not to mention being a cleaner solution, taking up less space, etc.

[UltraJv]

I meant having to buy midi connectors to connect to ipad and a quality piano app if there is one. YMMV.

[audiob0t]

I meant having to buy midi connectors and an app. YMMV.

Ah i see... I do have the camera connection kit which seems to work fine with my own keyboard controller, so I should be ok from that perspective.

[conundrum]

A piano app isn't likely to have nearly as much polyphony as a laptop with a VST.

[darsho]

are there any modeled pianos on the iPad, like pianoteq as a VSTi ?

[jkhanhl]

I had a similar desire to get a good MIDI piano set up - I used to use a Yamaha piano module back in the day. After trying Garage Band a few piano specific apps (only one I remember is Real Piano HD Pro), I settled on Sample Tank. Greatest sounds and varieties available.

[Scott Murrell]

---I dont think the iPad is meant for extremely accurate reproductions of much of anything especially pianos or complex string sections. It does a very good job of doing this on a very limited scale but there's just simply not enough memory to allocate to huge samples crossfaded and set up like you can do in a computer environment. One thing too, even with the memory constraints of the iPad some of the sound has to be attributed to having a great controller that allows for articulations of the sounds better. also if the controller action feels like a real piano there's the psychological aspect too.
If an app developer would make a piano app that only has one sound and not divide up the memory with strings, voices, etc...maybe then it might be a little better but couldn't be much better.
I agree about Sampletank but then again an expensive high quality controller would be an important part of that experience. I have the version for my laptop and with a crappy controller it doesn't sound that great either...

[audiob0t]

A piano app isn't likely to have nearly as much polyphony as a laptop with a VST.

possibly, but the laptop currently dedicated to the piano is quite old with only 256 MB of RAM... the same as my iPad (1st gen).

Anyway, thanks for the responses; so far it looks like there really isn't any hidden gem that I'm missing here.

[ObiWonder]

iRig MIDI with SampleTank is a great option for what your looking for. You can even charge your iPad while using it as a piano sound module with SampleTank for iPad.

[iPlogger]

I am interested in this as well. What other apps out there have good piano sounds. I do have SampleTank which is by far, the best piano I've heard on the iPad, but in some ranges, at certain velocities, there are tings that stand out when I'm playing quietly/softly. Like the sample at that velocity is not clean. Could be an iPad thing, I don't know. But I ended up not relying on it for live work. GREAT for home practice, though.

In the end, I did end up buying a new rackmount synth instead (Yamaha Motif-XS Rack). Which I have just been floored with. But for quick practicing SampleTank works really well. I layered LushXpander pad on top of the rock piano and it sounds really nice. But my iPad 1 just can't handle the two sounds at once, so I get crackles every once in a while. Someday I hope to upgrade to a new iPad and try all this out again.

[gdog]

Pianist Pro by Moocow

[grb]

This works pretty well with soundfonts, and has just got an update to work in the background...

http://www.bismark.jp/bs-16i/

http://itunes.apple.com/app/bs-16i/id388149926?mt=8



grb.


+ I did buy Sampletank recently, and then found you have to spend more to actually use all the instruments listed in the app (you get 7 pianos, 2 of which are ok, the rest are extras)