Which single piano VSTi would you recommend?

[LAGinz]

What am I doing wrong? I can't get that Varisha collection to show up in Studio One 2.5.1 Prof. There's a blank looking "Player" dll that shows up with a message that says "Instruments Can't Be Found". All are in my VST folder.

[Skorpius]

What am I doing wrong? I can't get that Varisha collection to show up in Studio One 2.5.1 Prof. There's a blank looking "Player" dll that shows up with a message that says "Instruments Can't Be Found". All are in my VST folder.

Create a sub-folder in your VST folder called "Varisha". Put the "VPlayer2.dll" in that sub-folder along with another sub-folder called "VPlayer.instruments". Make sure all "mse" files are copied into the "VPlayer.instruments" folder. This should get you going.

In the unlikely case that this still doesn't work, rename the "VPlayer.instruments" folder to "VPlayer2.instruments".

[LAGinz]

Thanks, Skorpius. Got it

[Asuyuka]

Here's a pretty good freebie you may have overlooked:


Varisha Piano Collection

Soundcloud demo

That is real nice! How did this get overlooked for so long?

[Kalamata Kid]

Addictive Keys Grand is only 49.95.

Best bang for the buck you could ever get.

Gotta say this sounds very good!
http://www.xlnaudio.com/productline/2
is it $49.95?

[Skorpius]

Thanks for all your recommendations, this was very helpful!

[jsp1979]

Addictive Keys Grand is only 49.95.

Best bang for the buck you could ever get.

Gotta say this sounds very good!
http://www.xlnaudio.com/productline/2
is it $49.95?

According to the website, it is.

http://www.xlnaudio.com/products/view/35

[yessongs]

True Amber in Sonar is an included piano that I prefer now.

It is so good I don't even see a need to look for a way to improve upon it but I am planning on purchasing NI Komplete which has several pianos I would possibly like as well so I will hold on getting any others until I evaluate them.

I downloaded Varisha and it sounded pretty bad not worthy of my hard drive. Piano one and CV Piano sound better IMHO.

[syntheticillusion]

yessongs said my answer, tascam cv piano is great, mda piano is ok, flkeys uses samples from mda piano

[skarnka]

To add to what others have said there are some other pianos listed here. Some more expensive. Have you heard of Imperfect Samples Steinway Grand? The basic version is quite cheap!

[Smedberg]

Agree on Addictive Keys, a fabulous piano.
And on Pianoteq Stage...

Unless you're into classical solo pieces...

[Jake Jackson]

ps: I am not a fan of modeled pianos (like piantoteq). imo, they are not yet there if you want it to be 100% realistic.

You obviously haven't delved deep enough then. It is totally possible to make Pianoteq sound very realistic (as showcased by officially licenced Blüthner add-on and the most recent upright piano that is nothing short of superb - even without tweaking them). And TruePianos has some problems that are inherent with it being based on samples.

why is it obvious? because I do not share your preference for synthetic sounding pianos. I tried to like Pianoteq several times since modeling is great in theory for its flexibility and I believe modeling will deliver one time, but this time has not yet come ... Comnpared to the galaxy sound (or any other great sampling lib) it imo sounds toyish

Well, people are naturally going to have different tastes. But have you tried the demo of the most recent update of Pianoteq , version 4.5, which came out about two months ago? I've read several posts saying that Pianoteq has been raised to a new level with this release, and I've written similar praise myself. (I'm a fan, but I think I'm being objective here.) Try the D4 Daily Practice preset--I like it best with the reverb turned off.

Two things occur to me:
Have you spent some time experimenting with the velocity curves in Pianoteq and on your midi keyboard? My experience has been that getting the best response takes a little more time, and trial and error, than I expected. And that there may not be a single ideal combination of the software's curve and the keyboard's curve--that changing these is sometimes essential to creating a different piano sound.

The second thing may seem absurd, but: have you tried turning up the amplitude on your sound system? And possibly then changing the velocity curves and\or Dynamics settings to compensate? If it sounds toyish, something is wrong, and giving the instrument a fast run-through at a relatively low volume might explain what you are hearing.

All that said, I can understand the appeal of the Varisha piano. I like the demos. Playing it briefly but slowly, I found myself reaching the highest velocity a little too easily, and hearing the decay as being a little brief. This was while using the 64 bit version in Reaper.

[Skorpius]

To add to what others have said there are some other pianos listed here. Some more expensive. Have you heard of Imperfect Samples Steinway Grand? The basic version is quite cheap!

Thanks for this list, skarnka. However, there are some high quality pianos missing that I only recently discovered: The various (grand) pianos by UVI:

http://www.uvi.net/en/pianos-keyboards

I especially like the Baby Grand Piano. It sounds sooo natural compared to other VSTi's I've heard before. Lovely!

[CableChannel]

+1 for Pianoteq Stage. So much flexibility its incredible.

[Casiquire]

Sorry, Pianoteq just doesn't have character the way I want it. And I really don't feel like endlessly tweaking my piano settings. Quite honestly I'm a fan of QL Pianos. Tons of character, power in all the right places.