Best Stand Alone-Piano VST?

[Aloysius]

Best Stand Alone-Piano VST?
What happens if you join a group?
Then you won't be standing alone anymore.

[LordDivine]

Pianoteq, Keyscape and Addictive Keys are all solid options in my opinion.

But honestly, a lot also depends on the mix itself — EQ, stereo processing, saturation, compression, reverb etc.

Even a decent piano VST can sound much more alive with good processing and proper mixing.

[jlgrimes11]

Every piano VST I have as part of a package is lifeless and muddy. Does anyone know a good grand piano vst that I can buy as a stand-alone VST? Or a free one if there is one? I'm dying for lack of a good piano sound in my soft synth kit.

This is highly subjective but my favorites would be:


1. NI Grandeur. NI as a company gets a bad Rap but pianos is something they do a decent job on. I wouldn't necessarily say this is the best piano ever but it is workable and a good all arounder. I don't really have much complaints with this piano. Good response. Good overall sound. In terms of a Music Hardware workstation piano, it is a step above that but probably not by much, but very workable. Release times feel very natural and generally works decent if you need something with bite.

2. Pianoteq. I think this sounds great and probably fool most people in thinking its a piano. Some people don't like the "modelled" sound. It is there a bit but I think the average listener won't tell. For live performance, this plug in is king. If you need more "bite" though maybe this isn't the number 1 piano as I think most of these work better for ballads.

3. Keyscape. The piano in here is somewhat controversial. I would be the first to admit, its release times are very short, it wont work for everyone, but in certain situations live it works wonders. They especially work great for very large reflective rooms (where the ambience in other piano libraries can drown out in a mix). Maybe for studio use though I would pick something else but for Live church settings, this could be a first contender. Piano also can work well if you need an agressive sound that cuts through. Wouldn't pick this for a ballad though as the release times feel unnatural.

[DrOcsid]

Korg SGX-2 is surprisingly good and it's my current go-to pick up and play with piano plugin. (Their EP-1 is great too but that's for electric pianos.)

UAD's Ravel is nice but it's a bit mellower-sounding than I prefer.

[djanthonyw]

I haven't found anything I like more than Noire. I consider it the ultimate VI piano, and I actually prefer having a Kontakt library instead of individual plugins for acoustic sounds.