Noire

Every so often, a product comes along that makes up sit up and take notice. Noire is one of those. At first glance, you think, "Eh, yet another sampled piano, albeit well done, and complemented by its felt counterpart." All that is true, BTW. Slightly darker in tone - and thus a little rounder - than its contemporaries, there is playable consistency across its eight octaves that betrays the lengths the engineers went through to capture its essence. But, that's just the beginning.

You can also sculpt tones to your liking using the various and plentiful parameters and effects on other pages. Then, there's the creme de la creme: the Particles page. At first, I was skeptical: Why would a serious piano have a built-in creative delay/reverb-y/granular/arpeggio-type engine? It's true. Using it for classical piano tracks wouldn't work, but in context for, say, an ambient track, it fits like a glove. With Particles, its so easy to create one-chord evolving textures that it almost feels like a guilty pleasure.

In conclusion, Noire is a win-win-win situation. Kudos to its creators.