Vienna Imperial at 50% discount

Jose EB5AGV

VSL is going to end the life cycle of VI products and one of them is the Vienna Imperial

So now is on offer:

https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Keyboards_Complete/Vienna_Imperial

I should say it is one of the virtual pianos I enjoy the most. Just yesterday I had a night piano playing session with it. Is an instrument easy to get connected with, IMO

Jose

David Lai

Wow, so this library will be a thing of the past someday. That sounds like the end of an era or something. 🙂

Johnstaf

I think I paid €600 for it over a decade ago. It's a real bargain now. I think it's the best virtual piano ever made. Maybe they're replacing/updating it.

David B

Johnstaf I think it's the best virtual piano ever made.

I also think it surpasses the Synchron pianos in authenticity. I think the Synchron pianos are a step backwards in terms of realism compared the VI.

God Bless,
David

QuasiUnaFantasia

Does it allow adjusting the velocity curve? As I recall it did not originally.

jdg78

Johnstaf Maybe they're replacing/updating it.

Apparently not. Over on the VI Control boards, VSL confirmed that they have no plans to move this over to the Synchron player, and as of next year it will no longer receive updates or support for new operating systems, meaning it will become obsolete eventually.

Jose EB5AGV

jdg78 that does not bother me too much, we can still run, for example, Windows XP software in compatibility mode. So, if this software works on Windows 11, it would seem it will work for years to come.

All in all, my music PCs are mostly Windows 10 and I don't plan to change that soon 😉

pipAT

Does this mean that the product won't be activated after 2025 if dongle got broken or server got stripped down?

jdg78

Jose EB5AGV May be more relevant for Mac users (of which there are many) as they tend to be more aggressive about phasing out older operating systems.

Personally, I prefer the newer Synchron Imperial in almost every respect and don't use the older Vienna Imperial all that often, so it won't bother me much if it eventually becomes unusable on my Mac. But I know there are many users who are very devoted to this library.

jdg78

QuasiUnaFantasia Does it allow adjusting the velocity curve? As I recall it did not originally.

No, there's still no ability to set a velocity curve - you can only adjust midi sensitivity along a slider.

pianow

even though it's a great piano, i don't wanna spend anything on ot, especially since it's about to be discontinued, I mean the faawk is this strategy? , i was hoping for them to upgrade this library to be compatible with the newer synchron engine (which is a lot more powerful and complex and you can actually mix the mic positions in it and you're not stuck with a single mic perspective)

I think their synchron imperial is one of the few VERY BEST sampled piano to date (there's only a single or two competitions)

Johnstaf

The Synchron pedalling is terrible.

David B

Johnstaf The Synchron pedalling is terrible.

2sus Rules

pianow

David B
It's achievable with a good resonator (like VRM by yamaha) i mean even some very affordable piano VIs and digital pianos are using this technology and they sound very good
IMO You don't need a thousand different sample sets to be able to have a authentic piano sound especially when it's a multi-microphone piano with 100 velocity layers per note it'll be a 2TB virtual piano that no one would ever loads (but you absolutely need a high number of mic positions to be able to make the instrument fit better into different genres - more versatility)
If vsl would just improve their shitty resonance engine everything would be great even the pedaling - of course the pedaling is quite usable already but some people have problems with it and it's not because it doesn't have 2sus feature but because it doesn't have a good resonator. I think every issue that synchrons has is because of their resonance engine, i wish they'd fix it soon

pianow

Johnstaf
I've read some of your issues with their pedaling and in my humble opinion you should try some of their sympathetic resonance (which is turned off by Default), it's not great "YET" but at -5 to +10db it really affects the sound and playability and especially the pedaling
I don't have any problems with the pedalings actually
But their resonance behaviour has yet to be great

Frédéric L

pipAT VSL products use iLok nowadays. This means that your license depends more from iLok than VSL.

If the license is on a dongle, iLok sell a kind of assurance which permits you to use your product while the broken dongle is sent to iLok for an exchange.

Johnstaf

pianow I've read some of your issues with their pedaling and in my humble opinion you should try some of their sympathetic resonance (which is turned off by Default), it's not great "YET" but at -5 to +10db it really affects the sound and playability and especially the pedaling
I don't have any problems with the pedalings actually
But their resonance behaviour has yet to be great

I've tried the sympathetic resonance. The pedalling just isn't for me. Sympathetic resonance shouldn't make much difference if switching between pedal-up/down streaming works properly. I don't feel the need to use sympathetic resonance on Vienna Imperial.

pianow

Johnstaf
Yea i get it, the sym res effect on the synchrons is very subtle, and if you increase it to an effective level it'll ruin the sound itself instead of resonating with orher strings, i wish they'd just fix the damn thing, when someone pay the highest price for something on the market it means that they don't wanna be disturbed with imperfections and bugs, and vsl is one of those top tears that has lots of imperfections and bugs unfortunately

Johnstaf

pianow What's annoying is that they fixed Vienna Imperial's pedalling in 2013. They could have done the same thing with Synchron, but it was difficult with all the simultaneous mic positions. This is according to VSL themselves. They could do it if it was limited to a single position.

Vienna Imperial sounds great using MIR Pro to simulate mic positions. It's a shame they abandoned that route.

pianow

Johnstaf
I simply don't understand the philosophy behind the room mics in a virtual piano
I always use convolution reverbs such as the legendary FAB FILTER PRO R even on synchrons
Imagine use twice your ram/cpu to have some room reverb💀
And when a company compromise close mics realism for some extra room sounds? That's where I simply************************💀
Yeah, i wish they'd do something about their weird resonance and pedala behaviour
It's a shame with such luxury libraries😑