My Desert Island Piano VST - VI Labs Modern D

Pete14 it might need/use some help in the resonance department?”

To some people, yes. But IMHO (there, satisfied?), no. Because they've captured the flowing,-like feel of resonances through sampling the real thing. I don't know how they do it without the attack, but they surely provide me with a great emulation, and that's what I'm looking for -- the representation of the acoustic D. Unlike sampled resonances, modeled ones sound dead, just a wall of sound. So, it doesn't need help, IMHO, and I agree with VI Labs, the developer.

Anyone else noticed the higher you play the more dead the piano sounds? the notes decay so fast, maybe it's a problem with my setup, or a problem with the sampled piano, I'm hoping it's just a bug, the lower registers and from middle C upwards to around A all sing, from B upwards and all the way up, so much decay. 😒

SH4DOW No, the sustain is long enough, and typical of Steinway pianos. The higher you go, the shorter the sustain is, and when you reach the undamped strings, the sustain is even shorter. That's how acoustic pianos work.

It really feels like the hammer is coming down on the string and muting it too soon, happens when I hold the key down with and without the damper 🤷

I've tried a lot of VSTs the behaviour is not normal compared to those. I haven't played an acoustic grand so I cannot directly compare to that.

The notes disappear so fast with the damper pedal down. 😒 😓

SH4DOW The notes disappear so fast with the damper pedal down.

Maybe that's your setup, but the notes, along with the resonances, actually sustain longer and fade out slowly. The bigger the concert grand (in this case, being a 9-foot Steinway), the more this effect is pronounced. As a person who's played acoustic concert grands before and majoring in piano, I can tell you that the Modern D behaves just like an acoustic piano.

You can hear it here, don't pay any attention to the playing, I've only been playing for 2 years.

SH4DOW

can you upload an example? play a few notes maybe?

pianow

I've got a Vod that's timestamped from twitch awaiting approval atm, I will record something that better shows what I'm experiencing and upload to youtube and link it here after I've cooked and eaten.

David Lai

can you upload an example davy? some sustain notes with and without the pedal
I'd appreciate it

pianow

David Lai

Okay, a better video showing how quick the notes decay, not sure if it's normal or not 😅 🤷
Without Damper Pedal and With.

Everything Default.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA9zL-Fo7I4

In a real-life grand piano the uppermost 15-16 keys don't have dampers at all: pedal up or pedal down, the decay is absolutely the same.

SH4DOW it's like my real Grand Piano with fast and regulated dampers + right releases like real piano. with fast a right behaviour. With my midi Keyboard / N1X : no problem. Great release feeling and i've a grand Piano too. great real Steinway Staccato's

Try with player C414 mic + Room Mic : the sound will be better too

SH4DOW i've found : Set key noises to 0 dB. By default is off.

just set on Key noise to 0dB and use Play C414 mic : you will feel better

@vilabs : set default preset with Player C414 et Key noises on, i find it's a better default preset

CyberGene the sound from the distant mics was somehow compensated for the delay of the distant mics.

I believe that is what VI Labs call "phase aligning" all of their mic pairs. And it works beautifully.

Out of curiosity I once did a test (with Modern U as the piano):

At my piano I have four Wharfedale Diamond speakers, the upper pair gets the close mics, the lower pair gets the soundboard mics. Works splendidly.

So I thought: Well, what about those room mics. My TV and hi-fi, between two and three metres away in the same room, also have a pair of Diamonds. So I sent Modern U's room mics to that speaker pair. As one would expect over that distance, the resulting experience was very weird with the phase/time differences resulting from that two to three meter distance. It wasn't pretty 😋 so end of test; back to four speakers.

Cheers and happy experiments,

HZ

vagfilm I'm aware of that thanks.

I guess I expected more natural sustain from a 200k instrument in the upper registers, never noticed that short of a decay using other VST's like Garritan CFX, Pianoteq etc…. good to know it's normal for an acoustic to lack any sustain really in the upper 40% of the keys, maybe it's just Steinways as the Garritan Yamaha CFX doesn't have this note decay as drastic from what I can remember.

OlivierW Thanks for the information, I will give those a try when I next sit down at the Piano.

Messed around some more, sounds getting a little better for my taste.
https://www.youtube.com/live/mXk1zPmN6Yw?si=m_ewZoEBb-HF3Ibc&t=10222

SH4DOW Glad to hear it. Yes, this is a very faithful presentation of a New York Steinway. Remember to play around different microphones, adjust the resonances, ETC. You'll be able to find a good sound and play. Save a preset for yourself, or a daw project, and then you're good to go.

SH4DOW
that's actually completely normal, idk what to say

sometimes used pianos has a more complex sustain, and longer decay
but this one is brand bew (the steinway they've sampled is)
so it's normal

SH4DOW never noticed that short of a decay using other VST's like Garritan CFX, Pianoteq

well not only that garritan is a cfx (so there's no logical reason for a direct comparison to the steinway d)
but it's also a somewhat used piano, they've recorded thousand of things with it before sampling it so that's to be expected
as i said the modern d is a sampled version of a very new and fresh steinway d

about the pianoteq, that thing isn't natural when it comes to decay, you can play a chord in the lower octaves and you'll see

dickiefunk i can run 3 mics , just change the Memory buffer in UVI workstation. Run wirh 3% CPU on my m2 Mac.