My Desert Island Piano VST - VI Labs Modern D

pianow I've given up on VSL after the Steinway… And they are more expensive than VI Labs pianos, too… So yeah.

For me, I really feel connected, that is, once I have a good curve ready. That's how I was able to make the demos.

pianow another question (if i may)
do you feel connected to the modern d?

Yes, absolutely. I feel like I can express myself entirely on it - there's little to no barrier between what my brain and fingers tell it to do and how it responds back to me.

And I know what you mean about the Synchron Steinway - there is something a little bit cold and impersonal about it. I don't get that feeling at all with the Modern D.

jdg78 a human that use spirio lol 🙂 the velocity is incredible fine🙂

David Lai I've given up on VSL after the Steinway

i fully respect your opinion, but the concert d is their worst piano, it's not fair to give up on them because of that piano
although i can fully understand you, the concert d isn't a good experience at all, like @jdg78 said, there's something impersonal about it, other synchrons are way better, especially the three bosendorfers

David Lai For me, I really feel connected, that is, once I have a good curve ready. That's how I was able to make the demos.

excellent, thanks for the reply davy

jdg78
yea there's something odd going on with the recordings of the concert d, i remember a thread in vi control, it was about "what is the best synchron" and a user (re peat) said that the concert d is somewhat poorly sampled, idk if that's true but i felt like he's the only one who hears what i hear in the samples, like you can bring the piano closer, closer and closer
from far, reverberant, and distant to unrealisfically close, muddy and unclear but never intimate and calming

I'm kinda sure the modern d doesn't have those qualities to it, cause the Same guy in the vi control said it's incredible and probably the finest sampled piano (steinway)

anyway thanks for the help, you've been incredibly helpful in my vi journey, like david lai🤍

jdg78

some engineers and audio pros say that it has a big impact on the final results, how a piano actually sounds when a human play it versus how it sounds with a robotic finger hit its keys,
I'm with them on this one actually

about consistency, i think it's more about calibration then what hitting the keys,
imagine you've sampled and scripted you virtual piano
so you find a very accurate midi output (an accurate keyboard) and put it next to the piano itself
then you start playing lots of different pieces on both and at rhe Same time you try to make the virtual one response closer to the actual thing
until there's next to no difference, that's how i would do it of course (idk what vi labs has done but I'm sure they calibrated it somehow)

jdg78 same feeling here 🙂

OlivierW yes it's the fist VST/AU that don't need velocity fix.

jdg78 I don't find much need to adjust the velocity curve settings as it plays very well right out of the box on my Numa X GT.

This is interesting. My impressions are that the N1X and the Numa X GT are quite different in velocity respons especially regarding how easy/hard it is to reach the highest velocity values, but I might be wrong. Maybe @David B or @CyberGene could fill in on that as you own/have owned both pianos? Maybe a well made product as the modern D has a greater tolerance and feels natural on a greater variety of midi keyboard with different midi responses than other pianos?

jdg78 To be honest, I'm not sure what advantage this would bring since the only thing a human could introduce is greater inconsistency

I agree. I'm thinking using built in player systems such as Disklavier or Spirio should be optimal to reach consistent velocity response in a sampling process.

johanibraaten This is interesting. My impressions are that the N1X and the Numa X GT are quite different in velocity respons especially regarding how easy/hard it is to reach the highest velocity values, but I might be wrong.

To be fair, when I first got the Numa X GT, I spent quite a bit of time adjusting the touch response to fit my own personal preferences. One of the big advantages of this model is that it's possible to make precise adjustments to the touch sensitivity and midi output of each individual key so that you can effectively regulate the entire keyboard however you'd like.

Since doing this, I find that I don't need to adjust the velocity response of individual off-board instruments quite as much as I used to, though some still require a bit of additional intervention.

Ah I see. Of course, that seems like a logical explanation. I’m used to my my N1 that doesn’t seem to change the midi output when the internal touch sensitivity is changed so I always have to adjust in the external software.

johanibraaten There's always this balancing act, it looks like -- either modify the keyboard, or adjust the software. For me, I prefer adjusting from the hardware part as not all software UI is natively accessible.

Do we have already any convention in which are the best settings (on headphones at least)? Like Modern U Thread

I am enjoying too much this library for the past days, can't go back to any other, feels so good, but wondering which settings are using everybody

Infinito

Infinito I keep going back between the close + player, side + player, side + room, reverb on / off, ETC. I haven't settled on anything. All to me are good.

this afternoon, after i got free from work i went back to the old native instruments maverick
and oddly enough i enjoyed it more then ever after dialing it a bit
i asked myself how close the modern d can be (given the fact that they're two completely different pianos, one is modern other is vintage, one is a semi concert grand, other's a 9 foot one, but anyway... what do you guys think about similarities?
the grandeur and maverick are still some of the best pianos around imo

pianow I love the grandeur and how it was prepared and sampled. But The maverick has some tuning issues. However, since it's a vintage, restored instrument, we can be gentle about it.

My main concern, though, is still that both instruments do not contain una corda samples, this gives Modern D the edge of being more fully featured. And with more velocity layers and detail, the Modern D also has a better response.

David Lai
of course, i was thinking about the sound of these instruments actually
how the grandeur and maverick compare to the modern d sound wise?

i know about the feature set

btw the grandeur was my first piano that has sampled resonances, i used to adore this thing, i still love it of course but it was a romantic relationship back in the day
it sounds GOOD
and one of the reasons i love vsl imperial is that it has a similar tone and the recording techniques are very close in my opinion
but what about the MD
how close is it?

pianow Well, I'm a bit limited in time, but I'll let a blind comparison help me speak.

Someone on VI Control posted the following demo. They tried matching the response curves between the 7 libraries. They recorded a midi and copied it 7 times and pasted with different piano VIs. Have fun listening

vst-steinway-comparisons.mp3

Featured libraries:

Ivory II American D

Session Keys Grand S

NI The Grandeur

VI Labs True Keys American

Pianoteq 8 NY Steinway D

IK-M Pianoverse NY Grand S274

Cinesamples Piano in Blue

The tone similarities are ordered. Happy listening!

Note, this was posted by someone else, not my playing.

David Lai

thank davy, i saw this on the VIC forum but idk why i don't have access to the website
i never had actually

pianow OK, just a moment. I'm making a "blind listen review" file. I'll post it here shortly.