My Desert Island Piano VST - VI Labs Modern D

Jane Thanks for that, David. I can definitely improve the situation by changing those parameters. Enough so that it only occasionally bites me.

If you have Ivory 3 or Pianoteq you can determine exactly where the your pedal voltage/irregularities are occurring. Ivory 3 gives this helpful graph.

The "vertical" line currently starts at midi value 54 (just like Modern D default) and 74 at the top just as it shifts into horizontal. From 0-100% represents the full 127 midi range. The little dot at the bottom represents active pedal position. If this was a video you would notice the dot moving erratically back and forth (jittery) when the pedal is not pressed. That's because my Roland DP10 pedal doesn't work well with the my Numa. Sometimes when I press and release the pedal that little dot will not immediately go all the way to the bottom horizontal line and there will be a lingering sustain trail just like you experienced. I remedy it by adjusting that "vertical" line from 54 to 64. That solves the problem for me. You can keep increasing that a first number in the Modern D until you finally reach the point where you don't get the lingering sustains anymore. Of course, increasing the second number in proportion will keep the range the same. I've got mine setup at 64-94. I'd play around with those values a little more and you might solve your problem.

God Bless,
David

jdg78 Can you try this preset on your Numa and tell me what you think? Thanks.

jdg78

A lovely performance of my favorites from WTC Bk I. I really enjoy the accompanying fugue as well. Thanks for sharing!

jdg78
it kinda reminds me of the c.bechstein digital grand which i adore, but without some of DG's flaws.
i love how intimate it is, and the tone is super balanced to my ears, not very bright and not very dull either which is a little boring (that's a positive word among producers and sound engineers 🙂 )

sidenote : i love the interface a lot, not only because it's user friendly but it actually looks so nics

Unlike Bechstein 280 in EWQL Pianos, both C. Bechstein DG and Akoustik Pianos Berlin have thin tone. Wish the next great piano vis from VILabs or hopefully Garritan or any other promising brands, will bring some thick creamier tone like PV 300 or Kawai Legend or Embertone Walker 1955.

pianow
The Bechstein DG is really impressive in lots of ways, but I've never quite gelled with it. It's a sign of how good the Modern D is that it makes even a VI as good as the Bechstein seem a bit ordinary.

CraigNZ t's a sign of how good the Modern D is that it makes even a VI as good as the Bechstein seem a bit ordinary.

i personally think that they're not comparable at all (eventhough i'm a fan of the digital grand myself)
yea they're in the same price range but the modern d has so many more "necessary" features, all the resonances, all the pedals, all the noises, best release samples on the market
and yes the modern d is very good, undeniably underpriced for what it is (it can do what some 600$ pianos can't)

I downloaded that piano yesterday and Im not so impressive. For recording it is ok, sounds nice but not for live performance. I prefer playability of pianoteq. I can sell the license for 140 Euro.

Ambrozy17 before you give it up, try and experiment with creating a velocity curve. That’s the most important step to get any library, sampled or otherwise, to the playability you like.

Ambrozy17 I downloaded that piano yesterday and Im not so impressive. For recording it is ok, sounds nice but not for live performance. I prefer playability of pianoteq. I can sell the license for 140 Euro.

🤔

Pete14 here we are again, being suggestive with an emoji. I can hear what you’re thinking, yes, let him be converted. And no, I’m not going to let him just throw away beautifully sampled and scripted piano like that.

David B Timbre shift doesn't drop any notes in the VI Labs Modern U/D like it does in VSL Synchron products.

However it can drop the release samples of the last treble notes equipped with damper : this occurs because the notes after (without damper) are shifted down (if timbre setting is negative). So these samples don’t have any release samples and are cut abruptly as the ADSR envelop is remained unchanged (ie. release time = 0).

This is confirmed with Ravenscroft iOS (and by UVI support) but I don’t know for desktop versions.

Maybe you should not even try to check this to avoid any disappointment 😅

David B Can you try this preset on your Numa and tell me what you think? Thanks.

I like it! Very crisp and clean, close overall perspective but still with a good sense of air around the notes.

Maybe just a touch bright for me in the treble, which I why I usually set the tone knob to -1.0, but this is just a personal preference.

I'm going to keep this one saved as one of my presets - thanks.

Argyris A lovely performance of my favorites from WTC Bk I. I really enjoy the accompanying fugue as well. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks! Hard to go wrong with the WTC, and this is also one of my favorites.

jdg78 You know, maybe I'll give it a try, too. 🙂

David B I'll give it another try this weekend when I have time, David. Thanks.

FWIW, here are a couple of pics of my pedal on that graph in Ivory.

Ambrozy17 I prefer playability of pianoteq

who don't? the only thing that makes pianoteq a buy is its playability.
but me personally... i don't wanna sacrifice the sound and realism to get an extra 10 percent playability.

pianow i don't wanna sacrifice the sound and realism to get an extra 10 percent playability.

So you’ve actually gone and quantified Pianoteq’s playability?

How did you arrive at “an extra 10 percent playability;” what kind of metrics are we talkin’ here?

Pete14 Relativism, Pete. Modeled pianos are less resource intensive, the typical sizes are smaller, as you know very well (since you use modeled piano VSTs only). So he wasn't saying exactly more than 10% of playability.

That said, I agree with pianow. I wouldn't sacrifice realism of sound for that extra playability and resource saving.

For me if a sampled vi has meh tone, then it loses totally. If a sampled vi has sweet tone but unbalanced in some aspects or with extremelly huge disk footprint, it won't be opened a lot and gradually phazes out.

For a modelled vi with meh tone, I could pretend it is still learning and could be better later, and I will take advantage of its playability instead of blaming the tone.