My Desert Island Piano VST - VI Labs Modern D

OK, so, despite being very tired, I decided to test it 😀

I've been playing with it for the last one hour and I can say this is maybe even better than my favorite Garritan CFX. I need some time with it to be able to declare it as a clear winner but there are aspects of it which are obviously better. I've been thoroughly enjoying it, it's the missing Steinway library I've always dreamed of. Kudos to VI Labs.

I created my own preset after some tweaking, also a touch curve for the N1X and it's absolutely majestic 👏🏻

However, there's a bug with half-pedaling that I will report in more details to VI labs tomorrow and can record a MIDI for them to test. But shortly: I have re-pedaling and half-pedaling enabled, then I play a loud and short bass note, release it, then catch it with a fully pressed pedal towards the end of its release, not immediately. Then I slowly release the pedal and at the start of the half-pedaled region there's an unnatural volume increase, I guess the half-pedaled mapping is not good and restarts from an earlier (louder) region.

My piano playing is extremely rusty, I've not been playing a lot recently, and I haven't played my beloved Scriabin for maybe months, so I almost completely forgot the pieces I knew, but here's the first part of a Poeme that I used to play. Had to play it for 10 minutes to remember it and it's still bad and not very smooth but you can hear the preset I created and like:

scriabin-poeme-incomplete-modern-d-normalized.mp3

On the VI-Control Forum, there's a post for Roland users, and I quote:

"For any Roland users with this, just for reference.

Use "Light Touch 1" in the GUI for PHA-50.

Use " Light Touch 1" or "Light" inside the digital piano itself (FP 30 x, RD-88 etc) for PHA-4."

Hope this helps!

CyberGene The half pedaling is indeed something they need to fix IMO. I've reported bugs before, and they've improved since their first bata version in May-ish.

Jose EB5AGV

I already missed you in this topic, hoped you'd hop by ☺️.

Cheers!

HZ

I'll let you in on an interesting detail. Listen to this recital I played 2 years ago with the Steinway serial number 613699. This sampled Steinway D has the serial number 616803. Do you hear the closeness between the 2 instruments?

Well All,

It's several hours past my intended bedtime but I've gone through all David's (and the other two) demos and the (very well done) hour-long walkthrough video.

I have to think a bit about the finances so cannot jump on it like many of you/us have already done this afternoon/evening.

But from what I've heard and seen so far, I'd say they once again have knocked out of of the park. By a country mile.

Cheers and good night,

HZ

Pete14 I do wonder how this VST would sound with Pianoteq providing the resonances (as a plug in)?

i think the ptq resonances are quite powerful, one of the best in the industry, the vilabs sampled resonances on the other hand are... not subtle but in the background of the notes (which i think true to the physics of the piano they've sampled, but anyway it's in the background at 0db, where with the ptq sympathetic resonance set at 75% you can drown the piano in soundboard reverberations

i personally like both of them tbh.

David Lai

yea, you know that I've been begging for a decent virtualized ny steinway d, and there aren't many around, so I'm very happy with the release.

i think at this point vsl is behind by a country mile, they are for sure the most expensive piano VIs on the market & have a few hundreds of GBs worth of samples (with the lossless compression💀) but no una corda, no resonances, no silent key, it's not right...

and one more thing that grabbed my attention in the vilabs videos was the fact that they care so much about the details, like how perfect their tuning and preparations are, and the importance of having una corda samples instead of some eq effect,

where the vsl simply push the pianos under some mics without any preparation and correct tunings, they record 80-100 layers per key but they don't have una corda and they think it rarely used🥴🥴🥴

I'd say this very clearly, if vsl would release another piano with their old recipe (tons of gb and samples without una corda and resonances), I'm not gonna buy it, especially when something this good (modern d) is around for a lot less money.
same goes for most brands these days, please LEARN FROM VI LABS

For people who may have trouble accessing the demos, Lance from VI Labs has kindly provided a link for us to download the demos at their original uncompressed WAV format. He gave me permission to post this link here, that's why I'm sharing it.

Have fun listening!

pianow I'd say this very clearly, if vsl would release another piano with their old recipe (tons of gb and samples without una corda and resonances), I'm not gonna buy it, especially when something this good (modern d) is around for a lot less money.

I agree. Another thing about this Modern D -- you can make it sound echoy and in a hall, or close and clear. I think they did a good job making it versatile.

David Lai

yea, being able to put it in different arrangements is an important aspect of an instrument, i believe there are a few (very little number of) virtual pianos that can be useful in different mixes, most virtual Pianos are there for a specific genre, and that's not how a real piano behaves, especially when it's a world class 180-250k$ steinway d, you can sit behind a real D and play everything, and that's what 99.999% of virtual instruments lack

I think/hope that the modern d is in that 0.001%

i can surly say that the ravenscroft was, it was indeed a VERY versatile instrumen.

Now that I'm home from work I was able to download the Modern D and have been playing around with it for about an hour. My first impression is that they've really knocked it out of the park, and it's pretty much exactly what I was hoping it would be.

First and foremost, the playability is fantastic. No surprise here, given the excellence of the Modern U, but I'm glad it lives up to expectations. My own personal acid test for any VST is how it responds to soft, pianissimo playing - if it picks up all the nuances and gradations and still remains expressive within a narrow dynamic range. This one passes with flying colors and really feels alive to the touch at all dynamic levels. And the una corda samples are absolutely gorgeous - the best I've heard from any VST.

The piano itself has an almost perfect middle-of-the-road tone - not overly hard or steely as the VSL D-274 has a tendency towards, but also not as soft-edged and lacking in bite as the Ivory 3 German D can be. The tone changes appropriately to the touch, and I think a lot of people are going to be very happy with this sound profile.

The recording is very clear and detailed, if not quite as deep or polished as VSL (though to be fair, that is an extremely high bar to clear). If I could make one critique it would be that the raw base recording sounds just the slightest bit boxy and constrained to me, though it may be that I just need to play around more with the microphone blend and reverb settings as I've really only scratched the surface here. But it certainly sounds and feels extremely real - like being in a small studio with an actual piano in front of you.

Anyway, I'm sure it will take some time to find my ideal sound settings and velocity curve, etc, but on first encounter I think this is going to be a real winner.

jdg78 Your review matches my feelings very much!!! I suggest you try different mics. The close and side mics combined would give you some rich bass plus great clarity.

jdg78 The tone changes appropriately to the touch

that part i think is because of human sampling, there wasn't any robots or native midi systems involved, it's a human hand that in my opinion is the best way to sample any kind of virtual instrument, with vsl steinway the hardest and the softest parts are way above and below what a human can reach when playing a real piano, but it still rendered in 0-127 velocity, means that when you play mf it sounds like f (forte💀)
and when you play mp it sounds like p, worse when you reach the edges like fff or ppp, it sounds unrealistically loud or quiet.
and that's because the extended velocities that aren't realistic at all, but with modern u, it's all human. so the entire dynamic range is usable and realistic.

pianow Yeah, and interestingly, all other instruments VSL sampled with people playing them, except pianos…

jdg78 if not quite as deep or polished as VSL (though to be fair, that is an extremely high bar to clear). If I could make one critique it would be that the base recording sounds just the slightest bit boxy and constrained to me

actually the amount of unnecessary samples that vsl have, and the super processed samples (especially with their steinway) made it unusable for me.

in my opinion, "enough" is far better then "a lot". especially when you get enough of every aspect instead of a lot of one area.

about that boxy bass, i think it has something to do with the 9foot concert grand being recorded in a studio (instead of a large hall)
although you're right, other mic positions are potentially capable of solving that problem.

David Lai
imagine they create a robot that can move a bow🥴😂

jdg78 but also not as soft-edged and lacking in bite as the Ivory 3 German D can be

interesting, in the demos i find the ivory 3 to be quite hard sounding, it almost felt like the steinway version of the vsl cfx (bright and loud but not as ringy as the vsl d274)

but maybe playing it is different.

looks like the repeat (user) from the vi control is finally impressed with a virtual piano, and if you read some of his/her comments about most modern vst pianos you'd know that it's quite unusual, this guy look at vsts quite technically so his opinions are very valuable to me.

David Lai a link

damn, it sounds wonderful, kinda like (not sampled but a) recorded piano, easily the most convincing piano vst on the market.

bro @David Lai are you Asian? i mean you look like an Asian boy, it's nice to actually see you🤍 the demos were wonderful well done