My Desert Island Piano VST - VI Labs Modern D

David Lai

well, it's good to know because I'm from iran and it's nice to see other people from Asia in here🤍 nice to meet you sir, you're an outstanding olayer

pianow Thank you! I hope there can be relative peace where you are so you can enjoy great piano VSTs like the Modern D. 🙂

David Lai

oh i enjoyed the hell outt of every single one actually🤍

pianow Good to know! 🙂

David Lai I suggest you try different mics. The close and side mics combined would give you some rich bass plus great clarity.

Okay, I take back what I said about the slight boxiness to the sound. After playing around some more, the flexibility that you can create in the sound is quite amazing. I hadn't realized initially that there are actually 5 microphone positions (Hammers, Close, Player, Side, and Room), and you can achieve a really clear, natural sound depending on which combo you choose. Also the tone and timbre knobs can alter the tone quite drastically while still sounding believably real. It's rather like Noire in this respect.

I also have to say that the factory presets are very well executed and really show off the range of what it's capable of sound-wise.

jdg78 that’s why I said that this VST is my desert island piano VST. I feel like I have all that I need with this library.

pianow 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.

Actually, Ivory 3 is pretty flexible tone-wise so you can make it sound more or less hard depending on the settings. But by default, its basic tone isn't nearly as hard and bright as the VSL Steinway.

In any case, after comparing them back-to-back, I think the Modern D is actually a lot closer to Ivory 3 tone-wise. But the Modern D doesn't have that slight synthetic twang that you can sometimes detect in the Ivory 3, and its tone seems a touch more focused to me. Though Ivory 3 feels a touch smoother and more even overall.

Both of them are really excellent though.

jdg78

their mic selection is excellent
they're more focused on the piano itself rather than the room reflections and reverberations,
i can see myself using every single mic they have, the room mics are very user friendly when there's only a single one of them around😂 (looking at you vsl, 5 different room mics plus a room mix?)

jdg78

i don't think that I'd purchase the ivory, at least not while something outstanding like the modern d is around

but still thank you for giving me some information about it

David Lai

something that is equally playable and good sounding
with every single necessary feature.
i think most people can see this lib as their one final pvi purchase (including me)

the desert island is an interesting way to address it, i remember you said it in my "top 5" thread, you were talking to the hz, he said that he only has a single vi that he loves and that's modern u
you said something like: I'm happy to see you've find your desert island vst im still searching for mine

the question is, were you testing the modern d when you said that? hmmm??? liar?😂

pianow haha, at that time, if I remember correctly it was four or five months ago, probably no. My testing process began early July if I remember correctly.

David Lai

David lai you're a traitor and nothing will ever change that😂🤍

i hope they'd use your help with their next pianos as well
i think some of the best parts of the modern d is because of you and your opinions on the first versions.

@David Lai hope you are getting commission. I wonder how many of us bought it because of your recommendation.

Any strategies or suggestions on how to setup the velocity curve. It either feels too muted or too bright in the mid velocity ranges, can't get it feeling right. I've tried using the midi response and also playing around with the curve on my keyboard. Not sure I understand exactly what the gain response curve is doing.

Kawai ES8

Saw this now, very cool! Great job with the demos @David Lai , beautiful playing!

Irmin Not sure I understand exactly what the gain response curve is doing.

It applies different (than the recorded) volume for the velocity layers. To understand it, let’s assume for a moment that they recorded 127 separate velocity layers. Each one has a different timbre and different volume. You can assign one layer to each MIDI velocity.

The curve on the left will reassign those layers to different MIDI values depending on the curve.

However, if you think that you like the timbre change but don’t like the volume change, you can change it with the curve on the right. If you make it a horizontal line, this will effectively make it a completely compressed piano sound where ppp and fff will sound with the same volume but preserve the timbre change from soft to bright.

A huge grand piano has huge dynamic response because of a big and heavy action. However, a light DP action when controlling these samples may lead to unnaturally jumpy volumes since the light DP hammers can’t be used in that grand, they wouldn’t reach the highest velocities. In this case you can compress slightly the dynamic range of the samples but preserve the timbre variation. Please note that this type of per-sample compression is more effective and natural than audio compression since the latter will dynamically affect the entire piano sound, altering everything simultaneously whereas the per-sample gain applies constant correction only to the specific sample.

David Lai Although I haven't tried it yet, after listening to your performance on youtube and knowing how much you enjoy it, I'm sure that I will also like this virtual instrument. 😊

one of the things that really stood up to me (at first) was the interface, although I've been waiting for their next release for quite a while but at the same time i was expecting a somewhat similar interface to the ravenscroft, an outdated picture of the piano from above where you can only see the soundboard and the keys which i don't like at all
but they've surprised me with the new kinda graphics, i know it sounds odd but i feel better when i can see the actual instrument that I'm playing, the side picture of their beautiful modern steinway d is truly inspiring to me.

another great thing about the interface is that everything is in the main page, you must have something very specific in mind to reach other pages, like tuning, or something like adjusting the velocity curve (a once in a lifetime adjustment)

everything else is right there in the main page, i love this design, it's truly user friendly

Irmin Any strategies or suggestions on how to setup the velocity curve. It either feels too muted or too bright in the mid velocity ranges, can't get it feeling right. I've tried using the midi response and also playing around with the curve on my keyboard. Not sure I understand exactly what the gain response curve is doing

you must first find out what midi value your keyboard sends with every strike, for some keyboards the edges ( around 10 - 0 and 120 - 127) are not very well implemented, so you should bring the 127 point to the 120 so you can easily reach the higher volumes (it's your own journey with your keyboard)

about the gain curve,

imagine you have changed the velocity curve so that when you play mezzo forte it sounds like mezzo piano, so there's a drop in volume as well, but maybe you want it to sound as loud but with a softer timber so you boost the gain curve in the exact area
so when you play mezzo piano, it's louder like the mezzo forte but not as harsh or bright.

i hope it helped (i was going to cancel my comment half way through😂 it's hard to explain really)

pianow

in extreme cases, sometimes i love to compress the volume of the dynamic range so i can play soft parts faster and easier

so i boost the gain curve quite drastically

Hi,

Can the Modern D have the same magical bell sound of the Steinway on this type of piece where you weigh every note and every note?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUw9Mc-rxpM

Regards,

Olivier F