Ivory III American Concert D Review and Test

Jane I don't think I've got the Modern D pedal settings quite right for this track, but most of it is close.

The airy and more resonant tone of the Ivory sounds good for this Chopin piece, but you can't really turn that off, and I think it would be wearisome for everyday playing (for me). It's similar to the Garritan CFX. Sounds good recorded, but I wouldn't want to play it everyday.

The Modern D also sounds good with this piece in a warm tone that is very clean and intimate. It sounds like I'm sitting in your living room listening to you play this. That's cool because you can add reverb to make it sound like you're playing in a cathedral if you want. The versatility of the Modern D with its warm and clear tone makes it a winner for me.

If I had to choose between the Ivory 3 German and American D, I think the American D might sound better to my ears. I'd have to A/B compare them while playing to know for sure.

Thanks for sharing.

God Bless,
David

How did they get multiple mic perspectives? The original Ivory II version of ACD only has the one, and as far as I understand, the Ivory III version uses the same samples. Did they record additional perspectives in the session that captured the original samples and just not include them until now? Unless I missed something, the website text just glosses over this.

Modern D is sampled with 39 mics, yet only 5 best stereo signs of them are selected. Rumors has it that Synthogy like Galaxy pianos developers refused to use multi mic in final products at that time when some developers were releasing multi mic products. Time passes, technology improves. They came to think of good use of the undisclosed material maybe. It is all my guess. Well, by checking the specs of Ivory II and Ivory III American, I found the latest is smaller in size with four mics. So they might have compressed data this time.

Argyris
perhaps they mixed them all together for the final product (ACD ii)
doing such thing was quite normal back then

David Lai many thanks. You save my money. great review. Now i use Midern D each dayx, with PLAYER C414 + room MICS, i think that they are the best mics in MODERN D to have the Steinway magical Bell. But sorry MODERN D sound like a nice Hamburg Steinway. And modern D tuning is incredible. they have just to fix the wrong Sympathetic resonance when you release pedal within keys still down (Ivory 3 do that right) and MODERN D will be perfect. And the releases are much better in Modern D. yes

pipAT Makes sense, and it wouldn't be the first time Synthogy would have done something like this. The three pianos in Ivory II were updated versions of the original releases dating back to the mid-2000s, just with additional velocity layers that were recorded at the time but not included in the original release.

This reminds me of what Kurzweil did with the (in)famous triple strike piano, having recorded the base samples in the mid-80s and then going on to include better and more complete versions of the basic piano patch in their instruments as the years went by.

And now that I'm looking into it a bit further, this isn't coincidence. As I just discovered in an old SOS article about Ivory I, the same man who created the piano samples for Kurzweil, Joe Ierardi, is the one who started Synthogy. It makes sense that he would use the same technique of sampling more than needed, with future implementations in mind.

David Lai I'd like to thank a fellow member on here, a fellow poster on these threads who wishes to remain anonymous. Earlier today, they offered to pay for my Ivory III ACD upgrade

👍 To (@)Anonymous!!

Cheers and happy generosity,

HZ

Thank you both @David Lai and @Jane for your excellent showcase of these two pianos. Beautiful playing and great selection of repertoire.

My initial impression gravitates towards the overall tone and voicing of original instrument behind the Ivory III ACD. I think it sounds more open and "free". I agree with David though that the release sounds better on the modern D. In the first Beethoven sonata it sounds like there is a slight tuning issue on Ab5 and maybe even on neighboring Bb5 on the modern D? However, being an older instrument there seems to be more general inharmonicy when notes start to interact on the Ivory III ACD, as in the chords built up in "the girl with the flaxen hair". In the Chopin nocturne in E flat I like both instruments. The modern D has a lovely intimacy but the voicing of the Ivory III makes for a most expressive midrange where the modern D sounds I bit colder. In the Chopin Barcarolle I love the "woodymess" of Ivory III in the initial trills and chords where the Modern D sounds more artificial to me. I this piece I think I prefer the treble on the modern D though where the Ivory III also sound beautiful but has a slight "glassiness" to it. When the bass theme comes in octaves it seems that the pedaling in the Ivory III is more nuanced.

Anyway, this is just my initial impressions after having listened with AirPods Pro on a train😀 Thank you both, to me this is very interesting, not least to get familiar with the sound of American Steinways.

i think Modern D is more intimate, and if you use only Player C414 + Room mics, you have the advantage of side A of IVory III + better definition / emotion :

ModernD : Player C414 + Room

cinema-paradiso.m4a

OlivierW

Lovely, Olivier!

HZ

Hi friends,

I posted the review to VI Control as well, and someone was questioning if I was biased toward the Modern D. Indeed, the tests that I was doing may have given the upper hand to it, but I certainly wasn't doing this on purpose. That said, what's more challenging them was that they didn't hear the hiss.

So I isolated the microphones and did a short recording. The first half, I play a chromatic scale in the 4 different mic positions. Then I did a midi rendering of the 3 new mic positions playing the same chromatic scale, pedal up and pedal down, followed by an excerpt from a Chopin prelude.

You tell me if you can hear it, but I hear the hiss both on my headphones and monitors. Hope this will help answer my questions. I'm not giving any bias to any libraries in question.

Original FLAC converted to 320 KBPS mp3.

Cheers,

David

ivory-iii-american-d-hiss.mp3

i can safely say that i enjoy the ACD more then the modern d
it sounds very warm and dreamy, there's a certain warmth in it (i think the first and second harmonics are a bit louder and that's what gives this piano such great sound) that touches my bones

it's not like i think the MD is bad, not at all it's a great instrument and it's better in some areas
but when it comes to sound, i can't help the fact that i always enjoy older pianos more

but i'm still waiting, the market is getting bigger and bigger by day so maybe there will be better things in the near future, but if had to choose between the two (it's very difficult) i'd go with the ivory i think
cause the noise level doesn't bother me (i'm not very sensitive to background noise unless it's too much - but i'm completely fine with something like NOIRE)
and i really don't mind the resonances being sampled or modeled (as long as i get resonances - i'm looking at you vsl)
the only problem i have with the ACD (or any ivory piano in general) is the way they handle release samples, it's fake and unrealistic
if RS was ok with the ivory i wouldn't hesitate to get it, but now i'm quite confused
cause i like the feature set of the modern d better but also prefer the sound of the ivory acd
damn it 🙂

I don't hear something I would label a "hiss", but I do hear some scratching sounds that are clearly not sounds from a piano; they sound like some sort of amplified noise. I got the feeling they appeared at the end of proper piano sounds, so maybe related to release samples.

I heard some noise the third time David played scales when I put my ear against my phone really closely. But I have never paid attention to this even from the early Ivory 1. I must be bewitched by music itself. LOL.

David Lai

Just listened.

I'm not noticing hiss per se, but all kinds of aspects to the sound that can be perceived and/or labeled as "hiss".

Apart from the first two scales and your bit of Chopin, I found everything else I heard very unpleasant with all kinds of things "around" the core sound that I don't like at all.

Just an IMHO 😉

Cheers,

HZ

David Lai I clearly hear the hiss through headphones. You're not at all wrong. Your recording isn't a pathological case, either. It's definitely something that would come up in use.

I'm puzzled as to why it's so bad. Presumably, as we've both speculated, the additional mic samples were recorded during the same session as what made it into the original Ivory II ACD. What's different about the additional perspectives? Interestingly, the further away the mics, the worse the hiss.

It's almost like they recorded the additional mics at reduced volume as part of a planned overall mix for the original Ivory II ACD (rather than as separate, mixable perspectives), then scrapped that idea for the final release (as the default perspective of Ivory III ACD is identical to how my copy of Ivory II ACD sounds). And now they've resurrected those original recordings but have had to boost the amplitude to make them usable as separate perspectives.

Obviously, this is pure speculation. I've got basically nothing to base any of this on. It's just throwing something at the wall to try to explain what I'm hearing.

Argyris Obviously, this is pure speculation. I've got basically nothing to base any of this on. It's just throwing something at the wall to try to explain what I'm hearing.

Yes indeed. However from what I just heard, the speculation is plausible (to my mind).

Cheers!

HZ

HZPiano

cine-paradiso-modernd-c414room.mp3

David Lai

So now I listened through your review.

Some have already expressed a preference for the tone of the older piano as sampled by Ivory. I do agree! It is rather lovely. But: only on that Side A position.

As for everything else around the instrument: it definitely is not for me.

Cheers and thanks for all your passionate work,

HZ

David Lai I posted the review to VI Control as well, and someone was questioning if I was biased toward the Modern D. Indeed, the tests that I was doing may have given the upper hand to it, but I certainly wasn't doing this on purpose. That said, what's more challenging them was that they didn't hear the hiss.

So I isolated the microphones and did a short recording. The first half, I play a chromatic scale in the 4 different mic positions. Then I did a midi rendering of the 3 new mic positions playing the same chromatic scale, pedal up and pedal down, followed by an excerpt from a Chopin prelude.

You tell me if you can hear it, but I hear the hiss both on my headphones and monitors. Hope this will help answer my questions. I'm not giving any bias to any libraries in question.

Hi David,

I think there are some imperfections, but can you please also have a similar close look at the upper octaves in the Modern D? Quoting myself recently from another thread:

_sem_ I'd like to ask if you guys also notice a certain attack noise (?hiss) in some keys in the upper octaves, for instance E5, D6? Not the same in all mics (been using Close / Player / Room)…

Not sure if I should name it hiss or some sort of (damped) resonance?