Modern D enhancements

Mindbullets · 2025-07-16T21:54:31+00:00

Saw this on VI Control: Hello all. Some exciting news for Modern D owners and I'm here to pass it along on behalf of Vi Labs: We've been working on an update to the Modern D for several months now to fix the various issues that users reported on forums and by email, the official release will come later this Fall most likely. For now we're doing a soft roll-out to address specific issues, but also to release it before our Summer Sale to avoid customers that would buy it now at full price then be angry with us. Also there still could be some more fixes needed before the official release. We fixed the noise build up when playing a lot of notes and/or using extreme EQ or compression. We also enabled the extra Sympathetic Resonance with pedal down playing like we have in our Ravenscroft 275 and Modern U libraries. Plus there are numerous other bug fixes and general improvements, the full change log will be published with the official release this Fall. The new version is available right now in your VI Labs account, it’s the same link, so use our Installer app or the download page to get it. If you want to keep your old version, simply rename it beforehand by adding 'old' to the filename or such. The new version has the same file name, so any DAW projects will load as expected. Custom drawn Gain Curves will have to be made again since they will not load in the new version, but any other setting from your old presets will. *This update requires the latest version of UVI Workstation V4.0.1 or later, or Falcon 3.1.1 or later.

David B

David Lai "It should slide to the right up to 256 MB."

I would assume so because the defaults in those settings are for such older systems.

David Lai

David B Well, I can't slide to the far right. The most I can get is 115 MB on my own. Maybe I should ask for sighted help.

David B

David Lai Well, I can't slide to the far right. The most I can get is 115 MB on my own. Maybe I should ask for sighted help.

Holding the left click button inside the cache size box and dragging the mouse all the way to the right should do it.

FREIRE

David Lai I have both in same location, and renamed the old one adding old, and it works good. Have two Modern D soundbanks in UVIWorkstation. I manage to have 256 MB in windows 11. Actually was like that by default. The update is different enough to keep the two in my opinion. The older one being more warm, the new one more bright as far as I can tell. Still have to find the time to record myself as listening while not playing in a separate hi-fi to understand how they work. Also would like to test it with VSL reverb lite. I tried it with the demo of the full version and liked it a lot. Gets more realistic. My computer does no handle real time playing with this plug in so I have do render it.

David Lai

David B Thank you, David. I asked for sighted help in dragging it to the far right. Now it stays at 256 while the streaming hard drive type is SSD. I'll let it stay that way. So far 96 buffer size with 2 microphones playing everything at max is without any problems. Here's the excerpt I tested. Hammers and side mics, with the Synchron Stage reverb light set at 1.0 second reverb time, 40% dry/wet signal.

the-rio-grande-excerpt.mp3

I can also do 3 mics, but there may be a small crackle sometimes. But this is already very impressive! My CPU is at 99% of its power, not full on power, as it may cause the fans to spin a bit.

FREIRE

David Lai Amazing.

David Lai

FREIRE Thank you! Just want to make sure the performance is smooth. 🙂

Irmin

I think some performance issues have been sorted out on v1.1 On my PC (9950x3d) there were no issues with the previous version but the cpu is ridiculously fast. However on my M4 MacBook Air using the built in headphone jack I'd get random pops even with a 128 sample buffer, no issues however with my focusrite 2i2. On v1.1 with the built in jack I'm now running at 64 samples and there have been no glitches.

OlivierW

ModernD BIG BASS in pop music and in a MIX at -14 LUFS with Falcon UVI FX Maximiser only at +3dB:

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1EsrkKXjw5/

Jose EB5AGV

David B what I did was, before downloading the 1.1 version, rename the old one as ufs0 extension, so it didn't get overwritten. Now I have both versions to compare 😁

Note: both instruments show on the VI Labs application, one says 1.1 and the other does not

(PS: I see I am not the only one who did this!)

David Lai

Irmin Really cool! So it looks like carefully adjusted settings can work even under 64 buffer size. Thanks for sharing!

pc-king

After extensive testing, I unfortunately have to say that there are significant, irregular, and unnatural differences in the development of the sound of a note that is held while the sustain pedal is released, as happens thousands of times in every classical piece.

If you press a key while the sustain pedal is already depressed and release the pedal (but not the key) after about a second or two, some notes fade away much too quickly (e.g., f1, velocity 56), almost jerkily, while for others there is hardly any difference from not releasing the pedal. So I'll wait to switch from VSL to MD. I don't want to say that VSL is better in such matters — not at all! It would be great if such things no longer occur in the official 1.1.

FREIRE

pc-king do you like more the tone now? How do handle reverb, can i ask?

OlivierW

pc-king But it’s like a real piano when the sustain pedal goes from on to off while the key is still pressed. VSL pianos are incapable of simulating that. In VSL, it's always the "pedal down" sample that is triggered even after the sustain pedal has been released, whereas on a real piano, the tone and length of the sustain change dramatically if the pedal is operated while one or more notes are still held down. This effect is more or less audible depending on the key height and velocity. In the Modern D, this is so well simulated that it can feel disorienting after playing VSL Synchron pianos for hours — their current 2025 version still sounds completely unrealistic during pedal transitions and in how the tone of a sustained note evolves during changes in the sustain pedal state. On a real piano, there are major tonal changes for the same note or chord still being held down during certain transitions of the sustain pedal — an effect that is also impressively reproduced by Yamaha’s latest pianos with VRM2 and by Pianoteq.

pc-king

OlivierW "And this effect on a real piano varies depending on the position of the key during the transitions — either towards the bottom or from the bottom upwards in repedalling" YES. "it’s like a real piano" NO. I played the real D-274s over decades. A f1 mezzoforte sounds much longer.

pc-king

This morning I discovered that the pedal resonance is probably set too high to be realistic (0 dB). Of course, there's an unrealistic "collapse" of the sound when you release the pedal.

pc-king

But that doesn't change the fact that the resonance behavior varies too much between adjacent keys and that some notes decay too quickly. The developers could definitely take another look at this with a pianist.

pc-king

FREIRE I test without eq and reverb. I made 6 renderings old, room, side, close and new, room, side, close with Chopin to compare. My first impression is that there are no audible differences on Sennheiser HD 490 pro and Yamaha HS 7.

pc-king

samples.zip

7MB

Sample 1 cis1, vel. 60, no pedal, no pedal res.: gets quiet too quickly. We're not talking about a Yamaha baby grand here!

Sample 2 dis1, vel. 60, no pedal, no pedal res.: gets quiet normally, but then very suddenly too quickly and then gets louder again (!)

Sample 3 f1, vel. 56, no pedal, no pedal res.: gets quiet too quickly.

That's complaining at a high level, of course. But I want to play classical music with it (for whatever reason), and things like that are completely out of the question. It's also about ensuring that the number one virtual piano remains the number one. I mean well. And I know how difficult that is.

Can't upload audio files here: "Could not detect MIME type."

By the way, it's not just about these 3 keys and this vel. level, I just haven't tested the others yet.

vagfilm

pc-king Sample 2 dis1, vel. 60, no pedal, no pedal res.: gets quiet normally, but then very suddenly too quickly and then gets louder again (!)

Did you check the midi messages sent by tbe pedal just to be sure that it is not a pedal behaving erratically?

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