A brand new Steinway from VSL: 1887 model D concert grand

jdg78 Yep, and that's 10 years too late for una corda!!!

This is Studio Series, not Synchron, keywords: dryer, tighter, cleaner.

OlivierW

you know i have zero tolerance for truth when i'm excited about something right?

I also noticed that this time they can directly order a 30-day free trial license on the official website. This means I can use it until Black Friday before purchasing this library.

pianow 🤣

Wow, this is something now. The demos are great and the video comparing the 1887 Steinway vs the new one is amazing, I so much prefer the softer tone of the vintage piano compared to the bright and hollow (even nasal) new piano. And una corda finally sampled! Could be my first VSL piano! ❤️

CyberGene Congratulations!!! I felt the same way!!! If they decide to tweak the Vienna Assistant app, I might give this vintage Steinway a try.

David Lai I haven’t bought it yet and I’m not in the market for a new virtual piano at all, so I doubt I will buy it soon. But if I was choosing a VSL piano, this would be it.

OlivierW The sound itself is warm, but you can tell this Steinway isn’t perfectly restored and regulated.

That's complete nonsense - I should know because I am the owner and I am not completely clueless when it comes to perfect preparation of a concert grand.

I just tried it — the dynamics feel more realistic and better balanced by default than the recent VSL Steinway D-274. It has a beautiful, very “Hamburg” sound — congratulations to the tuner and the technician who prepared the piano, they did a great job.

However, the playability of the resonances doesn’t feel real, and their “sympathetic resonance” option still doesn’t work properly — it’s basically fake and sounds terrible when enabled. The sustain and sympathetic resonances aren’t really simulated at all, just long sustain samples that don’t allow for true repedaling behavior within the resonance.

In short, it’s interesting in the demos, but when you actually play it, it still lacks the realism and responsiveness of instruments like the Modern D. This piano could have been excellent if VSL had made the effort to properly program the behavior and resonance of a real piano — at the level of the UVI interface by VI Labs, like the Modern D or Modern U. Beautiful work from the technician, but not from VSL’s software team.

It has a genuine Hamburg tone, but the software simulation is disappointing — and in 2025, that’s difficult to accept given how far competitors like VI Labs and NI (Galaxy, Noire, etc.) have advanced in terms of programming realism.

I will improve it with my Soluce : VSL + PIANOTEQ 9 resonance (SR and repedalling an Sustain) . sonne my logic file

OlivierW you can clearly tell the hammers are worn out.

You sound like a real expert - which unfortunately you are not.

The hammers are brand new replicas by Abel and the voicing of them is simply outstandingly beautiful, because I afforded myself the luxury of hiring a real concert technician for the project.

But my thoughts go to the excellent technician who prepared and tuned this piano, and to the engineer who selected the velocity layers — great work from them. And the excellent Sampling .

As for the rest, the software and the player itself are disappointing compared to VI Labs’ solutions. And yet, I have many ideas to help improve VSL’s software, especially now that tools like ChatGPT can speed up development.

I really don’t understand why the sympathetic resonance simulation still doesn’t work properly, and why there’s still no true sustain repedaling — especially when compared to the competition.

Regards,

Olivier F.

clavierhaus Please read my post again 🙂 I’m actually agreeing with you — so let’s just stay cool, polite, and humble.

clavierhaus

i wanted to say thanks for the instrument and of course preparation, to my ears subjectively this is the best vsl piano to date, i love the sound and the mic choice, everything 🙂

clavierhaus Congratulations on having your piano be the basis for a new virtual instrument! I guess it might make sense, for those of us trying to forecast VSL's new offerings, to pay attention to which pianos you have taken under your wing. 🙂

OlivierW read again my post

I did and it still says "you can clearly tell the hammers are worn out.".

clavierhaus It was just a translation bug — now deleted and edited. Please stay humble about expertise when you don’t know the background of the people you’re talking to. And I have great respect for you — you clearly love pianos and you’re a passionate expert. But please treat other passionate people with the same respect and be open to different points of view. It’s not the end of the world. I’m disappointed by the software, not the real piano or your work.

is it just me or the demos are better then vsl usual ones? i can actually listen to them without wanting to break my speakers

pianow yes.still downloading full mics.std mics just sounds like better ver of pianoverse.

OlivierW It was just a translation bug — now deleted and edited.

I have no idea what a weird translation bug could produce "you can clearly tell the hammers are worn out.", but so be it.

Is Hamburg a translation bug as well? Because this is a pure New York Steinway designed in a transitional phase between 1884 an 1892 by Theodore Steinway and it has directly been delivered to England for the sale and the shellac finish.

This piano has never been anywhere close to Hamburg, which makes it distinctly different from my 1886 Steinway B, which got its final assembly in the Hamburg factory as one can see from some details like German handwriting and "Depot der Steinway Pianos New York" on the plate.

I'd nevertheless kindly ask you not to schoolmaster me about humbleness when accuracy in wording is important and you came up with a delusional statement about the hammers which you could and should have checked before posting it, if English is not your first language.

Let's leave it at that. I can see that you're continuing about all this in the pianoworld forum as well and maybe Paul has something to say about it. I am only the guy with the piano.