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

clavierhaus thanks for this post. I am tired of reading these negative / lecturing posts as well. Piano is about pleasure, passion and solidarity. I am tired of all the violence and negative comments here.

Let me get this straight. A guy—who is directly involved in the product's creation—comes here to announce a brand new VST on the PianoClack forum. This is an incredible opportunity for the community to ask him anything!

But how do we "welcome" him?

1. @jiang immediately complains about the Chinese origin of the microphones, then takes extra effort to argue his point against @pianow's defense.

2. @David Lai is initially excited about the una corda, but then kills any momentum by criticizing the VST's lack of accessibility features in the Vienna Assistant app.

3. @OlivierW jumps in and starts complaining about missing resonances. As anyone who reads this or the PianoTeq forum knows, he is obsessed with "fixing" resonances. He posts not once, but three times with the same core complaint, explicitly mentioning the competitor VI Labs in every single one.

4. Only @pianow manages to write a few nice words, thanking the person who invested who knows how much time, money, and passion, only to have them read this negativity on the FIRST DAY of the release.

This internet...

Guys, even if you have an issue with the product, can you please just wait a few days for others to try it out and form their own opinions before you ruin the excitement for them? Is this really too much to ask?

And please, open your own thread and post your complaint there. To pollute the announcement thread like this is, in my worldview, simply evil. You either have no compassion for the developer, or you are intentionally trying to destroy the product and harm sales with your comments.

Who buys an old Steinway? How stupid... I would have spent a lot of money on a properly recorded and implemented new one. OMG. There's really no help for them anymore.

pc-king Maybe your are merely trolling, but there is really no way to effectively tell, so I'll assume that you are serious. I, for one, do prefer the sound(s) which was/were cultivated a century ago. Having grown up with a grand from the 1880s I have come to love the more colourful timbre of that era. One of my favourite VIs is the "Maverick" by NI, and that instrument is from more than 100 years ago.

locture It is their best piano since the original, non-synchron version of the Vienna Imperial, as una corda samples are found in both.

revox "…but then kills any momentum by criticizing the VST's lack of accessibility features in the Vienna Assistant app."

Truth be told, this has nothing to do with the original prepareer of the instrument, but it's a VSL problem. I've also messaged them in an email not too long ago about this. But since the Vienna Assistant app is a part of the process of accessing VSL pianos, I have to point this out. That said, it has nothing to do with the person who prepared the piano being sampled, who is clavierhaus. And I think his decision to let them capture una corda is especially a valid one, as it's a part of the acoustic piano experience.

Some of these vintage pianos may not be heard anymore one day. It is quite educational and for character piano fans, it is a blessing. I saw a developer sampled a whole museum of historical instruments for school in the US. To be honest, I mainly seek after modern pianos. But this new product shows how VSL has been working on. The later modern ones of Studio series may look more promising and interesting.

revox Only @pianow manages to write a few nice words, thanking the person who invested who knows how much time, money, and passion, only to have them read this negativity on the FIRST DAY of the release.

i always stand out lol, thanks 🙂

pc-king Who buys an old Steinway?

me

I'm interested to hear how this compares to the ViLabs Modern D as the demos sound quite promising.

This is a pretty impressive recording. I found this collection of videos on Youtube that I believe are of the same piano, and comparing the recordings of the live instrument to the generated one is pretty convincing (at least to me). Obviously, there are pros and cons to both, but in some ways, the VSL setup sounds even richer at times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A4kEGIHnb4&list=PLZ2_xiglJp-3Vn8XPQbU75VLUHNk3kTGK

My initial impression is that this feels like their best recording yet, and it is a beautiful instrument.

As always, it is a pricy option, which is my only hesitation. I'd love playing it just as a piano enthusiast, but would I use it for a final recording? I already have it competing with the German Upright for a vintage sound and the D-274 for classical, but there definitely are enough special qualities to justify this. I'm looking forward to trying it over the next few days.

EDIT: It also seems to me that this is a completely different sound than Modern D, so there really isn't an apples to apples comparison. I was kind of hoping for a direct clash between titans, but the advantage I suppose is that there is room for both. 🙂

Side note - Massive props to Vincent and VSL for putting some quality video game music on their recordings. I especially loved the Silksong piece. I knew I liked Vincent lol.

The piano especially sounds great when close up! I'm curious how the tube mic will sound on the program. Hopefully someone can demo it in detail.

dickiefunk Very different in tone quality. Modern D has a pure, clean sound, while this Steinway has a more vintage sound with some "dirt" in it. Both are very good instruments IMO.

revox fully agree, forum lacks moderation

revox And please, open your own thread and post your complaint there. To pollute the announcement thread like this is, in my worldview, simply evil. You either have no compassion for the developer, or you are intentionally trying to destroy the product and harm sales with your comments.

Well, maybe.
I lurk on a number of piano forums.
This one perhaps has the largest concentration of users who really push the limits of piano VSTi technology for solo piano performance.

So there's the eternal search for the holy grail -
the VSTi piano that half pedals and re-pedals, that has a perfect velocity curve out-of-the box for MY controller, that has real sympathetic resonance, that doesn't sound artificially perfect, that has perfectly constructed velocity layers where no note changes its tuning in the slightest from one to another, that offers silent-key, that has true una corda, and that meets a number of other criteria I'm not coming up with at the moment.
And if one is blind, like David, the amount of independence he can have based on the accessibility that the developers bothered to engineer into their product is a significant concern.

So when something new arrives, there's a feeding frenzy to see how many "must-haves" are now satisfied in the search for the ultimate instrument.

I've no doubt that a lot of work goes into all commercial offerings.

But a maxim I've well learned over the years is
"We judge ourselves by our intentions. Others judge us by our actions."

Or in this case, people who have a lot of experience with a number of competing products have learned what they want to look for in a new offering.

I don't think it's malice on the commenters' parts, just the natural pursuit of self-interest. To label that "evil" seems a bit hyperbolic.

Jane Well said, Jane.

David Lai

Yes definitely. I think this may be a nice compliment to Modern-D when I want a more character piano.

Will need to clear a decent amount of hard drive space before I can try the demo, but I'm intrigued. If I'm honest, I'd hoped that VSL's next offering would be something from a less often sampled manufacturer, but the timbre of this Steinway sounds quite distinctive from the demos (which I agree are better than usual, and let you hear the sound of the instrument rather than just the hall ambience).

I'm wondering if it might almost be a replacement for something like Piano in Blue which I love but doesn't fare so well on the playability factor.

CraigNZ Now that you mentioned it, I do hear a similarity to Piano In Blue! 🙂