Virtual piano comparison

For the sake of piano science, and since they are a bit forgotten in these comparisons, I asked a friend to render the Cybergene "test-pieces" in two VSTs that I am very curious and always tempted to buy: the Bechstein Digital and the VILabs Ravenscroft.
The Bechstein was a complete disappointment, too shrill and jumpy. I am not posting it because I think the VST is better than that and it is simply an unfortunate mismatch.
On the other hand, the Ravenscroft works pretty well for this type of playing. You judge...
Note: I had to further compress the mp3s to meet the 2Mb limit.

vagfilm For what it's worth, the Bechstein Digital can have a pretty hard/pointy tone. It's a good instrument, but it's not a forgiving one IMO.

@CyberGene I am a big fan of Pianoteq, but a bigger fan of Garritan, so I was surprised that I preferred the PT rendering here!

vagfilm Not bad, although I miss some ambience and rich resonance. I guess Ravenscroft would be ideal for straight ahead jazz and modern music though because it’s very clean sounding.

CyberGene I guess Ravenscroft would be ideal for straight ahead jazz and modern music though because it’s very clean sounding.

This!

It somehow sounds like a mix between a harpsichord and a piano (in a good way).

P.S.

I don’t always drink beer (samples), but when I do, I drink a Ravens!

With only twelve calories (layers), Ravens is both satisfying and good for your health; unlike that monstrosity, VSL, packing 100 calories per key, and still, I somehow feel unsatisfied.

P.P.S.

Ravenscroft is the little engine that could, and it further proves my point: the only room for improvement is transitioning to modelling; because more layers does not for a better VST make. of course, I’m not saying that there is no improvement between 1 layer and say 12 layers, but once you go past 15 layers it’s overkill!

12 or 15 is likely to be the threshold after which it is hard to hear a velocity gap between layers (if the layers are mixed correctly of course). With Pearl Concert Grand, we have 8 layers and there is a very slight gap between layers. We have to be careful to hear them.

CyberGene I guess Ravenscroft would be ideal for straight ahead jazz and modern music though because it’s very clean sounding.

I agree… and since I play mostly classical music, it doesn’t fit my taste. It has a special character : we like it or not, but this doesn’t mean it is not good.

I agree with Frederic’s initial agreement on my previous observation: past 15 layers, it’s overkill!

But I am forced to disagree on this notion that ‘classical’ can only be played with ‘extra sauce’.

Some people like it dry, Frederic, and I can mention one very prominent “people”, Glenn Gould!

He’d most certainly enjoy the Ravens’ lean cuisine over the gravy-heavy VSL, and that is my whole point, the VSL adds too much gravy; and sure, excess gravy can help mask the fact that it is essentially unhealthy, over-cooked, stuffed turkey, but it doesn’t fool me, I tell ya!

P.S.

I like my turkey dry, unstuffed, and devoid of all things gravy!

vagfilm I like Ravenscroft very much. This doesn’t sound like the default settings to me. (Close mics only). Could you share your settings please?

TomLC I like Ravenscroft very much

Boy, am I having a good day today!

Usually it’s “off to purgatory with that pesky Pete,” but today, it seems, most are in ‘agreement’ with Pete on the Ravens and such…..

Good day, indeed!😉

TomLC Could you share your settings please?

Unfortunately no, because it was not done by me. And knowing my friend, he clicked on some random settings and cannot reproduce it😊 Only thing I know is that it uses all mics (maybe at different levels). Sorry... Do you like it or not? I may ask him in case he saved the preset...

CyberGene I personally prefer the Yamaha CFX voice over any Pianoteq EP. But I also prefer the analog Yamaha CP over Ptq as well.

It would have been nice having a real acoustic recording thrown into the mix, while recording the virtual instruments through microphones as well. Would be amusing to see how many people dislike an original and go for the digital fake instead.

Deleted It would have been nice having a real acoustic recording thrown into the mix, while recording the virtual instruments through microphones as well. Would be amusing to see how many people dislike an original and go for the digital fake instead.

This has got me thinking about making a recording on my piano, using the same mic position to make a VI, playing the same piece with the VI, and then comparing them. I'm pretty sure I can make them sound almost identical, but with caveats.

Recording, processing, and using all of the Kontakt EQ/velocity mapping tricks is very time consuming. So if I were to limit the recorded piece to something simple without many dynamic layers it wouldn't be too difficult.

But then if the piece were too simple, it would not really test out the quality of the VI.

Maybe its not worth the effort.

vagfilm Yes, I do like it.

TomLC ok. Will ask him, but no promises...

dore_m But then if the piece were too simple, it would not really test out the quality of the VI.

Perhaps use the audio recordings of the competition that PTQ uses? They have MIDI recordings too…

I haven't looked into it though.

RIP Perhaps use the audio recordings of the competition that PTQ uses?

I guess what I'm saying is that any MIDI file worth rendering to test a VI is going to have alot of dynamics, short and long notes, upper and lower kb range. And to make a VI that realistic requires a minimum number of velocity recordings and post processing. So more time recording, processing, and velocity transitions.

I can make a mockup very quickly, within about 20-30 minutes nowadays. But that is one layer, with fairly short sustains (max 6 second notes). So an appropriate test piece for this simple instrument would be no-pedal, mf only.

So I'm thinking probably not worth it unless I'm considering to make a more serious instrument or instrument template.

vagfilm Please don’t go out of your way. I’m just interested is all. I almost only use my two VILabs pianos.

dore_m I guess what I'm saying is that any MIDI file worth rendering to test a VI is going to have alot of dynamics

We are on the same page on this….

dore_m I can make a mockup very quickly, within about 20-30 minutes nowadays. But that is one layer,

I think here we are going on a different route. Even if quoting you, I was really responding to

Deleted It would have been nice having a real acoustic recording thrown into the mix, while recording the virtual instruments through microphones as well. Would be amusing to see how many people dislike an original and go for the digital fake instead.

Unless we find somebody with a good player piano and good microphones, we can't do that. However we can do "the other way around", namely, take both the Audio recordings of the acoustic pianos played in the competition mentioned below, and the corresponding MIDI files, trying to match the original acoustic with various virtual instruments (on PTQ's website they already do that for some of their demos). It'll be interesting to see what really people prefer. Probably @dore_m is the only one with good enough microphones to do exactly what @Deleted asked, namely "acoustically" record the virtual instruments too (to add some room ambience and background noise to not make it obvious?) -- but perhaps even without that step it could be an interesting exercise, and we can start/stop the audio recording taking most noises out (after the piano playing starts, most noises are inaudible).

Anybody has the spare time to do that? Note that in some years they have only the audio, and in some others they have only the MIDI, but luckily there are plenty for which they have both.

Here are some links for a couple of years in which they had both MIDI and Audio:

https://www.piano-e-competition.com/videos_2018.asp
https://www.piano-e-competition.com/midi_2018.asp

https://www.piano-e-competition.com/videos_2017.asp
https://www.piano-e-competition.com/midi_2017.asp

@RIP Wow, so many variables to control. I suppose if you just use a VST preset and render the midi from the competition link, you might get something decently comparable. But if a producer took the midi, chose the right piano library, and then "produced" it (with EQ, reverb, etc), he could make it sound better than the video.

I enjoyed both ptq and ravenscroft.