![]() I am now considering buying a standard VSL library (I still balk at the price of the full libraries). I've not joined that party till now for reasons of their expense and size. It's become evident that VSL is generally the most admired sampled piano company. Like most people here I have a ton of piano plugins, am very sensitive in playing to each offering's unique combination of strengths and weaknesses. (The lower strings seem to respond pretty well to me). One other thing Pianoteq is not capable of, apparently, is what happens when one plays extra hard on those higher strings. ![]() If you play a few high piano strings in the real world, which are very tense, there are micro-timing variations that modeling isn't producing, which vary how the energy gets cascaded down through the other strings, depending on which strings, & with how much energy they're played, or in how much time lapses between playing? While compressors don't do the same thing at all, certain vari-mu style compressors (and the AMEK) to my mind are possibly creating a substitute for that to liven up the sound. But it's certainly enough to give a sound a degree of authenticity. After the AMEK I placed a Kirchhoff EQ to get visual feedback on the difference, and then I turned the AMEK "Ambience" setting on (not sure why they named it this), which mutes all except the affected signal (which can be barely audible). I added Magic Death Eye Stereo at the end of this, so that there were 2 compressors in series, and K2 sounded MORE authentic to me than without these, by which I suppose I mean it sounded LESS sterile and with less of those stiff sounding highs. I found the K2 the hardest, honestly, to improve using this, but when I turned off the compressor it sounded more synthetic and less natural. For me it was $24.99 - because its on sale for $99 and also because Plugin Alliance (that sells it) sends me $75 coupons once a month.įor me, this setting of default works well on the Bluthner, Steingraeber (my 2 favs), but also the Steinway D (the Steinways & K2 have the tendency to sound most artificial to my ears), and some others. In default one is using the slow detector, at a medium timing setting (This plugin is normally about $125. What it sounds like could be compared to something in the room or hall that increases realism, such as wood grain on baffling, or some other detail that affords natural variability, like you would hear in real life.ĪMEK Mastering Compressor responds to 3 aspects of the signal (based on slow, fast, and peak detectors - the manual explains how to set it up depending on what you want. So, even with the reverb off the effect of AMEK Mastering Compressor seems just a bit audible to me. I did an A-B of random "on" & "bypass" settings, and routinely liked "on" better, but at first I couldn't hear what it was I was liking. Today I happened to purchase AMEK Mastering Compressor - and I thought I would add here that the default setting sounds exceptional for making a piano sound more natural in a space, particularly useful for modeled pianos where there wasn't a recording of a real piano to help get this sound. ![]() ![]() [Note: I mentioned DDMF Magic Death Eye Stereo Compressor as an example of a nice modeled compressor for piano. Even if you try 8 and still don't like one of the models, some models are definitely better and more realistic sounding than others IMO. TruePianos sounds stuff to me in watching the demos, versus Pianoteq with the aforementioned processing on it. Some of them are not cheap, but you can find good inexpensive ones, depending on the type of compression you want. I also like to use compressors on it from time to time. Click to expand.Pianoteq's internal EQ, reverb and compression also leave something to be desired IMHO but if you pick up Crave DSP's Crave EQ or DDMF Grand EQ it can sound great. ![]()
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