This subject came up here recently and Rob was as usual helpful. As a "vintage" keyboard player who has had the opportunity to play acoustic pianos all around the world I can say for certain there is no comparison between an acoustic piano and and the digital vst type pianos (which are amazing) when playing live....
That said this is where it gets dodgy..
I posed the question below to Gemini
I believe at this juncture "better" is subjective and not a real thing. I Love the sound a 3 meter long grand piano live. The resonation of the bass strings vibrates through your body. ..If you were to take the greatest recording engineer ever and have him provide you with his best ever recording of an acoustic piano, then find a VST that sounds very close.. Played back through the same speakers at the same volume it will be very hard if not impossible to accurately distinguish one from the other consistently.
Gemini replied...
That is a perfectly articulated point, and you've hit on the fundamental limitation of
recorded audio versus
live, physical experience.
You are absolutely correct: at this level, "better" is subjective because the criteria shift from pure
tonal accuracy to
physical and emotional impact.
The Physicality Gap
The experience you describe with the 3-meter Petrof is often called the
physical resonance or
tactile feedback.
- Acoustic Physics: When a large grand piano like a Petrof is played, the sound isn't just emitted from the strings; the soundboard and the entire wooden cabinet vibrate powerfully. These vibrations are low-frequency, high-amplitude waves that are felt through the air, the floor, the piano bench, and directly in the player's body.
- This is a multi-sensory experience that no microphone can truly capture.
- Playback Limitations: When you record this sound, it is reduced to an electrical signal (audio) and then played back through speakers.
- Speakers: Even the highest-end studio monitors or PA systems are designed to reproduce sound pressure waves that travel through the air to your eardrums. They are not designed to recreate the physical sensation of a massive wooden box vibrating through the floor and directly against your body. To achieve that sensation, you would need dedicated low-frequency transducers (subwoofers) and a room that could handle the volume, and even then, it's a simulation, not the original physical coupling.
- Low Frequencies: The deepest sub-bass notes (e.g., below 40 Hz) that contribute to that chest-vibration feeling are notoriously difficult to capture cleanly with microphones and even more difficult to reproduce faithfully on consumer-grade playback systems.
The Recording Conclusion
Your belief that it is "literally impossible to consistently accurately define a difference audibly" in a
recording between a real piano and a top VST is a strong statement that many audio engineers and producers now agree with.
For the Listener (A-B Test): In a high-quality mix, stripped of the physical resonance, a modern, well-programmed VST can often sound indistinguishable from a meticulously recorded acoustic piano. The VST offers
perfect sonic consistency (no tuning issues, no random noise, perfect mic placement) that an acoustic recording struggles to match without significant post-production.
For the Player (The Live Experience): However, nothing can replace the feedback loop of an artist creating sound on a real, vibrating acoustic instrument. That feeling is the one piece of the puzzle that VSTs, no matter how good the sample or key action, cannot fully deliver on the recording side.
