Quest For Realilstic Piano

V

vitamin worm

New member
hi everyone,

you guys have helped me pick out some great gear so far, and i take your opinions very seriously, so i thank you all in advance for your help on this matter.


i am looking into purchasing a synth module or a sampler or something that will give me the most realistic piano sound possible. i already have a controller keyboard and a module that i use for most synth sounds, so my only interest here is getting my hands on something that can most accurately reproduce piano sounds.

i would be interested in a unit that is flexible enough to use in both recording and live situation (i do all of my recording to analog, so stuff like gigasampler wont really work here). but i should mention that i have a computer (although i do not have any sort of midi interface).

my budget is $400.

if your recomendation is for a sampler can you guys let me know the price of a good piano sounds CD and where i can pick them up?

thanks a lot everyone ... i look forward to your replies.

-vw
 
Consider the Kurzweil Micro Piano for $300. It's a very good all-around piano sound. I have the Kurzweil PC88mx which essentially has a Micro Piano in it. It may be tough to find this module set up in a store where you can go listen to it, so if you can find a PC88...that's the same sound. But I'm pretty sure it's not the same as their newer PC2 piano, so don't go by that.
I've tried a couple of "software" piano's including the 70MB one that comes with Gigasampler LE but I haven't come accross one that I like better than the Kurzweil. A lot of piano samples have a kind of "rubber band" sound to them, especially in the low notes. I hate that. The Kurzweil doesn't sound like that. Besides the piano, you also get some other great sounds. I love the string sounds and the electric pianos are also very good.

I haven't compared the Kurzweil to other modules such as the Roland 1010 or whatever, so I can't give you a comparison.

By the way, while I was just browsing at Musicians Friend, I noticed that they still have the PC88mx available and it's $1200. That's a decent deal! I paid around $2000 for mine (some years ago). I didn't even know these were still available since they got replaced by the PC2.
 
You never let me down jim :)

Thank you kindly for the advice, i have read some good and some bad reviews but i have played on kurzweil digital pianos before and was really satisfied with the sound.

so thank you again for the recomendation sir.

i should say that i am open to other advice.

-vw
 
just go to

www.purgatorycreek.com

and listen to the digital piano shootout. You will find that the gigasampler pianos, from various manufacturers are hands down the best.

My fave is the majolsmo? piano. It has warmth and power.
 
Under $400? I vote for the Kurzweil Micro piano too. The gigasampler stuff is impressive, but you gotta have a giga sampler! (and lots of patience).

The pianos on the JV1010 are average, nothing great.
 
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well,

gigasampler can be bought for $159 with gigapiano. THere is no tweaking invloved, just plug and play.

THe only time its not that great is for live situations. For recording though, it simply cant be beat.

Some of the pianos from other manufacturers are 2-4 gigabytes long. Every note was sample to infinity, at 4 or more velocities, pedal up and pedal down. Its like the real thing.
 
CyanJag, just curious, what kind of computer specs do you need for the giga, and can you use it with a program like Cakewalk on the same computer?

I did hear some pianos on Giga that were pretty badass, but I always assumed (from stuff I have read) that it needs a second computer, or tons of RAM to run with a program like Cake or cubase.
I havent gotten into the Sample stuff yet, perhaps thats my next goal.
 
hey davidk,

I ran gigasampler on my pentium 566 with 256 megabytes. I think that it can be run with 128 though. It also ran with logic audio .

The version I had came with the delta 1010. The choir sample was fantabulous.

For some reason, I cant get it to work now. I think its conflicting with another driver.

Basically, it would be better to run it on a dedicated pc(mine cost $425), but it can work in the same computer as your other stuff in a cinch.
 
hey davidk,

I ran gigasampler on my pentium 566 with 256 megabytes. I think that it can be run with 128 though. It also ran with logic audio .

The version I had came with the delta 1010. The choir sample was fantabulous.

For some reason, I cant get it to work now. I think its conflicting with another driver.

Basically, it would be better to run it on a dedicated pc(mine cost $425), but it can work in the same computer as your other stuff in a cinch.
 
CyanJaguar, I haven't been able to play the Gigasampler LE piano real-time and get it to respond well to incoming MIDI. It plays a few notes OK, then it will delay a chord or a couple of notes for several hundred milliseconds. Perhaps I need to tweak something, but so far, playing piano in real-time has been out of the question for me. I don't know if this is typical or not. My computer is 450 MHz with 128 MB RAM and a Delta 1010.
 
I never had that problem jimH,

the first thing I would suggest is to optimise your system so that there are no memory resident programs at startup.

This includes antiviruses, system sounds, wall paper, screensaver,system tray, drivespace, virtual memory etc, apllication programs etc.

It is also advisable not to run anyprograms before running giga or any audio prog. Applications leave memory hugging residue even after they've been closed.

The samples I loaded were the ones that came with the delta 1010 package. They are rather small(less that 100 megs per bank). It might be different if I try to play gigapiano, but I get no latency with the sounds I have. Its as good or better than playing my sound module.
 
Dunno if you guys could help me.

I have Gigasmpler, full version in the studio. However, the MIDI "halo" thing doesn't light up, even though my midiports are free, and selected. it doens't accept any midi in, but the ports show up on the device lists. when i run the edit program that comes with it, it says loopback problem. anyone help?!
 
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