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IK released Pianoverse piano virtual instrument

I got the one-month subscription.

I found the Yamaha a bit disappointing. Sound is OK-ish but uneven. Playability isn't great -- and pretty bad compared to Pianoteq.

The Steinway sounds nice, and I can see some uses for it. The timbre is both precise and warm, with a really nice sense of presence. The Release samples are very good.

Both models lack sympathetic resonance so I guess this is a limitation of the other models too; the 'breathtaking piano realism', therefore, is marketing hyperbole.

In my view, both are completely unsuitable for serious classical playing. There's simply not nearly enough resonance and interaction between the strings. The sound doesn't bloom, and just isn't cohesive, when you play slightly more complex stuff -- your typical sampled Frankensteinway.

The Steinway is good, and worth the money I think, for certain kinds of jazz or pop. The Steinway 'Modern Jazz' preset is really nice. But I don't think I'll prolong my subscription beyond the first month.
 
Nashi_VI said:
Still no info on the numbers of velocity layers uh? C'mon IK, i know you can do better, as a fellow italian myself, make me proud, forza, so che ce la potete fare, non penso sia una cosa così difficile dare dei semplici dati a dei possibili acquirenti.
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If we look at other pianos of roughly similar file size - Noire is 22 layers with no round robins? It has pure and felt samples, so roughly “two microphones” worth of samples like these. That weighs in around 16 GB, versus these at 20 GB each.

Assuming they have some sampled mechanical noises and such, similar compression ratios, I’m guessing these would have a similar number of dynamic layers unless there are multiple round robins.
 
Trash Panda said:
If we look at other pianos of roughly similar file size - Noire is 22 layers with no round robins? It has pure and felt samples, so roughly “two microphones” worth of samples like these. That weighs in around 16 GB, versus these at 20 GB each.

Assuming they have some sampled mechanical noises and such, similar compression ratios, I’m guessing these would have a similar number of dynamic layers unless there are multiple round robins.
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I tought so as well myself....but if that was the case...why not tell us?
 
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Play a complex-ish chord on the Steinway and let it ring for a bit. After about 6 seconds you'll hear serious levels of noise. Let the chord ring longer and the noise dies out. It's a slightly weird experience. Granted, this is to some degree forensic nitpicking. But it's not good.

I was perhaps a bit harsh about Pianoverse's suitability for classical music. I just played some Schumann (Kinderszenen) and Mozart and it actually sounded OK, and some bits in Mozart actually worked quite well (using the 'Theater' space with otherwise clean settings; most things at 0.0 dB).

But I wouldn't recommend it for serious classical playing -- it's too limited and limiting.
 
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PianoPerson said:
Play a complex-ish chord on the Steinway and let it ring for a bit. After about 6 seconds you'll hear serious levels of noise. Let the chord ring longer and the noise dies out. It's a slightly weird experience. Granted, this is to some degree forensic nitpicking. But it's not good.

I was perhaps a bit harsh about Pianoverse's suitability for classical music. I just played some Schumann (Kinderszenen) and Mozart and it actually sounded OK, and some bits in Mozart actually worked quite well (using the 'Theater' space with otherwise clean settings; most things at 0.0 dB).

But I wouldn't recommend it for serious classical playing -- it's too limited and limiting.
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How does it stack up against something like the Ravenscroft?
 
SupremeFist said:
In my experience, a developer that doesn't want to say how many dynamic layers their piano has is trying to hide the fact that there aren't very many compared to the competition, so I shall assume the same applies here.
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My hunch is the same. How many years did Miroslav Philharmonik receive the Readers Choice award for Best Orchestral Library on KVR? In my opinion, that indicates IK Multimedia is probably accustomed to most of their customers not caring much about sample depth. And that's totally OK. If IK gave Pianoverse, say, five dynamic layers because five are all that would be needed for the library to meet the standards of most of their customers, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

The problem is that this is not KVR. This is VI-Control. We inquire about library details like mic positions, recording locations, articulations, round robins, legato, dynamic layers, ensemble sizes, sordino, half-pedaling, and sympathetic resonance because they genuinely matter to us. We seek and use this information to guide our purchases. We need to know what makes a new library different from the ones we already own. We ask questions so that we can avoid potential pitfalls known only to experienced VI users.
 
No cracks in stand-alone mode. But I already had like 5 or 6 crashes when loading presets (in stand-alone and with Cubase). The plug-in just quits (shuts down) when loading (as if you closed it).

As for the programming, there is something not right with the dynamics. When you play pp or ppp, it's too quiet (not realistic) and when you play ff or fff it's too quiet as well, as if it's been compressed or limited for a recording.

Edit: The fff is actually better than I thought. The Vel Offset knob was set in the negative which limited the dynamic range.
 
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PianoPerson said:
The Steinway is good, and worth the money I think, for certain kinds of jazz or pop
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The Pianoverse SteinwayD is a great comping and chordal/supporting instrument as that type of playing relies mostly on what, to my ears, is the instrument’s strongest and most convincing register: the lower half of the keyboard. The other half is acceptable enough for many things as well, but I can’t shake off the feeling that it’s too dead-sounding up there. No sparkle, no tabasco higher up the keyboard. (*) As if that IK Robot, having arrived somewhere halfway up the keyboard — things begin to weaken in the C4 octave — was starting to run out of steam and finished the remainder of the job in a rather lacklustre fashion.

(*) EQ’ing and adjusting the Tone parameter (not 'Tone Shift', but 'Tone') can help a bit, but that affects the entire keyboard, which is unfortunate. Would be great if, as in Pianoteq, various edits (and tunings) could be adjusted on a per note basis or, at least, with keytracking-curves like you can do MassiveX.

I do agree that this piano isn’t the best choice to render classical pieces with. Well, no virtual piano is, but some are slightly more sufferable than others. This one isn’t one of them.

Still: on the whole, quite a satisfying instrument, I find, with a full-bodied, beefy and remarkably dimensional sound (if, that is, you keep the playing restricted mostly to the mid, low-mid and low ranges).

Some great-sounding reverbs in this software too. (I’m not talking about the FX, but about the included spaces.)

__
 
Trash Panda said:
If we look at other pianos of roughly similar file size - Noire is 22 layers with no round robins? It has pure and felt samples, so roughly “two microphones” worth of samples like these. That weighs in around 16 GB, versus these at 20 GB each.

Assuming they have some sampled mechanical noises and such, similar compression ratios, I’m guessing these would have a similar number of dynamic layers unless there are multiple round robins.
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FWIW, the Pianoverse Yamaha CFIII grand’s sample folder is 31.6GB on my Mac, so a substantial amount of sample content for a 2 mic perspective piano.
 
maybe those multi-sample super long convolution wav files will count for something in terms of size?
 
Since it's sampled with a robot, I assume there's a decent amount of velocity layers. But it would be great to know for sure.
 
PianoPerson said:
Play a complex-ish chord on the Steinway and let it ring for a bit. After about 6 seconds you'll hear serious levels of noise. Let the chord ring longer and the noise dies out. It's a slightly weird experience. Granted, this is to some degree forensic nitpicking. But it's not good.

I was perhaps a bit harsh about Pianoverse's suitability for classical music. I just played some Schumann (Kinderszenen) and Mozart and it actually sounded OK, and some bits in Mozart actually worked quite well (using the 'Theater' space with otherwise clean settings; most things at 0.0 dB).

But I wouldn't recommend it for serious classical playing -- it's too limited and limiting.
Click to expand...
I wanted to try and test this here using the NY Grand 274 Modern Jazz preset and played around with some of the space and harp resonance settings to see what would happen, starting off with trying to get the dryest sound possible to see what might be going on in the raw samples. Here is a short video trying some things and capturing just the output of PIANOVERSE using Insight 2 from iZotope to see what might be happening. I did seem to hit the CPU hard near the middle of the video capture. I hope this is helpful.



@PianoPerson I would love to know the preset and settings you might be using along with a MIDI file to help look into this possibly in more detail to understand what might be going on.

IK did send me PIANOVERSE, which I appreciate, but they do not have any input on videos or content that I create. My first experiences with PIANOVERSE were a short time before the release but not really have time to dig in too deep until my actual live stream on Thursday where I basically presented my first impressions as I was pulling things up and playing them live.

I truly respect the amazing musicians here and count it an honor to even be in the room with all of you, so anything I express is to learn as much as I can and possibly discover new ways of listening and approaching these virtual instruments. All of the feedback from other's experiences helps me to take note and be more objectively thorough as I tend to not dig too deep below the surface at times.

PIANOVERSE is an interesting collection indeed with its own set of interesting quirks and issues. One thing for me is the RELEASE section and getting it dialed in where it does not feel so distracting. Having recorded all of the samples so dry it is a little uncanny not hearing more of a natural ambiance that we normally hear with virtual pianos recorded on a specific stage or studio space. So with PIANOVERSE the spaces and such require such a dry piano in order to accomplish what I think IK is trying to do, but we shall see.

Joyfully!
 
Thankyou Simeon. What are your thoughts on this library vs Noire, Production Voices 300 Grand and Ivory 3 regarding realism and playability?
 
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