I tried the Chocolate Audio Model 7 during a rehearsal, and have been trying it at home. So far, these are my observations:
Very good well rounded sound. Lows, mids, and high notes are equally represented. Many pianos I have tried do not have depth in all ranges of the keyboard. Some have great lows, but terrible mids, etc. Model 7 has it all covered. It is a Kontakt instrument, and initially it sounded distorted. Even though the volume control in Kontakt was not pegging out, I turned it slightly down, and corrected that problem. There are a huge amount of settings, and it is very easy to tweek the way you prefer. The key velocities are very responsive to your playing style. I did enjoy playing this, well above the many I have tried. The true test for me will come this weekend in live gig situations. I will let you know how it stacked up.
Corky
PS I am also trying the upright as well in live gig. Something about it is really drawing me in!!
After the initial load, I would say pretty fast. Alicia Keys has always been a slow load, sometimes over a minute, which is why I never use it. Acoustic Samples Academic Grand (Kontakt version) about 3 to 5 seconds. I would say it compares to Acoustic Samples. I start gigging within an hour, and will try to judge load time, and let you know.
I got try it live. It seemed slow in response on the lower octaves until I muted the reverb. I tried several of the presets, but I still had to mute the reverb. Great response on velocity. The sound was very nice, and managed to cut through as well as my Acoustic Samples. I was very pleased with the depth of all the octaves. I wasn’t able to do much tweeking, so, basically out of the box, I was pleased, but have some more testing to do.
Cool. I may really have to give it a try. Now I really have to decide how high on m priority list yet another piano is in relation to the other things I need… :eek:
Another vote for Ravenscroft live here. Just use the close mic position, turn down the ambient sounds (release, key knock, sustaion release.) They sound awesome through studio monitors but will clutter the mix live, particularly the sustain release.
Very dynamic especially in the higher velocities. It sounds great right away but the timbre shift thingy adds some extra clarity for cutting over a band.
This guy says it all. I agree with everything he says:
How is the Ravenscroft on system resources? I’d use the Keyscape C7 but that thing is a pig. Maybe when I switch to an SSD it will make the difference.
I have Keyscapes as well. They are both a bit taxing on resources but the Ravenscroft feels a bit more solid to me. I love the Keyscapes C7 for studio work but (in my opinion) the Ravenscroft often wins out for live sound clarity and playability. Also, I don’t know if you’ve found this but I find keyscapes doesn’t play very nicely with Cantabile for recalling parameters in rack states. The UVI player (Ravenscroft uses) functions the way it should for recalling parameters.
Holy c**p- now there’s THIS half Terabyte bastard… although it does seem to come in many flavors for different budgets and machines, so that’s good. Sounds pretty dang nice…
I have been running Production Grand Gold on my rig since 2014. I really love the sound and responsiveness. The overall cantabile load footprint with this plugin is quite low. However, it is a beast to load up, it does take some time initially. The nice thing is I’ve never had an issue running it in Cantabile version 2 or 3. I just recently got an email from Jason Chapman showing the pre-release of Production Grand 2, a revised version of the original. So many new features and options within the new interface.
@Wurlitzer
I haven’t used AK for long but do like it a lot.
I’ve played about using the two close tube mics for my foldback and the two far tubes for the mix / PA. Maybe the Mid tubes. Because the AK has only two outputs I run two instances to split the audio. I only ever add reverb etc after checking the sound from either the desk or mid venue. No point adding reverb to a venue or hall that already has reverb and the equalisation and presence changes once the gig fills up anyway. Then it depends on the gig, Jazz, Blues, Rock. Chick Corea or Trad jazz dixieland? 1950s Rock n Roll or ZZ Top.
I guess it depends …
@Corky
LOL
Ya gots to be the mean tempered clavier! There’s lots of bad ass stuff you can jack a blues piano riff into before reaching for the synth. Why should Lucifer luthier and axe players have all the fun?
I’m frustrated with Ravenscroft. It sounds great in studio or headphones but in a live mono setup it is horrible. Thin, cheesy, grainy, like an old 1990’s Casio piano sound! LOL. This post started about live use piano vsts and got off track.
Can anybody comment from actual use (months on a stage) as to what vst sounds great and plays great in mono, on a stage, for jazz. I use a Bose L1 series 2. I use a Soundcraft Ui16 mixer and a DMC122 as an organ and controller. I’m desperate to find a decent vst piano. Help!!! LOL
Many things come into play while using VST’s live. You are going from a stereo setting to mono, which in some cases will give you either right or left sounds only. It is really dependant on the way your setup produces sound. If there is a mono setup for Ravenscroft, I would use that. It also would be best to take off all effects, then slowly add some back in, to taste, in mono. Read all of the above comments, which could be of some help to you. There are many here that use Ravenscroft, maybe they will chime in, but there are many more piano VST’s available. I have found in my experience, according to type of gig, that a simple, less sampled piano, and less effects works better, especially in mono.
I agree. The way most PA systems hype certain midrange frequencies makes most amazing sounding sampled pianos sound like garbage anyway. I tend to lean toward pianos live that sound a little fake to begin with- pianos that sound like early Roland pianos, tinny and maybe 2 velocity levels lol That’s for a big rock band though. For solo sections the Addictive Keys upright does pretty well. That might be a contender for a jazz piano. And it does work in mono. Also, it loads fast. I’d say give it a shot. I’m starting to use Yamaha CP70 sounds a lot. It’s its own thing, like a Rhodes. Lots of character. That’s probably NOT what you want though
