Thans, I’ll try again later.
Big fight with IK’s product manager. I don’t remember all this mess when I installed Sampletank 3/4.
I downloaded all the current pianos except the upright, due to problems with my internet connection. Never mind for now.
These are just the very first impressions after 15 minutes of playing each piano, so nothing definitive, just some quick thoughts.
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First, according to the IK FAQs, the offline use of the pianos is limited by the subscription policy. So it’s basically unusable for gigs. The individually purchased pianos don’t seem to be affected.
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I don’t like a lot of presets. Better to start with a good preset and reprogram the sound from there. Or do it from scratch.
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I expected the Steinway to be better.
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The Yamaha CFIII is only average.
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My favs are the Bösendorfer 280VC and the Fazioli F278, very pristine sound.
I hope that by listening carefully to the whole bundle, something better will arise.
The CPU is a bit stressed, and in classic IK style, the load can increase significantly with the added effects. I have seen values between 12% and 35%.
There is no doubt that the instruments are sampled very well. But the preset sometimes compromises the accuracy of the sampling. The velocity parameters are also a bit sloppy, for example there’s no S-curve.
3 Likes
I started listening Pianoverse more closely.
I have to repeat myself, you should not listen the presets, but limit yourself to the samples, sometimes just adding a little reverb (I use the GSi Convoler with Lexicon 224 IRs, ultra CPU lite). Leave some of what they call ‘SPACE’ active, otherwise it becomes too flat and you lose the stereo feel. And I definitely don’t want the ‘simulated IK environment’. My polite definition for them: crap.
Listened to in this way (i’s, after all, the father of the CFX), the CFIII reveals itself to be the wonderful piano that it is.
I can see the excellent work that IK Multimedia has done on the sampling. I hope you can too. 
I played it for three hours, confirming the quality of the samples and the excellent original instrument used, and… screw the presets. So forget (and forgive) my previous ‘CFIII is only average’.
But there is a big but. And I need to badmouth IK.
Why is a sampled instrument, played without any effects, such a CPU hog?
My Ivory II and the best piano libraries for Kontakt average 5 to 10% TL.
This one (and, I assume, all the others), 22%. Is the IK engine that badly coded?
Next time I’m in Modena, amidst some beautiful views of Ferrari prototypes, maybe I’ll go to IK and ask them. 
4 Likes
That is my opinion after playing it a lot. I like the samples but hate the engine & compression system for the files, it is high consumption and spikes a lot!!
1 Like
I played with the Steinway D today.
I know, the second piano is the Yamaha upright, but my IK product manager is having some problems with it, refusing to download the sound content. I’ll drop IK a note. Will see.
I have to say that it’s a slightly strange Steinway D, so I compared it with all the others I own. The best of them, anyway.
Synthogy American Grand.
Production Voice Grand LE.
VSL D-274.
Pianoteq.
All these pianos, although slightly different, are brighter. This Pianoverse D is quite dark, I wonder if the original is a distinctive version.
The samples are very well done, just like the CFIII.
The nicely dark character makes it very intimate, very lovely when played alone. I also find it perfect for cinematics.
Maybe using a different MIDI curve will make it pop, but I haven’t tried. Why wreck its nice dark sound?
EDIT: This piano is even more CPU hog than the CFIII (Whyyyyy?). Say 20 to 32% TL.
And now the Y5, or more precisely the Yamaha U5.
As usual, without IK’s supernatural features.
The good news is that it’s less CPU hog than the others I’ve tested. Say 18 to 21% TL with 25% peak.
It’s a good upright, very well sampled. The lack of great dynamics is due to the original instrument, which obviously can’t be compared to a 9’ Grand.
As far as I remember, it is very similar to the real U5 that I played some time ago.
I can’t make comparisons with other Yamaha upright VSTi because I don’t have them.
Overall it’s well balanced piano if you don’t need a huge dynamics.
3 Likes
It is time for the Black Diamond B280, the high sounding name IK has given to the Bösendorfer 280VC.
For those unfamiliar, this is not a scaled-down version of the more famous 290 (aka Imperial). Bösendorfer started selling it in 2016, so it’s thoroughly modern, and they claim it has nothing to do with the 290 or any of their other historic pianos.
I did a comparison with the VSL 280VC. The IK one is darker, don’t know why. Even the 290 seems brighter than the B280.
But that doesn’t matter, it’s still a great piano, with a distinctive sound and excellent dynamics. The velocity balance is also very good over the whole keyboard range. This is also true of all the other ‘Pianoverse’ models I’ve tried.
Let’s talk prices:
VSL 280VC costs $311.
IK B280 is €122 (I guess it’s the same in dollars).
Is there a winner? For the way they sound, no. Different, but both excellent.
Price: I’m sure that if I didn’t already have the VSL, I’d be sure to get the B280.
Version 1.0.5 of Pianoverse has been released.
Still the same noise problems with the Fazioli F278, but this time the player has been improved. The audio load has been reduced. As it was very high, this is good news. My average went down from 35% to 27%.
Regarding the previously reported noise and crackling problems of the F278, there’s a new development.
On a newly assembled PC (AMD Ryzen 7 7800X) the problem has changed. This time the noise is not the same, and it’s heard when the damper (sustain) pedal is pressed, not when notes are played on the keyboard. Weird, huh?
I’ll report this to IK support, although I have not had any luck with them so far.
4 Likes
I can confirm the audio load improvements in version 1.0.5 as reported by @cpaolo. I really liked the Pianoverse instruments when they were initially released, but they were just too “heavy” for live performance work. I have now replaced my UVI Workstation set of acoustic pianos with Pianoverse and find that the time load at rest and when playing to be comparable to UVI or Kontakt sampled pianos. I also find Pianoverse’s audio “artifacts” and upper register tuning issues make for a more authentic acoustic piano experience, rather than being an annoying imperfection. YMMV…