good user reviews. At $29, how could you go wrong? I’ve purchased but am having trouble installing (thanks Waves Central 
), so I can’t give you my hands-on impression yet.
Like the sound of it. Waves pretty much likes to take control of things, at least in my experience. Hope you get it going.
Have to say that having installed and played Grand Rhapsody for an hour, I really like it, I did adjust the “key up” effect to minimize the mechanical key release sound. I found the default setting for that effect to be distracting. Well worth the $29 spent
Hi Lee
I may have to take the plunge due to your comments. I got the Electric 88, and it is a CPU hog like most of the waves plugs. How much do you find the Rhapsody using?
Corky
Looking at the % indicator in the lower left corner of the Cantabile info window, the percentage rises to about 36% when I’m playing with hands together. Yes it does use a lot more resources than Pianoteq, which peaks at about 19% - so about double.
The Electric 88 was worse than that. Not as bad as I figured. Thanks for the info. Will give this a shot. Like you said, not a big loss at that price,
I attempted to try the demo, but could never figure out where the samples were kept.
Terry
The samples have to be downloaded separately.
http://www.waves.com/downloads/grand-rhapsody-piano-sample-libraries
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Aha! (My first Waves product…)
Thanks, Lee!
Terry
I’m playing the Basic Grand setting right now. Very nice with "key release"effect at zero
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I agree that key release effect is a bit annoying! See what we put up with using REAL pianos?!?!? 
I am trying the SD samples and already like it with this demo. You are right – this is a steal for $29.
Terry
Damn! Bought this thing after half an hour of playing it!
Thanks for the tip-off and help finding the samples, @LeesKeys! (My reading comprehension must be a little weak today…)
Terry
I bought it too, and really like it - its strength seems to be in very subtle, intimate or atmospheric piano work. One thing I don’t particularly like is that most of the presets seem to have the compression knob turned quite a lot way up, and the sound quickly sounds compressed and plinky, particularly higher up the keyboard. Once you turn that down it sounds more natural though. Unless I need to scale all my MIDI velocities down or something. This is with the SD sample set - the HD set might be configured differently. Also the key release and pedal noise effects can be a bit loud sometimes, but easy to turn them down.
Also, the $29 seems to be for a licence on one machine, and it appears if you want to run it on several machines without having to go through the job of transferring the licence, you need to buy a licence for each machine. I haven’t actually tried on a second machine yet, so I’m not sure yet if it’ll actually enforce the restriction.
Either way, excellent value for a very useful plugin!
Neil
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I realise there’s a vast difference in price but has anyone compared this to something like NI Grandeur yet? Grandeur is currently my go-to piano for the majority of my work.
@David I have both and I really like both! 
This “feels” a bit more classy to me. It also has more controls than Grandeur has.
The 7-day demo is what hooked me. 
Terry
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Argh! You’re costing me money!!!
I might go and check if it is still at $29 and take the plunge too.
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Purchased. Now to find a way to download the sample libraries. My Internet data allowance is very limited here.
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you’ve probably already noticed but there are standard def and hi def downloads to choose from. I have no idea if there is a noticeable different in sound quality between the two.
Yep. Indeed I did see that. Even the SD download is a lot of data here. I get 7GB per month plus 1GB extra each weekend.
I tried it and purchased it – no brainer for $29. I really like the sound of it. It has less options than the Galaxy Vintage D that’s been my go-to for ages, but I rarely used most of those options anyhow. They’re both different and I think both will have their place.
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