Brilliant playing and style. Came for a piano; discovered an artist.

A bought noire last month and it’s blown my mind! So beautiful! My favourite by far ❤

Always so nice to hear a comparison video with an excellent musician making good music!

Man, I gotta tell you. I could listen to this all day.

Oh, I wish I found your channel sooner. Thank you for the reviews, very informative and helpful. And thanks for some just entrancing performances here. You are a really fabulous musician!

Thank you. this is the best informative and practical video on virtual pianos. And Bravo for playing the piano so beautifully.

extremely funny what you played at 43:10, its a part i landed in when improvising a few years ago. its extremely funny to see someone improvise and land in the same situation. its like having these parking moments when your brain is switching gears xd

Thanks for the walkthroughs. You saved me a ton of instrument audition time!

Very helpful breakdown, thank you!

You hit the nail on the head with Pianoteq. A little boxy and in your face at first but a little tweaking yields great rewards. I absolutely love the new Bosendorfer, which has put Pianoteq back on my top shelf alongside the VSL stuff. The thing that sets Pianoteq apart for me is the playability - with (potentially) 127 velocity levels vs a few sampled layers just feels smoother to me.

Very helpful video! Many thanks! Great playing.

Cheers mate, fantastic!!I'll watch this very soon. Keep up the excellent work 👍💞🇬🇧🇺🇲

Thank you for this Sam. 🙏You play very beautifully (according to my taste of course). Great that you included The Gentleman. Love the sound and sweet character of it, and I'm going to install it. 🙂

Thank you, you had mentioned it in other responses.

This is a very good review. I have been using a variety of libraries over the last decade, and Pianoteq is my everyday library. I save presets for the sound I want from a particular instrument for the style of music. Again very informative, good review.

Beautiful playing, thank you very much! Subscribed!

Great playing. Something nice about Noire. Mix of realistic, pleasant and filmish/dreamy, so to say.

This is SO good, thanks. I taught myself to play piano during the UK lockdown, and went down the midi piano + macbook + NI route. Bought a couple of the pianos you demonstrated on here. I love the piano playing on your videos, but I came away feeling like I have SO much work to do to play better than I do right now. Like you, I'm in the church/worship scene, but that is where I play almost exclusively. I'm now using Sunday Keys through the iPad, but this makes me want to connect my MBP back up again and see what I can do. Thanks! (Also, your website link is dead, fyi!)

Wow! Amazing playing

Listened to the sweet end. So glad I did because now I know I want the CFX Concert Grand. Listening to your review of all the pianos has been also medicinal to the soul. Loved every moment. In another of your fine videos you saved me from purchasing Eastwest Pianos. I have Hollywood orchestra Opus, Hollywood Choirs, Spaces 2, and Hollywood Fantasy Orchestra and have been an Eastwest customer since the early 2000s with Symphonic Choirs, Orchestra Platinum, and other items of theirs. Love their stuff, but I can see what you are saying about Pianos. Thank you Sam for allowing us to hang with you in this wonderful sampling of pianos.

The song you played on the the gentleman is amazing thank you

Have you ever talked about your piano learning journey and your playing style and objectives in any videos? Thank you, Michael

Garritan CFX is absolutely my desert-island piano library. The timbre, the mics used, the ROOM and it fits like a glove to my SL88 Grand. Nice review, EXCELLENT playing. 👍

Thank you ... wonderful emotional playing 🙏

Mind blown CFX solo. Love it.

All of this. Yes. I really love the bit on Pianoteq. Beautiful. I use bechstein and steingraeber models

Hi Sam, with UVI, you can choose between subscription (Sonicpass) or purchasing perpetual licenses. The Austrian Grand is $79 when not on sale. It can also be purchased as part of bundles.

Love the worship songs bro!

Love your channel and playing

I LOVE the sympathetic resonance on pianoteq. What's crazy is that now you can use pianoteq as an effect. You can apply that sympathetic resonance to other libraries! Can you show us how that sounds? Keyscape + pianoteq resonance?

Love your videos bro. Was wondering why VI Labs' Ravenscroft 275 was not mentioned. Admired your playing, so many musical ideas.

While the great playing makes all of those sound good, the ones I liked the most were the Garritan CFX, Hammer and Waves, and Noire. SonicPass sounds great too, although I prefer buying once and having it forever. Thanks for the recommendations! I'll be sure to subscribe so I can hear more of your playing.

Noire sounds extremely well balanced to me. Its got a nice warmth and richness without sounding too perfect and tinny like VSTs can be sometimes. I seriously am considering getting it as someone who is learning classical piano. Anyway, thanks for the vid, and fantastic playing!

Thank you for these great recommendations! You do them very well and i like the style of the videos. Are you planning to do some online courses/lessons and maybe private lessons? I'd like to learn your style of playing and your improvisation techniques. You play very cool stuff:)

I had this sick piano sampke back in 2011, super under the radar, don't think they still exist. And had a name that was so easy to forget. Virtual grand?

this guy deserves more followers

FYI, you can purchase Austrian Grand separately for $79. You don't need a subscription. I used that for quite a while. It doesn't feel totally natural out of the box, though. You can hear the abnormally short releases in your sample playing. I had to adjust the ADSR setting to get a more natural note release, although the bass notes are disproportionally affected by ADSR, so you then get abnormally long releases on the low notes. But for $79, I'd be hard pressed to find anything that sounds as good, with an excellent dynamic range and warm sound. Now, CFX Grand is pretty much my favorite, even though certain notes have a bit of a buzz when playing them hard. Do you notice that? I hear it in your playing sample. Interestingly, the compact versions of the samples don't have the buzz, but then you miss out on some of the richness. Even with the buzzes, though, the tone is just so rich and thick, and the bass so clean and strong, I've replaced all my piano tracks with the CFX.

Great video, as always. Which MIDI controller do you use, Sam?

Thanks! Like many, I came for the review, and stayed for the inspiration. Would you let me know which controller, that you play recommend, for connecting to the instrument, a piano of course. Thank you.

Thanks for that! Any video explaining the midi controller you are using? Looking at purchasing an SL88 studio but would be very curious to know what you are playing on most of the time, I saw you had an SL88 in the background from time to time.

Wonderful playing as always Sam, outstanding! Well keyscape remains incredible no matter what comes out, for pop and jazz styles I guess they are in a league of their own. If they ever release an update in their library however they should record a full grand; like a D or a larger 9FT Yamaha. I think both Keyscape and The Nord piano library as we hear it in Nord keyboards need a full grand sound which sounds clear. Then this pianoverse is very good! I've heard they work both with sampling and modeling the sounds. I know they can't compare but the supernatural engine in most Rolands did the same, and although old it still provides some of the best pianos you'd find on a keyboard, in my opinion even better than their solo modeling engines which sound nothing special. Pianoteq isn't my go to, I think it'll never be, because when I choose a piano VST I like to play something which sounds like a piano, not something that allows me to create my own new instrument through changing a thousand parameters. No doubt it Sounds good, but I don't find any specialty in it and this applies to all modeled pianos. Their everlasting promise for providing subtlety elements just like a real grand is rather stupid, Because sampled pianos do that pretty fine if you calibrate the velocity curve right, and also because... well... Pianos aren't that subtle by definition, not as much as for a library with 1000 samples per note to fail replicating it. But there are things with which modeling can help while building a digital piano sound for sure. Keep it up! :)

Upgraded to Pianoteq 8 today from version 6 😊 I d like to mention even its lightweight a faster computer helps. With a fast AMD cpu and a ASIO driver its like I am playing a hardware instrument. Before with an I5 and 8 gb RAM I had some latency. Also as a long time user since 2016 it was cheap (only 30) to update and it takes some steps forward in quality. I also tried KeyScape and Arturia. They sound better in the mix but for solo playing I prefer Pianoteq. I like the chord display function and midi recording (always) and export options.

Yes, I really like the Garritan GFX a lot also.

Very nice demos, thank you. In your video, are you running CFX M2-native or is Rosetta 2 required? Garritan states that the Garritan player must be used with Apple Silicon, but I've also heard that the CFX player is working fine. I'm porting my copy from an older Intel mac and may pick up Pianoteq to complement.

HI SAM, THANK YOU FOR SHARING THE INFORMATION AND EXPERIENCE, VERY USEFUL. I'M INTERESTED IN WHICH KEYBOARD YOU USE, OR WHICH ONE IS CLOSEST TO YOUR "REAL PIANO" TOUCH? Thanks,M

Man, your playing is just amazing. by the way which midi you are using ?

What physical keyboard are you playing on? I have some MIDI files I recorded using Roland GP-607. When i bounce these through the VST say for Garritan Yamaha CFX in pro tools, doesn’t sound as full or crisp as your demo.

Hey, nice video as usual Sam! Have you tried VSL Synchron Yamaha CFX or Steinway? I'd really like to watch your reaction and review on those (they are expensive as hell lol) but I've heard from some people that they are the closest ones to the first time playing a big grand experience

I believe the Grandeur would work well for gospel as well as what we call country gospel here in the south. Sounds beautiful and the playing is absolutely top notch. The Grandeur may be at home living on a Surface Pro 4, I well have to check the specs. At the moment it is on sale for $49.95. I think the stars could be lining up. Thanks for the review(s)!

4th comment lol, do you ever adjust your midi controller's velocity curve for certain libraries (Or in the library itself)? Would make a crap ton of a difference how a library plays and feels. This was brought to my attention because Spectrasonics commented under a big youtube video blind test stating that (Sanjay C) Didn't have the recommended velocity curve settings for his Native instruments controller and it really made Keyscape sound crappy, like it had no dynamic range nor richness.

Hey Sam! I recently picked up Keyscape and noticed its volume output to be less than ideal for live performance via something like OBS. Do you have any tips for what you’re using to sound so loud and dynamic yet not overly compressed? I’m going directly from the program into streaming software. Love your reviews, they’ve been incredibly helpful as I slowly pick up all these VSTs for my arsenal :)

Hello, I have amateur question: To use Keyscape with my stage piano (or other virtual instrument) - do I have to connect my piano with PC directly via USB? Or maybe I can connect my piano with 2 audio TRS/TS jack cables (left, right - stereo) to audio interface (Focusrite Scarlett) and then interface is connected to PC via USB? Does it work in both situations?

As I suggested many years ago, while being a “keyboard magazine” reader ,(the real, paper version..), in a reader letter, someone should manufacture a really good real acoustic piano keyboard, in a cool design, high quality “box”, inside all computer stuff needed for loading any kind of those high end pianos sounds, with a cd/usb/Wi-Fi/ whatever needed, and a needed small screen, etc….. what I mean is that so many pianists just want to push the “on” button, and play… Sure, acoustic piano is best … but when an electronic one is needed/ useful, if you want as less compromises as exists, or the best there is,you need a computer, sound card, keyboard, wires, wow… We just need a best quality all in one keyboard that can handle any data of those high quality piano sounds to upload once, and then just push “on” and play…. And always to be able to buy another “piano” data and upload it to this cool instrument….

Heya, have you ever tried out the Sonicouture: Hammersmith Pro? Would be interested in that!

Hi Sam, please could you tell which one would you compare to be the closest to a Nord Stage in this top list ?

Thanks Sam for review, anyway about D1 Korg, how good does the keyfeel?

I use 3 pianos. The V-Piano on my RD2000 live, then I have The Grandeur and Hammer and waves more for home use.

I own about 80% of them and agree with you almost 100% on your comments on them. Great, really great piano VIs!. Have you tried VSL pianos?. I love them also

Keyscape is not my favorite grand piano sound but it’s so damn good with everything else which I find very ironic. Nothing wrong with their sample quality, you’d just think they’d put some more grands in there with how many instruments are loaded in

Hi. About four months ago, I purchased a piano library which I think is better than Noire, even better than the other CFX library you showed us. Production Voices made a CFX library called 300 Grand, and it sounds phenomenal. It's 72 GB, so still huge, but you get 9 microphone perspectives that you can control independently.

How did you learn those super fast jazzy little riffs? Are those just arpeggios within whatever key you're in? Based on modes?

Another con of Keyscape is that the 'I think' the piano sample (the tone, not the hammers and other effects) is mono. It 'sounds" as if the high notes are panned to the right and low notes to the right. Lastly, the piano tone has a massive and narrow boost at around 8K? Hard to remove it. Hammers and Waves has some inspiring presets. A budget grand to consider would be Acoustic Samples C7 Grand. Not bad for $100. CFX is also a really nice grand. But you need to experiment to find the right sound for your music genre.

What would you say is a good "Disney" piano in Pianoteq? Playable and a bit light sound maybe. That one you played sounds kind of like what I am looking for.

Sam, the song you play at 18:00, is it a specific piece or are you just improvising?"

Can't believe you don't adjust the dynamics in pianoteq. Sampling pianos sound great, but to me what really sets pianoteq apart is the endless dynamic layers of modelling. I always increase dynamics quite a bit and that makes playing feel so much more like a real piano.

How much memory do you think will suffice to load the entire CFX with all its mic channels at the lowest buffer setting? I am probably getting an m3

Sam! Can you do a video on the Embertone Walker piano?

I've got them all, well most of the biggies, including Keyscape, various UVI crap, Garritan, Komplete 14 Collectors Edition, Ivory II, Ravenscroft 275, Arturia, and VSL Synchron etc... I bought them all myself (I have more money than sense.) The only ones that I regularly use are Pianoteq Pro Studio Bundle, Keyscape, and the Komplete Pianos. Pianoteq is, by far, my favorite. I like Keyscape for the various electrics and hybrids. I like the Komplete ones because they are right there. and they sound good enough in a mix. Pianoteq is great and it improves constantly. If you are a concert pianist or jazz pianist, this (or maybe the $3000 VSL piano library.) No sampled piano will ever be updated, upgraded and reconfigured as much as Pianoteq. It is configurable to a ridiculous extent. Also, when you tweak Pianoteq, you are not just warping static recordings (which is what samples are.) If Pianoteq sounds tinny to you, you don't know what you're doing. Stick to Alicia's Keys. The top version of Pianoteq is the STUDIO BUNDLE. It's around $900 (trust me on that). That is a fraction of what VSL costs. Garritan AB CFX is garbage.

Think about purchasing the CFX...you said you do own a M2...I do have a M1...are there any known problems to use CFX on a Macbook M1? Thank you so much for your answer..

I actually own all of these libraries and few others, but my goto usually ends up being CFX. The biggest "con" for me is the fact that they have not updated CFX in a very VERY long time. I can only imagine what they could do to it. I own a Kawai RX-7 and when I play CFX, I can feel the "wood" from my RX-7.

What are you playing at 17 minutes? Would love to know the piece

Thank you for making this VID. I can't decide on this last CFX , "NOIRE" or Grandeur ? ...HMM? I Own a Yamaha CP4 ( like 12-15yrs )..Older technology but sounds pretty good but still not there plus I Own a ROLAND Fantom 7 & use my 88 YAMAHA Weighted as a Controller but then again!...I don't like the Pianos in the Keyboard ( even though it has the "V Piano ) not the same like Jonathan Cain's Original /Discontinued "V Piano" I wish we can DEMO this like a regular Plug-In! Thx again. George Amodei

Hi Sam! I've just bought myself a Korg D1 after reading some of your comments saying that you recommended it. I'm a newbie and wanted to ask how you connect it to your computer to play VSTs? What kind of cables/devices do you use? Thank you!

Hello, perhaps I missed it on another video, what keyboard are you using as a controler for the top pianos of 2024

Im getting that m3 Max with 12 performance cores so I can run stuff like the CFX no problem lol. fyi, logic users beware, logic doesn't use the efficiency cores! So if you don't get the max chip for the latest generation, you will get more power from the m1 pro chips. Just ignore the efficiency cores and only count the performance cores when factoring in more budget friendly models. For some reason, Apple has been replacing the pro chip performance cores for more efficiency cores. Don't waste your money on a bunch of cores that your DAW won't even be able to use!

Don't know if you like epianos, but man, lounge lizard is amazing. I'd put it against the keyscape stuff

Garritan vs Noire? Which one stands out as a CFX library?

There is one thing I absolutely don’t like with soft-pianos, which for me always is almost a dead giveaway that the piano was sampled and not a real acoustic recording. Lets say you during a piece/performance need to repeat the same note at the same velocity, that tone is going to sound exactly the same every single time on a softpiano. On a real piano, due to its organic nature, you’ll never going to make a note sound exactly the same ….like never. In a busy mix, no one is going to notice the difference. But for my solo-piano stuff, I think plugins are going to have a pretty hard time keeping up with a real Fazioli F278 grand recorded with my Schoeps mics. Maybe one day plugin will come to this level of authenticity, but that day is definately not today.

I have some of these VSTs and I can't get any of them to sound like this. IDK if its just that I suck at playing or if theres an issue with my equipment. I have a Focusrite Scarlet Solo 3rd Gen. Would that affect how my audio sounds?

AK piano is on sale for only£12..is it still worth getting?? :)

Can keyskape actually produce ff and fff, and does it sound realistic like their pp, p, mp and mf?

Keyscape was kind of a disappointment for me as a solo classical piano. I also disliked pianoteq because there are some ranges where it sounds very nasal. However, their new Bosendorfer 280 minimizes that nasal (boxy) sound enough that I might purchase it during their end of summer sale. The VSL Bosendorfer 280 is also really nice. I’m 100% with you on the Grandeur and the Garritan library. I’ve been trialing the garritan (cough cough), but I’m going to buy it as soon as I get my refund from VSL for their CFX. I tried their CFX and it just sounds too glassy on the top end. More importantly, thanks for the video as it was super fun to watch.

I love Keyscape and the NI Stuff. But I'm interested in Hammers + Waves acoustic especially the uprights. Do you think they could be great in a live Worship Set? I can imagine that with Hammers + Waves I'm able to add something new, but what's your opinion?

Hi Beardguy, have you tried the underrated "Meldway Grand"? It's an insane Steinway sound for the price!

the grandeurs sounds incredible compares to pianoteq or even keyscape ( pianoteq lacks of body, and keyscape, the notes are like cut off as if there were no sustain) . The grandeur sounds full.

What song did you start playing at 17:15?

Hey Sam ! what's your opinion about nord stage 3/4 piano sound library ? ( do you think their piano sounds sound very good ? )

How do you feel about IK's Pianoverse?

There is not any Nord piano ( White Grand / Royal Grand 3D / Grand Imperial )?

Grendure : spot less playing He's already won. wow wow wow so fun sounds really good.

so pianoverse from IK multimedia did not make it to your top pianos? why? and VSL?

The problem with Pianoteq is that none of their pianos sound like a sampled piano. On the other hand, very pleasant to play.

Have you tried Imagiro Piano?

Keyscape slaps

What keyboard are you playing on in this video?

I believe that it is important to play acoustic (preferably grand) piano to have a reference to judge and choose piano VSTs. What is your favourite acoustic piano? I like Yamaha C7 I regularly practice on.

Can i ask what masterkeyboard you use?

i have seen your other reviews too . in grandeur you have options to choose other type piano at the top if you click on camera icon . you have never opened them in any of your reviews and you are saying there’s not lot of options in it.

You actually missed completely, showing UVI Key Suite while talking about IK Pianoverse pricing. Key Suite is a mixed bag, $349 for the whole bundle with Austrian Grand ($79 separately), or $200 for either acoustic or electric (rhodes/wurli/clav) standalone, or $79 for digital alone. Honestly, digital is where it's at, layering heaven - pair it with Grandeur/Noire and you're good to go. Acoustic is very meh, on the level of most stage pianos with a boxy sound that's hard to fix. UVI actually do have SonicPass subscription, $24/month or $240/year, but that also includes Falcon, Vintage Vault, Orchestral Suite, footstep and whoosh fx libraries, BeatBox Anthology for your drum machines, overall a ton of somewhat obscure and not often sampled synths, both analog and digital. You get Emulator, Fairlight, string machines, Mellotron, M1, SY99, Wavestation, Akai AX73, Polivoks... There's Hammond and Vox and other obscure organs. A gypsy jazz library. World Suite with digeridoos, duduks and middle east strings. With effects on top - Thorus is one of the least "sounding like a chorus" choruses I've tried, there's a drum replacement plugin, FabFilter Pro-Q alternative and so on. IK's Pianoverse on the other hand... $15 a month or $150 a year or $130 for one of them outright. Will have to give them a closer look, but IK is one of these a tier below your NIs and your Spectrasonics, kinda clunky with obvious filler content but at times usable, good to grab on a sale. One thing worth mentioning, IK have a nasty policy of forcing you to keep a copy of the installer on your own external drive, or they charge you for downloading the library again "to cover server costs". Not aware of anyone else in the business (except solo indie developers) doing this. Still, worth checking out and forming an opinion I guess. Future video perhaps?

no ravenscroft?