Xperimenta / Piano F

[Piet De Ridder]

Xperimenta have released the PF2 Piano F, a sampled Fazioli Grand Coda (24 velocity layers) to which they added 30 'Creative Layers' made with various gear and noises, etc. In other words, a pretty good sounding virtual piano with lots of options to add something special to its sound.
As with their previous instruments, the PF2 also includes Xperimenta's 'Formant Control" which offers further options to move away from the naked sampled sound and make the piano all your own. Works surprisingly well.

It's being introduced at a price of 89,00€, the regular price will be 129,00€

[artinro]

This one sounds quite good to me. Did you purchase it Piet? Thoughts on it, if so? Does anyone know what kind of space this was recorded in? I've yet to hear an example of the separate mics where the reverb is off. Interesting....I didn't realize Fazioli even made a 284cm piano.

[Piet De Ridder]

Yes, I bought it. In a few words: nice timbre and good sound — such comments are, of course, largely a matter of personal preference, but I think most anyone would agree that this is a nice and good-sounding piano — , yes, but ... rather problematic playability plus a few minor flaws. The developer is aware of all this, and has already announced an update that will, hopefully, address the current issues.

I say 'hopefully' because the playability problem is such that one can't help but wonder if there actually was a true piano player among the people who programmed and (beta-)tested this library. Because if none of those people heard the (very noticeable) problem the first time around, it is not a certainty that they have what it takes to correct the problem.
I'm not a particularly great piano player myself by any stretch of the definition, but I heard the problem within 10 seconds of loading up the library for the first time. Literally, 10 seconds. Played two chords, one or two phrases and it was immediately clear there was something very wrong with the piano's response. How this ever managed to elude the developer and the beta-team -- as I understand it: 10 people, next to the developer himself, have beta-tested this library over the period of an entire month -- is beyond my understanding.

Anyway, what occurs is this: if you play forte or mezzoforte on the current version of the Piano F, everything is more or less OK — not perfect, in my opinion, but OK — but as soon as you play softer, the volume drops excessively, way below how a piano normally responds. It sounds as if, on top of the natural decrease in level, the volume is artificially decreased even further as well. Which sounds very unlike how a real instrument behaves. In fact, if you play really gently, large quantities of notes all but disappear.
(I can only assume they implemented this strange behaviour to give the the piano a big dynamic range, but things went rather wrong, if you ask me.)

The other shortcomings are two little issues that should be easy to fix. One concerns the release samples of the lowest notes and another requires some corrective EQ'ing of a few notes.

Other than that, nothing worrisome to report really. Although I have to add that, so far, I've only played the piano and haven't explored the other features of the library (noise layers and such) yet.

If they manage to correct the playability issue (and maybe further improve the overall dynamic response as well), this Piano F will, without a doubt, be an outstanding piano library.

I'll see if I can make you some audio examples of the three mic perspectives later today, Artinro.

_

[Piet De Ridder]

Artinro, here's a short little something rendered with two different (combinations of) perspectives:

(1) CLOSE plus some ROOM
(2) MID plus some more ROOM

And this video repeats the same music a number of times while I mess about with a few (mostly space-related) parameters.

All of this was quickly done, so forgive the absence of any meticulous in-depth explorations, but I think, I hope, that you'll get some idea of what this piano (and its three mic perspectives) sounds like.

Should also mention that I recorded this with a custom edit of the default patch. (Made that edit to have a quick fix for the playability issues mentioned in the previous post. Far from ideal, but it sort of works.)
_

[artinro]

Piet, thank you so much for your posts (both thoughts and the audio/video examples). So thorough and extremely helpful. Can’t tell you how much I appreciate the time you took.

I think this is worth picking up, especially for the intro price. I think I’ll do so today. Seems like the dev has made good on promises to update previous products, so hopefully he’s aware of your comments and plans to address them.

I’m still trying to figure out which Fazioli was sampled for this project. I can’t seem to find a 284cm model in their concert grand lineup. A custom one, perhaps?

Piet, thank you again.

[artinro]

Update for the library just released:

"PF2 Piano F 1.1.3

[Fix] Dynamic Response was having some issues, especially in the quieter range
[Fix] Balanced low-bass frequencies
[New] a custom script for fine-tuning the volume depending on velocity for each key. The new settings give even more flexibility and balance to the instrument
[Fix] Release samples volume was sometimes unbalanced
The main presets were updated, you can find the previous one in the "Presets\1.0" folder."

[Lawrence]

Guess it's me, but I just don't dig that piano sound.

[Ashermusic]

Guess it's me, but I just don't dig that piano sound.

Plus 1.

[tack]

I say 'hopefully' because the playability problem is such that one can't help but wonder if there actually was a true piano player among the people who programmed and (beta-)tested this library. Because if none of those people heard the (very noticeable) problem the first time around, it is not a certainty that they have what it takes to correct the problem.
I'm not a particularly great piano player myself by any stretch of the definition, but I heard the problem within 10 seconds of loading up the library for the first time. Literally, 10 seconds. Played two chords, one or two phrases and it was immediately clear there was something very wrong with the piano's response.

This is just how it goes with most piano libraries I buy: playability problems -- commonly related to pedalling -- observed within seconds. It's typically within 15 seconds that I know whether it's a piano I'm likely to ever touch again. And of course in most cases when I decide that it's destined for the bit bucket I have no financial recourse, as resales are commonly disallowed, and refunds even rarer.