My descent into piano VI madness

[progger]

I also meant to mention here: the past few days I've been mainly practicing with the Acousticsamples C7, and that may be my vote for "most underrated piano VI on forums." It's fantastic. Especially if you take the time to dial it in for your own tastes and preferences.

[Ashermusic]

(The Korg acoustic piano sounds from the M1 and Triton are cool in their own way, but of course no substitute for proper modern piano VIs like Modern D.)

Funny you say that. The M1 was my gigging axe for several years and I liked a lot of the sounds, but hated the piano sound. I eventually replaced it with a Kurzweil PC88 and it had so much better piano and strings but then I missed the M1's nylon string guitar and atmospheric type sounds.

[RobS]

OK I finally got the Dexibell T2L piano plug-in. Is it better than all the other modeled and sampled pianos I own? No. Is it's bragged about realism more than the others? No. Will I be using it a lot. Yes.

Here's why:
1. These days I am back to most of what I do being writing, recording and playing my pop songs live. And since my keyboards are Dexibell Vivos, there is a distinct advantage for me to have my backing tracks, which are sans lead vocal and piano, sound almost exactly like my recordings when I play live without third party FX or Logicc Pro FX. And I do really like the piano sounds in my Vivo S7 and S1.

2. On my keyboards, I can only have 1 "Platinum" piano library loaded and keep a compliment of other sounds, since the RAM is limited and they are big. But in the plug-in, I can have them all, and go between them USA, Japan, German, Italian, French, upright, ragtime and honky tonk and the plug-in is super efficient and puts no strain on my Mac even in a full template.

Screenshot 2025-07-21 at 9.54.51 AM.png

It also has all kinds of tweaks and controls you can adjust to your personal taste.

For scoring work, I almost certainly may turn to some of my others but this is going to make my song work simpler and Moree consistent, and at this stage of my life, that's a plus.

But obviously, this is very specific to me and my needs, so if you have ones you really like, I get why you would pass on this one.

thanks for reporting your experience Jay, useful to know

[progger]

Well hey, how about a semi-annual update!

I still consider myself to be in piano VI heaven, but it's only gotten better. The first big change: I gave my trusty and ancient Yamaha P85, my main weighted controller and practice piano of many years, to a good friend, and replaced it with a Roland RD88ex, which I love. I love the PHA4 key bed and have for a long time, I even prefer it to the PHA50 (otherwise I would have gotten an RD2000, cost wasn't an issue). The built-in sounds and onboard speakers are excellent for practicing, even though I normally just use it to control VIs.

But then, at long last, after many years on the fence – so many conflicting reviews about these! – I finally jumped into the Synthogy world and got damn near all the Ivory grand pianos. My first was the Ivory III German D, and I was immediately hooked, I absolutely love it. It soared to the top, basically tied with VI Labs Modern D for my taste and needs. I had to know what the Ivory II pianos were like so I got the three flagship Ivory II grands (the previous German D, the C7, and the Bosendorfer 290) as well as the "studio grands" (Steinway B and Bose 225).

The III D is still my favorite, to the point that I'll get the newer American D at some point this year, whenever they do another sale. But I tremendously enjoy the II grands, too, they all have their own flavor and of course they're all heavily tweakable with the Ivory engine. I'm assembling an army of presets for all of them.

I was a most excited, and subsequently a bit disappointed, about the Steinway B, since I still want a top-tier VI specimen of that wonderful instrument, and the particular instrument Synthogy sampled doesn't behave like any B I've played in real life... extremely dark, almost muffled, and very characterful, not a neutral do-it-all piano like I'd want a studio piano to be. But it actually has a really lovely nature to it that's beautiful in its own right as long as I put my expectations aside. The Bosendorfer 225, meanwhile, is fantastic, by far my favorite Bosen VI that I have (I prefer it to its big brother). The C7 is great (I have to tame it a little bit) and the earlier Steinway German D is delightfully different from the newer one.

I still love VI Labs to death but I am thoroughly addicted to playing these Ivory pianos at the moment. VIL and Synthogy are keeping each other on their toes, making better and better VIs, much to my benefit!