Dream digital...

[gosch]

this would be something, I'd like to have:
"Digital Grand" with..
- real-and-nothing-but-real grand-action
- super-duper 8-point optical sensors (whatever does it..)
- 64 voices polyphony, stereo ultra-super-sampled Boesendorfer
- Dolby-Headphone technology, yeah!
and...
no midi, no lousy trumpet-sound (and whatnot), no fuzz

[xvimbi]

Check out
https://www.postpiano.com/products/postpiano/index.php

[gosch]

whooohooooooaa

THANKS for that link !!!!

[gosch]

oops..

unfortunately, my earlier excitement was unfounded:
on closer look on Post Piano's pdf-infos, it is mentioned that it has a "TP-30 Fatar" hammer-action.

This would probably be the same plastic-cheap thing that standard Rolands have, NOT a real grand-action from wood !
Also probably no optical sensors (like Yamaha GranTouch)
Otherwise a great idea...but too bad !

[gosch]

So sampling-wise, this Post Piano is definetly the dream-machine I was thinking of.
But I can not understand why these guys have wimped out on the mechanical stuff.
In the price segment this baby is in anyway, why not also use the best (wood) action and optical sensors availale these days ??

The basic line seems to be that there's still no Dream-Digital grandpiano around these days (?)

[xvimbi]

I believe you can make your own dream digital. There are good real actions available (e.g. Yamaha GranTouch), and the readout mechanism is most likely absolutely adequate. After all, there is really nothing other than the velocity of the hammers to read out. Pedals need to be handled properly as well, of course. So, take a digital with a good action and connect a computer runnig the best Bosendorfer samples and a good speaker system, and you'll have your perfect digital.

The Postpiano is exactly that, and it is custom-made, so you may be able to talk to these guys to see if they would be able to put in a different action.

[gosch]

I would love to connect a computer to my GranTouch, but my gut-feeling tells me that just taking the MIDI-out has loss of information (dynamic range, continuous pedal...) ! And I've read something like to that extent even in it's own manual (MIDI-section).
I can well imagine that "internally", the GranTouch uses SOMETHING DIFFERENT than standard MIDI to play its samples.
Well.. I can't prove this. Unfortunately qualified Yamaha technical support is hard to get... that's the way with Mega-corporations.

[xvimbi]

Loss of dynamic range, hmmm. I think MIDI is fine, particularly since you are interested in re-generating only one voice. The dynamics usually has 127 values (or so), pedals have 255. Yamaha's XG format allows actually a lot more, but I think it's not necessary. I for myself am certainly not able to consistently produce 127 different leveles of loudness
Check it out for yourself and connect your digital to a computer via a cheap MIDI->USB cable ($25). There s plenty of free software that will tell you the MIDI output. If you have an Apple (what else ) get GarageBand ($49) and you'll be up and running with recording facilities etc. in no time. If you are satisfied, go for the PMI Boesendorfer samples (<$200) and a lot of RAM and you'll have the best available sound. I think the difficulties really lie in the adjusting the velocity curves and mapping of the MIDI output to the particular sound that you want, but this is something you can fiddle with to your hearts content.

[JimM]

The Post piano samples are part of a very large set of libraries available for "soft samplers" like GigaStudio, Kontact, Halion, etc.  All of them require very fast computers with very fast hard disks and lots of memory.  The software isn't cheap either.  My Gigastudio computer (which is connected to a Yamaha CVP900) cost me over $3,000 (computer, sound card, interface, software) even before I started buying samples.

But there is no doubt that the gigabyte-sized streaming samples put most ROM-based samples to shame.  Here is a partial list of available piano libraries in these formats:

ArtVista: Malmsjö Acoustic Grand, Steinway B
Bardstown Audio: Bösendorfer Imperial Grand
Best Service: Total Piano, Galaxy Steinway 5.1
Big Fish Audio: John Cage Prepared Piano
Bigga Giggas: Studio Grand 88, Rain Piano
Bolder Sounds: Steinway D, Yamaha C7, Fortepiano
Bovbjerg: Fazioli, Steinway
East Collexion: Piano
EastWest: Bösendorfer, Steinway B, The Ultimate Piano Collection
EWQLSO-Silver: Steinway B (derived from East-West Steinway B)
Garritan GPO: Steinway Concert Grand Piano
Maestro Sounds (Mats): Maestro Concert Grand
Milan Digital Audio: Hamburg Steinway D Concert Grand
Miroslav Vitous: Acoustic Piano Collection
PMI: Grandioso Steinway D, Bösendorfer 290, Yamaha C7, Post Pristine Piano, Post Steinway A (IOWA recording), Estonia Acoustic Grand, FortePiano, Historic Keyboards & Post Piano Suite
Prosonus: Grand Piano
Q Up Arts: The Holy Grail Piano
Sampletekk/Worra: White Grand, Black Grand
Sonic Reality: Concert Grand Pianos
Soundscan Vol. 17: Acoustic Keyboards, Vol. 23: Historical Instruments
Steinberg: The Grand
Synclavier: Keys and Guitars
Synthogy: Ivory - Grand Pianos
Tascam/NemeSys: GigaPiano, GigaPiano II (Kawai, 7+7 layer)
Trachtman: Steinway C
Univers Sons: Acoustic Piano
Vintaudio: Yamaha C7, Upright Piano Collection (Steinway Boston Upright and Clinton Upright)
VR Sound: Vienna Player, Tokyo Player, Piano 7, Prepared Piano
William Coakley: Perfect Piano Series
Wizoo Sound Design: Platinum24 Grand Piano
Milan Audio Steinway
Gigfiles Steinway
Sakia Splendid Grand
Plugsounds Volume 1: Keyboards

Several more are due to be released this year.  A good place to learn about large samples is:
https://www.northernsounds.com/
Look at the "Samples" Forum

[gosch]

Loss of dynamic range, hmmm. I think MIDI is fine, particularly since you are interested in re-generating only one voice. The dynamics usually has 127 values (or so), pedals have 255. Yamaha's XG format allows actually a lot more, but I think it's not necessary. I for myself am certainly not able to consistently produce 127 different leveles of loudness

He he... I totally agree, if you put it like that!
But I think in a 'subliminal' ´kind of way, human perception can still 'feel' a difference between 127 "static" levels and (theoretically) unlimited levels (as a real piano has).
I think the GranTouch does not have XG, too bad.

Anyway, because Yamaha, inspite of my flame-mails to them  , doesn't seem to upgrade GranTouch in the near future, I guess I will give the Midi-out a try.
Or... because I live near Frankfurt, I hopefully find something spectacular at this years Music-fair, only days away !

Maybe they built my Dreamdigital, who knows

[gosch]

:-/
...no news about new GranTouch-es from Frankfurts Musikmesse.

So I will give it a try and connect Gigastudio 3 to my GT1 via MIDI. After all, I think that there is no "internal magic" in the GTs, the MIDI-out is probably the same input it's ROM-based sampler gets.

IF all goes well, this could indeed turn out to be my dream-digital.
In addition to getting these realistic sample-libraries, I also look forward to getting more dynamic range and differentiation out of it, by applying some kind of Midi-velocity processing or a good velocity-split of the samples.

If anyone has experiences with Gigastudio, please let this thread know.

Hopefully I can post results in a month or so, if anyone cares... ?

[JimM]

If anyone has experiences with Gigastudio, please let this thread know.

I do - what is it you'd like to know?