TAXI.com

I was surprised that my search of the Taxi forums returned little info on these VIs,
so I'm not sure how much feedback I'm going to get here.
But I do need to upgrade my piano patches and after listening to and trying out
several other grand Vis I must say that I did enjoy listening to these two products very much.
They are due to come out with their II versions of these products soon and I
might be investing in one or the other.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
thx,
ciao, Dan

Dan,

I use Ivory and Italian Grand.

They are great sounding pianos and you usually can find the right piano for whatever style you are doing.

Piano sounds seem to be a very personal taste issue. (kind of like guitarists and what is a great tone) So you most likely will have others chiming in with different opinions.

With the a new version coming out soon, I would check out the upgrade path you may have. You may be able to buy the current version and get the upgrade for free. I know for existing users like myself that it will be a "pay for it" upgrade.

Chuck

BTW Ivory is not my only source for pianos, I also use SampleTek and the pianos in my KORG OASYS.

+1 for Ivory. I agree with Chuck about the versatility. The name "grand" doesn't really describe it all that well, because you can actually get upright piano sounds, change the reverbs, resonances and so many other manipulations, but they start with a nice clean piano sample, and to my ears they sound more natural than many others.

I believe Italian grand is just one piano, but the ivory grand has a bosendorf, steinway, yamaha, and a ton of presets for each one.

crs7string wrote:Dan,
I use Ivory and Italian Grand.
They are great sounding pianos and you usually can find the right piano for whatever style you are doing.
Piano sounds seem to be a very personal taste issue. (kind of like guitarists and what is a great tone) So you most likely will have others chiming in with different opinions.
With the a new version coming out soon, I would check out the upgrade path you may have. You may be able to buy the current version and get the upgrade for free. I know for existing users like myself that it will be a "pay for it" upgrade.
Chuck
BTW Ivory is not my only source for pianos, I also use SampleTek and the pianos in my KORG OASYS.

Hi Chuck,
Yes I enjoyed listening to their demos.
As for the right piano, I am more concerned with a grand for solo work since with any Pop songs the piano will be part of a larger mix and I am not that worried about pop/rock stuff.
Not being a pianist it is a rarity for me to play on a grand piano. So I guess I am asking those who have lots of experience to let me know their opinions.
Good point on the upgrade path. I’ll have to dig into that one.
Sampletekk had some nice sounding Grands as well.
I’m trying to keep things simple and not too expensive as well.
Having to find a sample player that plays nice with Cubase , my DAWs OS and horsepower plus any future VIs I may need to purchase is a consideration as well.
And this II release has a new (and hopefully improved) GUI.
I have a Korg TS which is a 3rd generation of Korg keyboards that I’ve owned.
I just like the fat sounds they can create. But it does not have a decent Grand patch.
Appreciate your input.
Ciao, dan

Len911 wrote:+1 for Ivory. I agree with Chuck about the versatility. The name "grand" doesn't really describe it all that well, because you can actually get upright piano sounds, change the reverbs, resonances and so many other manipulations, but they start with a nice clean piano sample, and to my ears they sound more natural than many others.
I believe Italian grand is just one piano, but the ivory grand has a bosendorf, steinway, yamaha, and a ton of presets for each one.

Hi Len,
Yes a clean (and as authentic as possible) sound is what I'm looking for.
The Italian grand is one piano and the Ivory is three.
Yet the Ivory isn't 3 times as costly.
Should this be the tactic that i use on the CFO?
Wish me luck, please?
Thx for your comments.
ciao, Dan

My take on the Italian Grand is that it's a bit of a specialty item, whereas Ivory is meant to be a more general purpose library. For a pianist, there's more to the equation than sound quality; there's also the feel, and a sensation of being 'connected' to the output sound. From what I can gather, the Sampletekk 7CG is tops in the category of sampled instruments that feel like a piano, given a quality controller and some experimentation with velocity curves. If you own a supported sampler, (GigaStudio, Halion, EXS24) a Sampletekk instrument could save you some scratch and possibly provide a better user experience, but a non-player who wants to 'cover the bases' in a studio situation would probably be better served with Ivory. I've been doing the research lately, and the White Grand from Sampletekk is next on my list. (but I have GigaStudio 3 and a number of other sampled pianos, already)

At the moment I am using EWQL Pianos Gold and I am quite pleased! This software is fairly new to me and I am still enjoying everything that I can accomplish with it. I'm sure that in the future I'll need something else or software that has some different piano sounds, but for now I'm happy!

Good Luck!
Keith