Reason Pianos vs VST's

[skie]

I need top notch pianos, the Factory Soundbank actually has some good options, but I need more...anyone have any insights as to how Pianos stacks up against VSTs or even Radical Piano? Thank you.

[dtaki]

Reason Pianos and Radical Piano are pretty good sounding, but I think for the money you can get something "better" with VSTs. Waves' Grand Rhapsody is $29 right now; Pianoteq Stage is $129 (just a little more than you'd pay for Radical Pianos) and is one of the standard VST pianos. There are plenty of other VSTs in that price range, like Addictive Keys Studio Grand ($89, or free with certain Focusrite/Novation products), Acousticsamples C7 is about $130 or so, etc.

I have Reason Pianos, and it just doesn't feel satisfactory when playing soft material. I use Keyscape's Yamaha C7 grand, and the difference is so striking that Reason Pianos now sounds and feels to me like a 90's ROMpler piano patch.

[aeox]

For the price, Waves Grand Rhapsody is hard to beat in my opinion. The Grandeur Kontakt library is also very good for my taste.

I usually just end up using the factory stuff though, the Concert Grand Piano sounds amazing!

[sonicbyte]

The 8dio pianos are amazing

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[SA Studio]

Reason Pianos and Radical Piano are pretty good sounding, but I think for the money you can get something "better" with VSTs. Waves' Grand Rhapsody is $29 right now; Pianoteq Stage is $129 (just a little more than you'd pay for Radical Pianos) and is one of the standard VST pianos. There are plenty of other VSTs in that price range, like Addictive Keys Studio Grand ($89, or free with certain Focusrite/Novation products), Acousticsamples C7 is about $130 or so, etc.

I have Reason Pianos, and it just doesn't feel satisfactory when playing soft material. I use Keyscape's Yamaha C7 grand, and the difference is so striking that Reason Pianos now sounds and feels to me like a 90's ROMpler piano patch.

Exactly. The Waves Grand Piano, especially if it's still $29 is light years better than Radical Piano or Reason Pianos.

I've personally used the Grand Piano options in Kontact for years and they're drastically better than anything on offer for Reason either stock or RE. I'm not trying to insult anyone here, simply pointing out there's higher quality, without question, products available in the world for discerning people.

[Despondo]

I have this:

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/ ... mer-piano/

It is great for film work and other uses. Lot's of mic options and meticulous sampling.

[QVprod]

Agreed with most here. No made for Reason piano whether refill or RE stands up against the vst options for realistic piano tone. The pianos that come with Komplete standard are great. I also own Alicia's Keys, Addictive Keys Studio grand, UVI grand Piano collection, Piano V (modeled), and Waves Grand Rhapsody. Of these, my favorite is probably Addictive keys. Everything I mentioned (except UVI and Alicia's Keys) has just as good if not better sound shaping capabilities as the the Reason Pianos refill and Radical piano.

[keeverw]

I love NI "The Giant" for compressing to get that squashed piano sound that sits great in a mix.

And I love NI "The Gentleman" for more intimate piano playing where you really want to hear the nuances.

I got both along with other NI Massive, Scarbee and Vintage Organs for only $250 in a package.

But either piano is well worth the asking price alone.

I don't own the pianos refill though I've heard in the past that it's quite good.
I do own RadPi and I can tell you that it can't hold a candle to either of the two I mentioned by NI.

[starflakeprj]

I would recommend TruePianos. It's usually 120 USD, but sometimes on sale for 95 USD. It's a really great sounding hybrid piano, which combines physical modeling synthesis and samples. The piano consists of five modules, The downside is that it hasn't been developed in 5 years or so, but it's still one of the best sounding pianos I know of.

http://www.truepianos.com/

[Oquasec]

All of Reason's stuff needs processing imo. Like everything needs you to do stuff to them to get good results.
Some vsts like kontakt etc take that part.

[riemac]

I would recommend TruePianos. It's usually 120 USD, but sometimes on sale for 95 USD. It's a really great sounding hybrid piano, which combines physical modeling synthesis and samples. The piano consists of five modules, The downside is that it hasn't been developed in 5 years or so, but it's still one of the best sounding pianos I know of.

Yes, TruePianos is nice as well. After Reason 9.5 supported VST's the first thing I did was testing some Pianos especially TruePianos and Pianoteq 5 . At the end I bought Pianoteq 5 because it sounds better in comparison to TruePianos and it is still developed.

[starflakeprj]

I would recommend TruePianos. It's usually 120 USD, but sometimes on sale for 95 USD. It's a really great sounding hybrid piano, which combines physical modeling synthesis and samples. The piano consists of five modules, The downside is that it hasn't been developed in 5 years or so, but it's still one of the best sounding pianos I know of.

Yes, TruePianos is nice as well. After Reason 9.5 supported VST's the first thing I did was testing some Pianos especially TruePianos and Pianoteq 5 . At the end I bought Pianoteq 5 because it sounds better in comparison to TruePianos and it is still developed.

I've heard about Pianoteq 5, but never tested it. It's fully physically modeling, right? I've heard mostly good things about it also, but as one of my weak sides are that I can't settle with the "standard", or "stage" in this case, and I think the pro version is a bit expensive for my taste Which version did you go for?

But a really good reason for choosing Pianoteq is of course it's still being developed

[riemac]

Yes, TruePianos is nice as well. After Reason 9.5 supported VST's the first thing I did was testing some Pianos especially TruePianos and Pianoteq 5 . At the end I bought Pianoteq 5 because it sounds better in comparison to TruePianos and it is still developed.

I've heard about Pianoteq 5, but never tested it. It's fully physically modeling, right? I've heard mostly good things about it also, but as one of my weak sides are that I can't settle with the "standard", or "stage" in this case, and I think the pro version is a bit expensive for my taste Which version did you go for?

But a really good reason for choosing Pianoteq is of course it's still being developed

I was uncertain between Pianoteq "Stage" and "Standard" as well. But in the end I've bought the "Stage", because in comparison to TruePianos it is in the same price category around 100 euros and even offers a little bit more parameters and effects for sound adjustments. And I can still upgrade in the future if necessary.

[davidvilla]

So I'm anal about my pianos, and I have a lot of them....Waves Rhapsody, Garritan's CFX, EW Gold, Piano In Blue, MiniGrand, Alicia Keys, The Giant. And while they're all pretty good, and each is good for certain specific things, the main piano I use is Pianoteq Standard. I used to have Stage, and although it was very good, what made the Standard version "the one" was the microphone settings. This is the only piano instrument that lets me recreate any piano soundstage I want, which makes a HUGE difference. Pianoteq Stage doesn't have that option, and if you load a Standard or Pro patch with custom microphone settings into stage, Stage will not read those parameters and thus gives you a more traditional 'stereo' space. That and the ability to load a custom reverb impulse sealed the deal for me. You can't load impulses in Stage. Yeah you can load a convo reverb after the plugin in a daw, but if you're using Pianoteq standalone (which I do a LOT) then it comes in very handy to be able to save everything in a preset.

If you've never messed with Standard or Pro, then you're not going to know what I mean, and you'll be perfectly happy with Stage. But as soon as I tried out Standard, I knew I had finally found the piano sound I was looking for - that sound I've heard on countless records.

Keep in mind there are a few traditional ways to Mic a piano, and I am no piano miking expert, but here are my microphone settings:

Screen Shot 2017-08-03 at 11.50.30 AM.png (258.6 KiB) Viewed 4645 times

[Jmax]

I've also got a lot of VST pianos. Including all the ones made by Native Instruments for Kontakt. Those are all very nice.. Alicia Keys has a lovely tone to it as well but not so good for straight up loudness and clarity.

I've found the very best pianos to be the Best Service Vienna series (Kontakt).. a Steinway as well. They've modeled four different pianos which are pretty much perfect. After that.. E-instruments modeled a Session Keys Y and S.. one is a bit more heavy sounding. These have amazingly clear tone and a lot of other clever options.

If your going to stick with the Reason Soundbank.. the best Grand piano is the combinator patch Concert Grand..

Make a parralel track to fatten and then add RE-2A.. and that piano will sound nice and rich.

J

[avasopht]

There is also TASCAM's free (but discontinued) "Continuous Velocity" piano, modelled after a Kawai grand.

Its key release behaviour adapts to play, which they felt was the best way to make it sound and feel real. I think it kinda works at times.

[ltbrunt00]

I read the comments about Waves Grand Rhapsody for months. I never doubted what people were saying but though that between reason native refills, rack extension, Native instruments, E-instruments, Toontrack and other kontakt vst piano plugins I thought I did not ever need another piano library...Boy was I wrong.

I pulled the trigger and brought Waves Grand Rhapsody on sale for $29.99. After using this for 5 minutes I have to say that this is hands down the best piano plugin I have in my collection.

All of these plugins are good and I like them all but the Waves Grand Rhapsody is something special. I wish I would have brought Waves Grand Rhapsody long ago since it has been constantly on sale through out the years. I would like thank the community in the forums for constantly recommending this plugin.....And no I do not work for Waves.