test system: MacPro W3520-12GB RAM-Cubase 5.5.3 (32bit) and 6.5.2 (64bit)-NI Kontakt 5-Avid Mbox3Pro
I guess this review would have been different had I not purchased a NordPiano just a few weeks after I bought this. Ouch.
Ever since I went virtual I have been looking for that perfect piano sound in a VI, and just not finding it. I started with the now-discontinued Garritan Steinway Basic, was disappointed by Goliath’s pianos, found something I liked better in HalionSonic’s Natural Grand, bought into the pre-release hype of Cinesamples’ Piano In Blue, and finally I got Galaxy’s Vintage D.
Some might say I should have just forked out the big bucks for either Synthogy’s Ivory II, EWQL’s Pianos or VSL Imperial but I promised myself I would not spend that kind of dough on a software piano unless I could take it to the stage.
So the Vintage D, then. Nice, I guess, but I have only used it a few times. Like I said, I bought the NordPiano shortly afterwards, and haven’t bothered with any of the virtual pianos since. But I can say this, in the few weeks before the NordPiano, I found out I still like HalionSonic’s Natural Grand better than all the other software pianos.
Again, the Vintage D is not bad, and for $135 it is reasonably competitive, so if you are looking for a software piano in that price bracket, check it out.
As for me, I’ve gone hardware. And I’ll tell you all about that soon.
Update (May 5, 2014):
I’ve tried it some more and I have discovered that I can’t get the velocity response right. Like the PiB, it is either too sensitive or not sensitive enough.
On a different note, you have a bunch of parameters that all change something, but none of them make anything dramatically different, let alone better.
I tried playing a part first on the NordPiano and have the MIDI recording trigger the Vintage D. That doesn’t quite work either.
Hate to say it again, but I suppose it is another case of YouGetWhatYouPayFor. I hope Ivory and/or TrueKeys will work better.
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