The "lite" version of this Yamaha CFX has been out for a while but looks like the full version has just been released. Anyone give this one a go yet? Thoughts?
From the website:
"300 Grand is Production Voices’ latest and most ambitious piano sample library to date.
Experience a modern 9 foot performance grand piano sampled in a real concert hall providing an immersive audio experience with the precision and control of a multi-track recording.
300 Grand is an exceptionally high-quality piano sample library for Native Instruments Kontakt Player, consisting of nine microphone perspectives and over 100,000 samples of a Yamaha CFX grand piano recorded in a world-class recital hall.
From big bold forward sounds to lyrical pianissimos with natural ambience and everything in-between, 300 Grand has it covered.
300 Grand is ideal for Studio Production, Stage Production, Film Score Production, Practice, Performance and more!"
https://www.productionvoices.com/product/300-grand/
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Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
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Piet De Ridder
- Posts: 3380
- Joined: Aug 05, 2015 3:57 am
Re: Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
Piet, I’ll look forward to your thoughts…as always.
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My name is Nobody
- Posts: 25
- Joined: Sep 05, 2019 5:31 am
Re: Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
Thanks for posting artrino.
Interesting new piano lib: the classical demo highlights to me what with many libs is not easy to achieve; a healthy dynamic range with the appropriate loud but still clear fortes. Especially in the lower and higher ranges. The release samples also sound clear and diverse enough.
Overall a good sound, even with the room tone and mic settings that have been shown.
How playable it is I am indeed also interested in if someone is willing to find out. Looking forward to your findings when you get to it Piet de Ridder.
Noire was the only piano lib that is still on my going to get list, but now that has a possible new contender.
Interesting new piano lib: the classical demo highlights to me what with many libs is not easy to achieve; a healthy dynamic range with the appropriate loud but still clear fortes. Especially in the lower and higher ranges. The release samples also sound clear and diverse enough.
Overall a good sound, even with the room tone and mic settings that have been shown.
How playable it is I am indeed also interested in if someone is willing to find out. Looking forward to your findings when you get to it Piet de Ridder.
Noire was the only piano lib that is still on my going to get list, but now that has a possible new contender.
Re: Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
I only had a few minutes to spend on it so far, but my first impressions are fairly middling. Pedal feel isn't bad -- at least it does much better than most sample-based pianos I've tried, however there is occasionally something wonky with the release (which you can actually hear at 6:54 in this video).
My main problem is that I'm not able to find settings where it doesn't sound like I'm slamming on the keys. Even when I use the 32V patch and dial the velocity curve down or the sensitivity up, it reduces the volume of the low-velocity samples but timbrally even the most delicate pianississimo touch sounds piano to me. Consequently, when trying to play softer dynamic textures (for example), I just find it really hard to get it to blend properly.
Finally, although this is easily tweakable, what on earth is it with these piano libraries that have presets that have the mechanical sustain pedal noise cranked up to high heaven?
Anyway, those are my hasty first impressions. I'll spend a bit more serious time with it in the next couple days. I'd be curious to hear Piet's take.
My main problem is that I'm not able to find settings where it doesn't sound like I'm slamming on the keys. Even when I use the 32V patch and dial the velocity curve down or the sensitivity up, it reduces the volume of the low-velocity samples but timbrally even the most delicate pianississimo touch sounds piano to me. Consequently, when trying to play softer dynamic textures (for example), I just find it really hard to get it to blend properly.
Finally, although this is easily tweakable, what on earth is it with these piano libraries that have presets that have the mechanical sustain pedal noise cranked up to high heaven?
Anyway, those are my hasty first impressions. I'll spend a bit more serious time with it in the next couple days. I'd be curious to hear Piet's take.
- Jason
Re: Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
Thanks for the detailed thoughts, Jason. Interesting re: the most delicate and soft layers. Are you saying you can’t find a way to play them with tweaked velocity curves, or that the samples aren’t there at all? If you tweak the velocity to say “1,” are you still hearing a “piano” dynamic and not “pianississimo?” Will look forward to your further thoughts, as well as Piet’s.
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Piet De Ridder
- Posts: 3380
- Joined: Aug 05, 2015 3:57 am
Re: Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
On the whole, I like this one very-very-very much. In fact, if all I had to take into account when sharing an opinion were my own likes and preferences, I wouldn’t have anything to say in the way of serious criticism. A couple of things that could be improved, sure, and hopefully they will be, but all in all, I think this is a spectacularly well-made sampled piano. You have to like the CFX-sound of course, because if not, this piano, which sounds “undeniably Yamaha”, will only have a limited appeal.
The bass end is easily the best I’ve ever encountered in any virtual piano. Quite amazing. Middle range is outstanding as well: crisp, punchy, detailed, and very expressive … It’s only in the higher octaves that the instrument, surprisingly, lacks some characteristic Yamaha brilliance and resonance.
And yes, it takes some careful tweaking to calibrate the response to your hardware and playing style. And even then, the results might still not be (or feel) entirely satisfactory. Which brings me to the first of the entries on my little list of things that, I feel, could be improved: with an instrument of this complexity and large dynamic scope, I think a more advanced set of parameters than is currently available (to configure the 300 Grand’s response and dynamic behaviour), should have been included. A simple curve or S-curve just isn’t enough. Having the option to adjust the low, mid and high registers separately, for instance, would greatly increase the musical powers of the instrument. I can imagine, to give an example, that some players might find the lower octaves currently a bit too overbearing with a certain type of playing or in certain styles of music. Or some might feel that the highest octaves don’t come through strong enough. A parameter with which to adjust such things — some piano libraries, like the Xperimenta PF2, offer that option — would be nice.
And if another parameter could be added with which to reduce the dynamic range WITHOUT sacrificing any of the dynamic timbral range, that would be great too. In fact, I think this is the number 1 on my wishlist. After all, a piano in a DAW needn’t behave in the same way as a real one does: reduced dynamics — again: without any loss of timbral dynamic differentiation — is often highly desirable in a production. (The parameter I’m thinking of would be one that does the exact opposite of what the ‘Touch Response’ does now. If only that parameter could have negative values too, that would be perfect.)
The Grand 300 is also a library, I quickly realized, that can only be enjoyed to the full, or be done full justice, if you have a really high-quality keyboard controller. Because every incoming MIDI-nuance matters. I’ve tried it with a few keyboards, and only my Kawai MP7se gave me a good sense of actually playing a piano. The others much less so.
But a few more words about the parameters: there’s an awful lot of parameters here, I couldn’t help noticing, the practical and useful range of which amounts to only a very small fraction of the available range. For example: raise the Touch Response above 15% (even 10% is already quite high) and there’s a good chance that half of what you’re playing becomes inaudible. (I do wonder in what situation or with what crazy type of bizarre keyboard, a setting of 20% or higher is required.) And at least 60% of the available ranges for the Key Up and Pedal Noise are of no conventional use either as that results in excessively loud mayhem.
I only mention it because it also applies to the Sympathetic Resonances parameter: raise that anywhere above -10dB (you can go as high as +12dB if you like) and the piano playback gets infused with these strange, flute-y whisps of sound that, I guess, are supposed to simulate sympathetic resonances, but that aren’t in the least convincing. As an effect: yes, very much so, but as a believable emulation of what happens, resonance-wise, inside a real instrument: not really. Only to say: the Sympathetic Resonances in the 300 Grand aren’t exactly the feature that are going to bring the gold medals home for this library.
Another thing that sometimes distracts me just a tiny bit, is the fact that with some of the mic perspectives (or combinations thereof), the pedal down samples seem to contain a fraction more ‘space’ than the non-pedalled samples. Which can have as a result that if you switch from non-pedalled playing to pedalled, or the other way round, the instrument suddenly seems to acquire a slightly different spatial presence. It’s a minor thing, and it certainly doesn’t ruin the enjoyment, it’s just something I noticed a few times.
But let’s end with those gold medals I mentioned earlier. Because the 300 Grand deserves plenty of those, in my opinion. The sound (both timbrally and sonically) is truly stunning. (The recent Xperimenta was already quite impressive, this one is even a lot impressivier.) I’ve been annoying various people during the past couple of years with my deeply-felt opinion that the Synchron CFX is very badly sampled: well, this 300 Grand is the perfect example to illustrate, or substantiate, that opinion with: it’s got absolutely none of that harsh, clangy, ear-fatigueing timbre which makes the Synchron, in my view anyway, such an unpleasant instrument to play or work with, and yet it still has every bit as much expansive power, nuance, punch, authority and majesty as the Viennese instrument has. If you’re going to sample a CFX, this is, to my ears, how you do it.
Remarkably consistent timbre as well across the range. Usually, in a piano library, there are at least a dozen or so notes across the keyboard and in various dynamic ranges which stand out in some way or other from their neighbours (rarely a welcome thing in a piano), but with the 300 Grand, there are none that distract and only a very tiny few that stray, ever so slightly, from the overal consistency
Other stand-out qualities: the 300 Grand’s mic perspectives provide an inexhaustible wealth of solutions for every possible spatial challenge; you can literally place this instrument in any sort of mix imagineable, from very intimate, in-your-face and dry to expansively and gorgeously spacious, without the need of any other additional reverb of spatialization tools. And the idea to have the room sampled from all the same perspectives as the instrument was recorded with, is nothing if not a stroke of genius.
The MasterFX section contains a very intelligent selection of highly useful processors, the Mixer’s very well laid out (save for one or two confusing details in the UI) and I suppose the Ambisonics page unlocks additional amazing surround powers and attractions but I haven’t been able to explore those since my studio only has standard stereo playback.
And then there’s a few small but quite useful features like, for instance, the Pre-Attack which, if set just right, can add significantly to the believability of the instrument. Very well done.
Except for the Sympathetic Resonances (and even those don’t cause problems if set at a moderate level), everything about this library says ‘Top Quality’. This is the new reference for Kontakt-based pristine, non-character grand piano emulation, as far as I’m concerned.
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The bass end is easily the best I’ve ever encountered in any virtual piano. Quite amazing. Middle range is outstanding as well: crisp, punchy, detailed, and very expressive … It’s only in the higher octaves that the instrument, surprisingly, lacks some characteristic Yamaha brilliance and resonance.
And yes, it takes some careful tweaking to calibrate the response to your hardware and playing style. And even then, the results might still not be (or feel) entirely satisfactory. Which brings me to the first of the entries on my little list of things that, I feel, could be improved: with an instrument of this complexity and large dynamic scope, I think a more advanced set of parameters than is currently available (to configure the 300 Grand’s response and dynamic behaviour), should have been included. A simple curve or S-curve just isn’t enough. Having the option to adjust the low, mid and high registers separately, for instance, would greatly increase the musical powers of the instrument. I can imagine, to give an example, that some players might find the lower octaves currently a bit too overbearing with a certain type of playing or in certain styles of music. Or some might feel that the highest octaves don’t come through strong enough. A parameter with which to adjust such things — some piano libraries, like the Xperimenta PF2, offer that option — would be nice.
And if another parameter could be added with which to reduce the dynamic range WITHOUT sacrificing any of the dynamic timbral range, that would be great too. In fact, I think this is the number 1 on my wishlist. After all, a piano in a DAW needn’t behave in the same way as a real one does: reduced dynamics — again: without any loss of timbral dynamic differentiation — is often highly desirable in a production. (The parameter I’m thinking of would be one that does the exact opposite of what the ‘Touch Response’ does now. If only that parameter could have negative values too, that would be perfect.)
The Grand 300 is also a library, I quickly realized, that can only be enjoyed to the full, or be done full justice, if you have a really high-quality keyboard controller. Because every incoming MIDI-nuance matters. I’ve tried it with a few keyboards, and only my Kawai MP7se gave me a good sense of actually playing a piano. The others much less so.
But a few more words about the parameters: there’s an awful lot of parameters here, I couldn’t help noticing, the practical and useful range of which amounts to only a very small fraction of the available range. For example: raise the Touch Response above 15% (even 10% is already quite high) and there’s a good chance that half of what you’re playing becomes inaudible. (I do wonder in what situation or with what crazy type of bizarre keyboard, a setting of 20% or higher is required.) And at least 60% of the available ranges for the Key Up and Pedal Noise are of no conventional use either as that results in excessively loud mayhem.
I only mention it because it also applies to the Sympathetic Resonances parameter: raise that anywhere above -10dB (you can go as high as +12dB if you like) and the piano playback gets infused with these strange, flute-y whisps of sound that, I guess, are supposed to simulate sympathetic resonances, but that aren’t in the least convincing. As an effect: yes, very much so, but as a believable emulation of what happens, resonance-wise, inside a real instrument: not really. Only to say: the Sympathetic Resonances in the 300 Grand aren’t exactly the feature that are going to bring the gold medals home for this library.
Another thing that sometimes distracts me just a tiny bit, is the fact that with some of the mic perspectives (or combinations thereof), the pedal down samples seem to contain a fraction more ‘space’ than the non-pedalled samples. Which can have as a result that if you switch from non-pedalled playing to pedalled, or the other way round, the instrument suddenly seems to acquire a slightly different spatial presence. It’s a minor thing, and it certainly doesn’t ruin the enjoyment, it’s just something I noticed a few times.
But let’s end with those gold medals I mentioned earlier. Because the 300 Grand deserves plenty of those, in my opinion. The sound (both timbrally and sonically) is truly stunning. (The recent Xperimenta was already quite impressive, this one is even a lot impressivier.) I’ve been annoying various people during the past couple of years with my deeply-felt opinion that the Synchron CFX is very badly sampled: well, this 300 Grand is the perfect example to illustrate, or substantiate, that opinion with: it’s got absolutely none of that harsh, clangy, ear-fatigueing timbre which makes the Synchron, in my view anyway, such an unpleasant instrument to play or work with, and yet it still has every bit as much expansive power, nuance, punch, authority and majesty as the Viennese instrument has. If you’re going to sample a CFX, this is, to my ears, how you do it.
Remarkably consistent timbre as well across the range. Usually, in a piano library, there are at least a dozen or so notes across the keyboard and in various dynamic ranges which stand out in some way or other from their neighbours (rarely a welcome thing in a piano), but with the 300 Grand, there are none that distract and only a very tiny few that stray, ever so slightly, from the overal consistency
Other stand-out qualities: the 300 Grand’s mic perspectives provide an inexhaustible wealth of solutions for every possible spatial challenge; you can literally place this instrument in any sort of mix imagineable, from very intimate, in-your-face and dry to expansively and gorgeously spacious, without the need of any other additional reverb of spatialization tools. And the idea to have the room sampled from all the same perspectives as the instrument was recorded with, is nothing if not a stroke of genius.
The MasterFX section contains a very intelligent selection of highly useful processors, the Mixer’s very well laid out (save for one or two confusing details in the UI) and I suppose the Ambisonics page unlocks additional amazing surround powers and attractions but I haven’t been able to explore those since my studio only has standard stereo playback.
And then there’s a few small but quite useful features like, for instance, the Pre-Attack which, if set just right, can add significantly to the believability of the instrument. Very well done.
Except for the Sympathetic Resonances (and even those don’t cause problems if set at a moderate level), everything about this library says ‘Top Quality’. This is the new reference for Kontakt-based pristine, non-character grand piano emulation, as far as I’m concerned.
_
Re: Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
Wow Piet, that's a rare endorsement nearly up to the level of your infamous Emotional Cello review. 
In any case, accurate or not, with the 300, the lower registers do feel significantly overpowering relative to the mid/high registers at the same dynamics, which is frustrating the style of performance I favor. Being able to tweak velocity sensitivity by range would be really useful. I'll see if I can find a plugin/script to do this upstream of the patch.
Emphatically yes. You've hit the nail on the head -- this encapsulates my main criticism with this library. Secondarily, I think my expectations of the actual real piano could be misaligned. It's been some 20 years (!) since I've played on a Yamaha grand, and while I do seem to recall more timbral variation on the lowest dynamics and in the lower registers, maybe I'm misremembering and this actually is represented fairly with the 300 Grand.Piet De Ridder wrote: ↑Aug 02, 2022 9:09 amHaving the option to adjust the low, mid and high registers separately, for instance, would greatly increase the musical powers of the instrument. I can imagine, to give an example, that some players might find the lower octaves currently a bit too overbearing with a certain type of playing or in certain styles of music.
In any case, accurate or not, with the 300, the lower registers do feel significantly overpowering relative to the mid/high registers at the same dynamics, which is frustrating the style of performance I favor. Being able to tweak velocity sensitivity by range would be really useful. I'll see if I can find a plugin/script to do this upstream of the patch.
- Jason
Re: Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
Really appreciate this incredibly detailed analysis, Piet. Think I’m going to take the plunge here. There are so few piano libraries that are sampled really well in a concert hall that it would seem silly to pass this one up given the amount of praise. Extremely reasonable price too. Would be interested to know your preferred pre-attack settings, Piet. I’ve dabbled with these in the earlier PV pianos and always seem to come back the next day wanting to tweak them further.
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Piet De Ridder
- Posts: 3380
- Joined: Aug 05, 2015 3:57 am
Re: Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
That will vary from piece to piece, Artinro. If the music demands utmost precision and/or tight ensemble work, I don't think I'll be using much PreAttack, but in anything a little more loose and casual or 'after hours', I can see myself raising that parameter very enthusiastically.
I'll never engage PreAttack while playing/recording of course, cause it makes the instrument most unplayable. (Tried it earlier today, won't try it again.) What I'll usually do, I think, is simply record without PreAttack, and then, if I’m satisfied with the recording, engage it as liberally as possible (or as the music allows for) and nudge the midi-data back accordingly so that everything falls nicely back into place again.
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Re: Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
Piet, thanks for that note! Yes, It absolutely varies from piece to piece (at least it certainly did in the other PV pianos). I just found myself constantly tweaking that parameter even after I thought I was pleased. Par for the course with these sorts of things, I suppose. Thank you again for the detailed analysis of this CFX. Just grabbed it and looking forward to giving it a play soon!Piet De Ridder wrote: ↑Aug 02, 2022 1:34 pmThat will vary from piece to piece, Artinro. If the music demands utmost precision and/or tight ensemble work, I don't think I'll be using much PreAttack, but in anything a little more loose and casual or 'after hours', I can see myself raising that parameter very enthusiastically.
I'll never engage PreAttack while playing/recording of course, cause it makes the instrument most unplayable. (Tried it earlier today, won't try it again.) What I'll usually do, I think, is simply record without PreAttack, and then, if I’m satisfied with the recording, engage it as liberally as possible (or as the music allows for) and nudge the midi-data back accordingly so that everything falls nicely back into place again.
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Re: Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
I find I get a lot of clicking when pre-attack is enabled, particularly with the Inside mic perspective. Other mic perspectives aren't nearly as bad, but still too problematic to use. Example with the pre-attack level at max to better hear it. (It doesn't seem to be a clipping issue because the click persists with the level dialed down to normal levels.)
Do you hear anything like this, Piet?
There also seems to be a bug with the pre-attack's "live" option, where sometimes it behaves as if the pedal is down. In this example, with live pre-attack enabled, the pedal is up and I'm not touching it.
Not that I think this is a serious bug. This particular feature is of limited use IMO.
Do you hear anything like this, Piet?
There also seems to be a bug with the pre-attack's "live" option, where sometimes it behaves as if the pedal is down. In this example, with live pre-attack enabled, the pedal is up and I'm not touching it.
Not that I think this is a serious bug. This particular feature is of limited use IMO.
- Jason
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Piet De Ridder
- Posts: 3380
- Joined: Aug 05, 2015 3:57 am
Re: Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
I can't reproduce either of those two phenomena, Jason. The one thing I'm experiencing here is that with both PreAttack and Live enabled, I get the occasional hanging note. Well, a few more than just 'the occasional'. (And maybe that's the same thing as what you perceive as 'pedal down'?) But other than that, everything seems to be working as it should here on my machine. I certainly don't get any of those ugly noises.
On what type of HD have you installed the library? Is it fast enough? And what setting do you have (Kontakt settings) for "Instrument Preload Buffer"? I have it set rather high I must say, at 240.00kB. (Now that I finally have a Mac with plenty of RAM, I can afford such settings.)
I agree about the futility of that 'Live' button though. Seems odd to include that. Why not just switch PreAttack off instead? Much the same thing, I would think (unless I overlooked something).
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On what type of HD have you installed the library? Is it fast enough? And what setting do you have (Kontakt settings) for "Instrument Preload Buffer"? I have it set rather high I must say, at 240.00kB. (Now that I finally have a Mac with plenty of RAM, I can afford such settings.)
I agree about the futility of that 'Live' button though. Seems odd to include that. Why not just switch PreAttack off instead? Much the same thing, I would think (unless I overlooked something).
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Re: Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
Can anybody compare to the Garritan CFX? I am not in my studio until next week and can't listen to the demos properly. I am quite happy with the Garritan. Would this one be a definite improvement?
Re: Production Voices 300 Grand (Full Version)
The manual refers to upcoming Pro and Max versions of the 300 Grand.