{"id":8799,"date":"2021-11-06T04:00:53","date_gmt":"2021-11-06T04:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1372315"},"modified":"2021-11-06T04:00:53","modified_gmt":"2021-11-06T04:00:53","slug":"how-to-make-almost-any-digital-piano-sound-like-the-real-thing-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=8799","title":{"rendered":"How to make almost any digital piano sound like the real thing, part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s nothing quite like the sound of a real grand piano \u2014 but these days, digital pianos can get pretty darn close. Unfortunately, the best of them are usually prohibitively expensive and short of spending several thousands of dollars, you\u2019re usually left with something that falls well short of the real thing.<\/p>\n

But at the risk of sounding like a clickbait generator, there\u2019s one thing piano makers probably don\u2019t want you to know: You don\u2019t need to spend thousands of dollars to get amazing sound and solid playability out of a digital piano.<\/p>\n

As I wrote<\/a> a few months ago, even the most basic keyboards can achieve a sound that would fool listeners into thinking they\u2019re listening to the real thing.<\/p>\n

The trick is you don\u2019t use the sounds built into your digital piano. Instead, you let your  PC handle the heavy lifting using software colloquially called a piano VST (virtual studio technology), also known as a piano library or simply a virtual piano.<\/p>\n

In this article, I wanted to expand on some of my earlier suggestions, while providing several more options to consider. Having a piano sound you truly enjoy can be the difference between being inspired to make great music and leaving your piano to collect dust, so I hope this list will help you lean towards the former.<\/p>\n

Why is a piano VST better than the sounds in my digital piano?<\/h3>\n

Long story short: Your PC has way<\/em> more storage and processing power than any digital piano can muster.<\/p>\n

Long story, erm, long: Most digital pianos work by taking a few recordings from some real piano, and then playing them back when you press a key. You might have one \u2018sampled\u2019 recording at soft playing, one at a medium, and one at a hard level, with some added processing tricks to try and blend these samples for intermediate values.<\/p>\n

But while the samples on a typical digital piano are measured in megabytes, a good piano VST will use typically use gigabytes of storage for a single instrument \u2014 sometimes hundreds<\/em> of gigabytes. Some of the instruments on this list have thousands of recordings per key, covering every which way you can play a note.<\/p>\n

\"Digital<\/p>\n

Other digital pianos are instead \u2018modeled,\u2019 meaning they instead try to mathematically recreate a piano\u2019s sound. While that can be more efficient, your PC nonetheless still has more processing power to work with for added realism.<\/p>\n

All this means that you can get way better sound for less money by pairing a relatively inexpensive digital piano with a powerful VST.  Heck, you could probably pick up a used digital piano off craigslist; as long as it\u2019s not broken and it can output MIDI, you can make it sound great. Whether it\u2019s a $300 digital piano or a $3,000 one, it can sound amazing, though you\u2019ll at least want something with weighted keys<\/a> for proper playability.<\/p>\n

Of course, a more expensive piano will likely have better keys. But here, too, VSTs can help: you can maintain the same great sound at any point should you want to upgrade to a higher quality keyboard (like a Kawai VPC1<\/a>) down the road.<\/p>\n

In this sense, going the VST route is an investment, and it\u2019s saved me from wanting to upgrade my digital piano just to get a better sound.<\/p>\n

Lastly, part of the fun with VSTs is finding an instrument sound that you<\/em> like, and being able to tweak the sound to your tastes. On most digital pianos, you\u2019re locked into one or two piano brands. Even with acoustic pianos, you might have a preference for one company\u2019s tone over the other.<\/p>\n

How do I connect my piano to my PC?<\/h3>\n

Your digital piano sends instructions to the virtual instrument via MIDI signals. For almost any digital piano released in the past decade, you can literally just connect the appropriate USB cable from your piano to your PC. In other cases, you just need a cheap MIDI to USB<\/a> adapter or audio interface.<\/p>\n

Then you simply enable your piano as an input device in your respective VST. Easy peasy.<\/p>\n

\"How<\/p>\n

That said, because latency can be an issue on Windows PCs, you may want to install a utility like ASIO4All to minimize the delay after you play a note down to imperceptible levels. You should ideally have decent speakers or headphones to actually output the sound, too. Some newer digital pianos let you reroute your PC\u2019s sound through their internal speakers, but most don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Lastly, for many of these instruments, you will also need to install separate software to actually run the samples, such as the free Kontakt Player<\/a> or UVI Workstation<\/a>. If you choose to venture beyond this list and go on your VST hunt, do note there are some instruments that require the full<\/em> version of Kontakt, which will set you back an extra $400. Ouch.<\/p>\n

Get to the VSTs!<\/h3>\n

Hold your horses; before we get started, I have a few disclaimers. First, keep in mind I\u2019m only including products that I\u2019ve actually bought or tested myself. Unfortunately, I can\u2019t afford to buy everything on the market, and most VSTs don\u2019t offer demos or returns.<\/p>\n

There are probably hundreds of piano VSTs out there\u2014 not to mention other instruments and sounds. The key thing I was focused on was playability<\/em>; most piano VSTs are aimed at people producing music, rather than piano players simply looking for a more authentic sound. So some of these VSTs might sound great in a carefully produced track, but they might feel unrealistic while you\u2019re actually playing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I also tried to make sure everything on the list is a meaningful upgrade from a typical digital piano\u2019s built-in sounds. While there are some free and super cheap VST\u2019s out there, in my experience, they either aren\u2019t much better than whatever is in your piano, or they have some fatal flaw that\u2019ll lead to you upgrading eventually anyway.<\/p>\n

Although I\u2019m far from an advanced pianist, everything on this list has a solid reputation for playability in the wider community and offers at least some degree of customization to tweak the sound to your particular digital piano, as every manufacturer handles its keyboard actions somewhat differently. Because I\u2019m not willing to put my own playing on the web, I\u2019ve included several examples of more skilled players performing on these virtual instruments.<\/p>\n

Got all that? Without further ado, here are some of my favorite piano VSTs money can buy.<\/p>\n

Embertone Walker 1955 Concert D ($39 \u2013 $150)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Embertone Walker 1955 Concert D<\/a> might be the best value in the piano VST world, but also one of the best overall. A vintage New York Steinway that oozes character, it starts at just $39 for the \u2018Lite\u2019 version of the instrument. Even this entry-level version includes 12 velocity layers and sounds far more detailed than the vast majority of digital pianos I\u2019ve tested. For reference, only a handful of digital pianos go beyond three or four velocity layers.<\/p>\n