Apple Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard
Apple Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard [5-User Family Pack]
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Apple Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard
Bardstown Audio Bösendorfer Imperial Grand
reviewed by monsdrum aka David Mondrup Test equipment: AMD athlon XP 2.2 ghz, 512 mb ram, Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm HD (separate for audio), RME HDSP9652, emagic MT4 MIDIinterface, win98SE, running Logic platinum 5 (revisions 5.0.1, 5.3, 5.5 & 5.5.1) and EXS24/EXS24mkII. Kurzweil PC88mx controller. All examples made by bouncing original EXS24mkII tracks, with no extra effects added. Fades applied and mp3 conversions done in Cool Edit Pro 2.0.
Installation:The instrument came to me on 4 CDs, with a cover on the box holding the first one. No printed docs, no cardboard box to accomodate it - it's all kept pretty simple, and gives the impression that fancy graphics isn't Kip's main concern, and in my opinion it shouldn't be, either. There's no automatic installer, no autorun or anything else of the like. The "installer" consists of a text file with clear instructions as to where the different files and folders should be copied to. It's dead easy, and it let's you decide where to stuff the sample files, thus giving you the option to still keep your EXS sample files organised and not suddenly have an extra folder for the Bösendorfer lying apart from the rest of your samples - neat ... Next thing was of course to try it out. The Bardstown Audio Bösendorfer Imperial Grand is large. In fact it's every bit as large as the name implies, including 792 individual samples, making up a total of 2.4 gb of data in the 24 bit EXS version. Thus it's only reasonable to expect some loading time - after all, finding 792 samples one after the other and load part of each of these to ram has to take some time. On my machine, the initial loading of the instrument took about 5 minutes. As the EXS is smart enough to write the paths of the samples to the instrument file after having found them the first time, subsequent loading times were reduced to 30-40 seconds. This is still pretty hefty, but usable. The Sampled Piano
Though it may not seem obvious, the piano is one of the hardest instruments to reproduce when doing sampler instruments. This is mainly due to the expectations of pianists - after all, if you're doing a guitar or an oboe sampling, just the fact that you're playing the sound via a keyboard tells you that this is only an approximation of the instrument, and not the real thing. Pianists, on the other side, will in most cases sit down by the keyboard, and more or less expect the keys to behave like they do on a real piano. This is an impossible expectation for many reasons. For instance, the sustain pedal which is by many pianists regarded one of the most fundamental soundshaping tools what so ever is limited to binary action - it's either on or off, which is far from satisfying considering that I for one spent quite some hours at the conservatory studying and practising what happens when using varying degrees of sustain. Second, but no less important, MIDI velocity just isn't an adequate parameter for realistically reproducing the soundshaping facilities of the keys on a real acoustic piano, especially not considering that it's the only available parameter. Though I can't explain the technicalities of this in a real grand, there's so much more than just the speed of the key going down that determines the impact of the hammer on the string. Even if that was the only determining parameter, 128 discrete values for measuring that speed is far from enough. I am by no means a professional classical pianist, but I can easily make two different strokes that would read out at vel. 127, and thus give the same result when playing any pianopatch, but would give very different results on a real piano. The professor who taught me would be crying if limited as much as a MIDI keyboard would do. So, the fundamentals for user interaction are a given; there's only so much you can do to deliver the info from your fingertips to produce the sound, and this is, at best, an extremely limiting experience for any classical pianist, and, at worst, it doesn't resemble piano playing at all, depending on the quality of the keyboard you use. On a related note, Bösendorfer themselves (you know, the makers of the acoustic model) has provided a way of recording the performance so it can be played back on the same piano again - the Bösendorfer Computer Grand Piano. Basically, this is exactly the same as MIDI, except the resolution is much higher. Look to the product page on the Bösendorfer site to see the details.
The sound:When I agreed to do this review, I was asked; how can you review a piano? All you can say is, it sounds like a piano, and then that's it?? Well, I think I can add a little more, but let's just start out by stating one thing: It sounds like a piano! Download WinAmp Compatible Playlist Other instrumentalists who are as picky as I am when it comes to the sound of your instrument of choice may recognise what that sentence really means. All too often, something that is advertised as a piano patch sounds much more like something that will be recognised as an attempt at a piano sound when played back, than a real piano. A piano patch most often produces a sound that will be immediately recognisable as a piano, but you don't have to listen very closely to learn that what you're listening to is in fact not a piano, but an electronic reproduction of some sort. This is all very well as far as music production goes - if the listener knows what he's listening to, the patch fills out its part, and everybody should be content, right? To some extent yes, but playing a piece of plastic is not the same fulfilling experience as it is to play a state-of-the-art handcrafted 570 kg instrument made of wood and iron. Luckily most listeners will also appreciate the sound of a real instrument over a collection of more or less successfully mangled sine waves. Now, with that extra weight added, let's try that sentence again: - says something, huh? The most strikingly realistic parts of this patch are the extremes - the highs and the lows. The lows are extremely powerful, and feature remarkably rich harmonics, with lots of overtones, yet they are well defined enough to make the low end very clear sounding and usable, even for those part of the classical repertoire that requires you to play close triads in the lower octaves. This is very challenging even for real pianos, but the grand piano sampled here is built well enough to be able to survive these situations without the outcome becoming muddy, and the samples have been recorded well enough to let this feature shine through to the sampled version. Listen to this for an example. The highs are a delicate affair. They have that very specific sound that comes from the adjacent strings not being damped. It's got a kind of wooden, ringing sort of ambience, perhaps coming from the fact that the high strings are much shorter than the other ones, and thus the case is smaller too in this area and adds more to the resonance ? - it's hard to tell when you're not an expert in grand piano acoustics, but in any case I get a very strong feeling of recognition when hearing the sound of the highs. There's a demonstration of it here. The sound is in general very realistic, and features the special character that resembles the original. You have a very good feeling of hearing the strings vibrate, giving it sweet softness combined with the steel of the strings, characteristic of the real grand piano. Pianists may recognise the twanging sound of the strings vibration coming to a halt when hitting the keys hard. It's all there... The realism is a bit lost when playing very softly; I found it hard to get that special delicate sound that some pianos produce when the hammer only barely hits the string. However, not being in the league of piano players that get to play a real Bösendorfer on a regular basis, I can't tell whether this is a characteristic that comes inherited from the piano that was sampled here, or if this really calls for an extra velocity layer (which would also add 250 mb). Tweaking the controller keyboard's velocity curve helped the situation to a point where playing the soft sounds felt much better. The Bösendorfer imperial grand features a complete set of release samples, triggered by note off events. They do a ton to add realism to the patch as such, providing the sound of the damper stopping the strings vibration as well as a bit of natural reverb coming from the concert hall in which this piano is located. One could take a listen to this part of a Debussy recording I did (Suite Bermagescue, prelude), where the release sound shines through clearly, especially in the staccato chords. The reverb itself is very bright and beautiful, but it does present you with the problem that it may not be right for the song you're currently recording. If you have a completely different reverb happening for the rest of the track, the concert hall included in the Bösendorfer could be far from appropriate. For this situation, the release samples are quite easily disabled (simply enter the editor and turn the "release" group's volume down). Release samples are only supported in EXS24 since logic 5.2. The soft soundsThe soft pedal ... that thing next to the sustain pedal that makes the whole keyboard move slightly to the left and changes the sound by reducing the number of strings being hit by each hammer, and by hitting the strings with a less worn, and thus softer part of the hammer head ... it must surely have presented Kip with some headaches. The impact of this pedal on the piano's sound is so profound that, in a perfect world, the only proper way to handle this when trying to make a realistic reproduction of the instrument would be to record a whole extra sample set with the soft pedal down. However, as we all know, the world is not perfect. Doing as proposed here would effectively double the amount of samples that should be included with the instrument, making it 4.8 gb instead of those already pretty hefty 2.4. Given the fact that only a small percentage of all keyboard players have two pedals, not even nearly all MIDI controllers have two controller pedal jacks anyway, and even if they do, the soft pedal is not nearly as well implemented in MIDI instruments in general as the sustain is, one can forgive Kip for feeling that a whole extra sampleset for this alone would be overkill. The solution instead is to work with the synthesis functions in the sampler at hand, and add some lo-pass filtering to simulate the damped sound of the piano playing with the soft pedal engaged. This leaves your soft sound at the mercy of the sampler programmers. If the filter is not well written, or written with other purposes than simple lo-pass filtering in mind (most filters have a characteristic sound of their own, and some of these could be made more for the purpose of sweeping pads or synths than gentle lo-pass eq'ing), your soft piano sound will suffer. Luckily, in the EXS24, the results are remarkably good; listen to this piece of Beethoven (sonata no. 23 "Apassionata", 2nd movement) that was made using the soft piano preset that is supplied with the samples. Look to the Bardstown Audio website and listen to the "Clair de lune" mp3 for an example of how well this works in Gigasampler. Unfortunately I can't comment on neither Kontakt nor Halion as I don't have access to any of these. How to use lo-pass filters to accomplish soft-pedal piano sounds is also explained in a text file on the first CD in the sample set. UsabilityI have no probem recommending Bardstown's Bösendorfer for any situation where you'd normally want to apply a Bösendorfer grand. If this includes all situations where you want an acoustic piano, then you need not look any further for which piano sample you should choose - this is the one. However, I wouldn't want something as expressive as a Bösendorfer for all uses, at least not as long as I have the choice. While the Bösendorfer is perfect for jazz, classical and other sorts of lyrically challenging pieces, if playing some rock'n'roll, boogie or cuban salsa piece, I'd prefer something brighter and harder, such as a Yamaha grand piano. Listen to some bars of montuno stride to hear the difference, first on the Bardstown Bösendorfer, then on an AKAI sample patch coming from their much famed ftp-site. Both instruments would work in a mix, but in my opinion the AKAI would sound more appropriate for this style, especially when mixed with a ton of percussion, horns and singers. Still, if realism means more to you than style, the Bösendorfer would still undoubtedly work, even in this situation. SupportAs is typical for small one-man software companies, the user support provided by Bardstown Audio is outstanding. Kip is one friendly guy who is very eager to help out with any problem you might encounter when using his product. When I first tried to play this piano, I had loads of problems with crackles and noises, but Kip helped me through tweaking the system to be able to handle instruments as large as this. Having purchased the instrument, he even follows up with updates. I, along with the rest of the customers, have received new instrument files to take advantage of the samples in other software samplers as these versions were made. Furthermore, a low pass filtered soft pedal version was sent a few weeks after I had received the first CDs. Add to this that Kip is a regular presence at various internet fora, helping out with his products as well as his knowledge on software samplers in general, and you get the picture of a person who cares about both his product and his customers. Wishlist/conclusionIf I should wish for any inprovements, I could need some extra presets to take care of some special situations; how, for instance, about a version with the release samples disabled, or shortened to a degree where the reverb is not present, for the situations where you don't want the natural reverb messing with whatever other reverb you're currently using? Or, much more complex, one could wish for a version that allowed you to insert an extra pedal to set the piano in soft mode, effectively making the piano behave like a real Bösendorfer with regards to the soft pedal too. I know, this could be asked for in all sampled pianos (at least I haven't met any yet that gives you full soft pedal functionality), but as this piano is so realistic, that feature is also so much more wanted here. As mentioned, if you're looking for a sampled Bösendorfer Grand, this is probably as good as it gets. Even if you could care less if it's a Bösendorfer or a Steinway, as long as it's a piano, you still owe yourself to check out this piano - as it's one of the most realistic sampled pianos I've ever heard, it might just fit the bill for you. For more info, look to electronic musicians runthrough of the mechanics in a grand piano. This also features a few words on Bardstown Audio's Bösendorfer Imperial Grand. To check out the Bardstown Audio Bösendorfer Imperial Grand itself as well as Bardstown Audio's other products, look at www.bardstownaudio.com. There's a whole lotta very well produced demos there which should give you a further idea if this thing is for you. Demos and More Information: Bardstown Bösendorfer Imperial Grand |
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EXS24 24bit Audio Format Reviewed