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[Ken (Zarg)]

On LinkedMusicians said

When I first picked up UJAM’s virtual acoustic pianos, I was blown away at how cheap they were. I got one of those offers that was something like pick 5 for $49 and got an extra 10% off at Audio Deluxe. I loved the presets. But once I started actually using a couple of them for songs, I found them so filled with little noises that they were unusable. I don’t buy the rationale either — like it’s some kind of charm. It’s not charm when one of three times you hit an Ab you get some odd little creaky noise again and again. It doesn’t sound cool, it sounds like there was a problem with the piano you played or the recording quality. Late last year I picked up all of the UJAM Virtual Pianos (that was before they released the Wurly library, which I demoed and didn’t find it captured the Wurly’s dynamics at a level I’ve come to demand out of Wurly libraries).

Now, I also picked up Universal Audio’s Ravel piano. I think it’s far more usable than, say the UJAM Score, a grand piano, and its undesirable noises or the UJAM Relic — an upright with tone that I love but it too has these annoying noises embedded in some of the piano notes that play over and over when you hit certain keys. I really don’t know how the person who did the samples or the person who approved them let that pass. If they were going to record little creaks, why not record them separately and overlay those samples with the piano samples? Anyhow, I originally only post about those libraries right after I picked them up and spent very little time with them.

The sample libraries — well plugins — that I picked up late last year that I absolutely love are Pianoverse MAX. Those are absolutely gorgeous and are up there with Noire, Rosewood Grand, Walker 1955 Concert D, and some of the 8Dio pianos. I love them. But I love the tone of UJAM Relic and the presets and am really disappointed about the noises, because I would otherwise use it. I don’t love the tone of Score as much. It’s very nice, but more standard. But like Relic, it has great presets. Once again though, I’m not going to use a piano that has annoying noises every time or every other time I hit a certain key.

Has anyone else found this to be the case with the UJAM Virtual Pianos? Great presets, but the little creaks and noises baked into individual note samples kills the usability of the library.

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I have seen this in an UJAM piano (can’t remember which), and got rid of some of the noise using Pro Q4 and it’s spectral mode on a couple of frequencies. That and/or Soothe..
Hope it helps.

All the best.

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