If You Could Only Choose One Piano Sample Library / Plugin, Which Would It Be?

[LinkedMusicians]

If you could only choose one piano sample library/plugin — or modeled piano plugin —  which would you choose?

For those of us who are deeper into pianos, what is your favorite virtual piano (we’ll do another thread for electric piano):

• Grand Piano
• Upright Piano
• Prepared Piano

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[Peter DeLegge]

These are my picks:

• Grand Piano: Orange Tree Samples Evolution Rosewood Grand
  While I came up with the question, this is a really difficult one for me to answer, because I own a lot of piano sample libraries and plugins. I love NI Noire for gentle music and especially for its felt piano samples. However, it isn’t great at cutting through loud rock band arrangements, which I love to do. Evolution Rosewood Grand sounds great for gentle / quieter arrangements. It has a felt piano that sounds great. So, it’s more versatile. I recently picked up IK Pianoverse, which I quickly fell in love with, especially the Hamburg grand piano, but there are other Pianoverse pianos that I also love nearly as much. Weighing versatility — because the idea is that I can only choose one piano, I would want that piano to be versatile enough to work in a wide variety of situations, so I am choosing Evolution Rosewood Grand.
• Upright Piano: EZkeys Upright Piano
  This is another very difficult choice. I can’t say that I have a single upright piano sample library that I use as a go-to, but I use EZkeys Upright Piano a lot. I also use their Vintage Upright a lot. Other upright piano libraries I often turn to include e-instruments Upright Piano, NI Gentleman, and Sampletekk Rain Piano. I may change this later, but offhand, I’m going to go with the EZkeys Upright Piano.
• Prepared Piano: Xperimenta Preperata Free
  I have several prepared sample libraries that I love almost equally. Xperimenta Preperato Free, Production Voices Death Piano Free and 8Dio Prepared Piano. It’s hard to believe how good Preperato and Death Piano are for free. The truth is, I could pick any one of those three libraries.

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[jude77]

I’m not really a keyboard player, though I can sound impressive due to midi editing, so I’m not sure I really have the ear to hear a great piano from an OK one.  With that in mind, lately I’ve been using Pianoteq a lot, probably as much for its ease as its sounds, though I do like the way it sounds.  It has sort of a “3D” alive thing going on I like a lot.  As for upright I have an old XLN one that I still like.  To me it sounds like an upright and has a decent editing capacity if you want to tailor the sound.  I can’t say I’ve ever used a prepared piano, so I’ll offer a “no comment” there.

I’m really looking forward to the EP to come.  I love the sound of Wurlis and will be interested to see how they rank.

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