Simeon Amburgey

Xperimenta is a wonderful developer in Italy. It is a crazy time for everyone and just looking for ways to help support other musicians and creators as we work through this together. From Flavio's email received today. You will receive his Kitchen Kit and a bonus LoFi Drumkit. Checking it out now. I'm Flavio, from XPERIMENTA Project. My software house is based in Italy and, as you probably know, my country is struggling with the coronavirus emergency. Every day thousands of people are fighting with this virus, but to win the battle is important to have the right medical tools. Every day the news are heartbreaking, and hospitals in the north needs urgent assistance. All the money raised from Kitchen Kit will be sent to the Italian hospitals of Milan and Bergamo to buy life support machines, and the Spallanzani Research Institute. You can learn more about this project as well as his other instruments (especially his DUE Piano library for Kontakt) here: https://www.xperimentaproject.com/ Here is an interesting video featuring his Kitchen Kit.

OK, so the piano train keeps rolling along ? One of my viewers asked to do a vid focusing on SampleTank4's acoustic pianos so here we are. I hope you enjoy watching and find it fun and informative. Thanks as always!

Well SSDs are definitely the way to go. The new system I put together at the first of the year includes 2 1TB NVME drives, a 2TB SSD, 500gb C:\ Drive, a 120 GB Project Drive and way too many External USB3 drives for system images and project archives. Oh, just a heads up you can follow me on Twitter @praisetracks and subscribe to my channel as I have been doing mostly livestreams lately on playing through libraries and such. I am looking at going through the SampleTank 4 pianos and later this week the Garritan/Abbey Road Yamaha CFX piano library. I have just been having a crazy time working out some video glitches. Thanks for the humor and support, I definitely want to approach things in an objective, honest and transparent way. One of my greatest blessings is to have had the opportunity of actually playing most of the piano models represented in the libraries I review. Last year around Christmas I actually was able to play a real Yamaha CFX which NOIRE and now the Garritan/Abbey Road piano was based on. I am very grateful to be able to share with all of you. See you on The YouTube

Well, it’s almost like asking the question can God create something so heavy, He could not lift it....hmmm oh, and you have not hear the Garritan/Abbey Road CFX Grand or Impact Soundworks Pearl yet! (coming soon). I will have to think about this some more....what was that ? It sound like a gunsho ?

Pianoteq is amazing in the modelling is really dynamic and I also love to be able to reposition the mics ;^) Their latest Steinway models are fabulous and I love the Bluethner model as well as it is sort of like a Steinway and a Yamaha C7 had a baby. You have some of the qualities of both.

My pleasure! It is crazy huge with all of the microphone options.

OK, thought you might enjoy this as well. Here are a couple more vids I did for NOIRE which is a beautiful library.

Just finished a very fun livestream playing through the new TGuitar from Acoustic Samples and Steinberg. You can watch the replay here. Please subscribe if you would like to catch future livestream events. Thanks everyone and I hope you enjoy!

And here is SOLITUDE:

Here is my track using TGuitar from the Steinberg playlist ? - Spring Fling -

Steinberg has just released TGuitar for HALion, HALionsonic, HALionsonic SE. TGuitar is an amazing, playable acoustic guitar library that I have had a little while to experience. Steinberg included a couple of demo songs that I put together on their SoundCloud playlist (Solitude and Spring Fling). Check it out. https://new.steinberg.net/tguitar

I tried it on some tracks today. I am just learning my way around but big what it brought to the mix is sensational. i am wanting to try and share some of my experiences soon so stay tuned. ?

Alan, I will check this Tuesday but in the meantime you can shift the MIDI track using the KEY +/- in the MIDI track inspector. just shift UP +12 and you should be able to access the key switches as it will shift the entire keyboard up an octave. I do this sometimes when playing certain parts ie drums. Hope that helps?

If you missed the livestream; the replay is now available. Elysion has so many interesting sounds and textures and it was a lot of fun diving into it a little, even Sonuscore’s The Orchestra popped in for a cameo. I hope you enjoy watching?

I am starting a new livestream video series I am calling The Arturia Chronicles (if I can pronounce it correctly). I will be exploring some of the instruments included in their V collection. Since I have been doing a lot of piano libraries I thought Piano V would be a good place to start. Thanks for watching and understand I am so grateful for the support and hope that you enjoy taking these adventures with me. I am learning so much as I put myself out there with each video. I am so excited about having the opportunity to share and provide the info for all of you. Enjoy!

That's so funny, I love it! Believe me I always want to share my honest experiences and reactions with these types of things. I love the Grandeur as well but it has a distinctive sound as I say of all libraries. Grandeur is very dynamic and I was using it in a project recently; it seemed it was just sounding too "hard" for a lack of a better word. I then pulled the Walker D into the project and when I adjusted the velocity response all of a sudden it fit right in. I might try and post some sort of clip of how both sounded in this arrangement. There is really no one size fits all piano library as each one is totally unique in their own playability and character. So I guess right now my go to pianos would be (not in any particular order: NOIRE (is really a work of art: Yamaha CFX) Grandeur (Classic Steinway Big larger than life sound) Walker Concert D (*see Pianoteq note) (Velocity layers galore with lots of room to tweak response) Ascend (Steinway meets sound design) Motion Keys (Taking Keys deeper into sound design territory. Mosaic Keys (for even deeper sound design when you need something really out there) Vibrant (for bang on Rhodes and Electrics) Pianoteq 6 (* for just the playability and knowing I have full executive control of this piano; not playing back another musicians performance) Ivory II: Grand Pianos and American Concert D : I just finished a video review of these and although they have some years on them I love their upfront sit in the mix (if somewhat dry) sound. Also I have been able to get some great response from them. Remember these are the same people behind the original digital piano sample library revolution when you only had around 1mb of memory to play with. Please keep the questions coming as it helps me to search for more definitive answers to help any way I can. I have been blessed to have been able to play so many pianos over the years practically all over the world which allows me to have an interesting perspective on things and I love to share these experiences with all of you.

Yes, it amazing how each library sounds and responds. I find myself more and more working with the various velocity curve settings to find what gives me the most response. I have a very olde Studiologic Sl-880 controller that has a very hard touch so it needs those tweaks to get the best out of it. I need to check out Pearl as I have heard lots about it.

Just finished a livestream review/playthorugh of Ivory II Grand Pianos with a cameo by their American Concert D. Lots of fun. Please subscribe if you would like to join me for upcoming livestreams and videos.

OK @cclarry, I think I figured it out; you can post the deals and I can post my review of the deal you posted ? Here is my play-through of FORZO.

Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed it. This library is a beast with a ridiculous (in a good way) amount of mic positions and samples covering every possible combination of pedals, crazy!

I had so much fun experiencing Embertone's Walker 1955 Concert D library. I hope you enjoy!

The iRig Keys IO uses a mini DIN connector that allows you to use either USB A or Lightning connectors which provides more flexibility and compatibility. I have used it with both my iPad and my Windows PC which have worked great.

Here is a livestream replay I did a couple of weeks ago featuring NOVO. Heavyocity NOVO Modern String Library For Kontakt

Here is a review I did a few months ago on Ivory II Grand Pianos and their Steinway American Concert D. https://praisetracks.com/synthogy-ivory-ii-grand-pianos-and-american-concert-d

These sound great! I might try doing a video on them this week. Stay tuned. Their Steinway American D is really great as well.