​8Dio Steinway Grand Piano for KONTAKT (Reg $249), Hybrid Rhythms (Reg $148) & Ambient Guitar (Reg $20) ALL FREE!!! ?

[PavlovsCat]

8Dio just put their 1928 Steinway Grand Piano for KONTAKT, normally $249 USD, on sale for $0 / FREE! 

I find this the best quality, full-featured, deep sampled piano sample library for KONTAKT available for free anywhere.  I do not know how long this deal will last. It's not labeled as a Black Friday sale, but I'm guessing that's what it is part of. 

First, I'm friends with 8Dio's CEO and we were texting yesterday and she mentioned that the team was working on their Black Friday sale, but she didn't tell me any specifics of what will be on sale and this sale wasn't referred to as a Black Friday sale on 8Dio's website, so I'm not exactly sure how long this deal will last. FTR, I'm not doing this as any kind of favor, I'm sincerely blown away at 8Dio offering this piano library for free because it's a premium quality piano sample library and I am very aware of other free piano libraries for KONTAKT -- I maintain two threads on this forum containing lists of my picks for the best free sample libraries -- and no other developer I know of is offering a highly detailed, full-featured KONTAKT grand piano sample library at this level for free. No one.  The piano is also available in the SoundPaint format for free too. But it's never been available for free for KONTAKT before and I've contemplated buying it before coming across this today. 

IMO, the highest quality free piano sample library for KONTAKT available prior to this was SonicCouture's* Hammersmith Free, which is a cut-down version of their full grand piano library (it's superb, BTW and I highly recommend getting it too).  But this is a full-featured KONTAKT piano library.  It's on another level from the free piano sample libraries I recommend in my two lists on this forum. You simply can't find another piano library for KONTAKT with this level of quality and detail for free. It has 11,095 samples, two mic positions (close and player), more than 40 convolution reverbs and 23 presets. Its normal price is $249 USD and I don't know what the lowest sale price they've sold it for was, but I'm guessing it was something like $49-$79 USD from memory. 

FROM 8Dio's website: 

MICROPHONE OPTIONS
The 1928 Scoring Piano contains over 11,000 samples and two different microphone perspectives, including a Close Microphone and Player Microphone, which was a mix of 8 Neumann Microphones run through a NEVE console. The close position consists of microphones close to the soundboard of the piano, highly intimate and with a clear sensation of the resonance.

PIANO BLENDING OPTION
The 1928 Scoring Piano contains a variety of custom piano morph options, so you can blend the piano with a selection of instruments and create completely new instruments with a single click. The instruments you can blend include Guitars, Caisa, Marimba, Rhodes, Crotales, Bowed Percussion, Glass Marima, and Glockenspiel.

ARTICULATIONS
The 1928 Scoring Piano is the first ever to have round-robin based sustains and round-robin based staccatos in combination. The round-robin sustains allow you to get a hyper-natural variation in the sound, even when playing slow and with the pedal down. The staccatos were recorded separately, since the attack of a short note on a piano differs from a sustain.

FEATURES
Deep-Sampled 1928 Legacy Scoring Grand Piano 
2 Microphone Positions (Close/Internal & Ambient/Player Perspective) 
Round Robin Sustains (X 3 Round Robin Pr. Note & Velocity Layer) 
Round Robin Staccato (X 6 Round Robin Pr. Note & Velocity Layer) 
Advanced Release Triggers 
Pedal Noises And Pedal Noise Volume Control 
Custom Convolution Reverbs (+40) 
Bonus: 8 Piano Blending Options 
Several Custom Convolution Reverb(S) / Impulses 
11,095 Samples 
12 GB Installed 
24 Bit / 44.1 KHz Stereo .NCW Compression Format 
Format(S): Kontakt / .NCW Compression 
NEW Superlative Presets (23)
NEW Bonus: 8 Piano Blending Options
OPTIONS:  
Uniquely Sampled Pedal Up And Pedal Down 
Live Keyswitch 
Pedal Volume Control 
Release Triggers Of Hammer Action 
Release Triggers (Time Based For Both Tail Of The Sound And The Immediate Resonant Buzz Associated With Damping A Piano String) 

https://8dio.com/products/1928-scoring-piano?variant=41309999792328

(FTR, I've provided consulting to around 3 dozen sample and plugin developers, including SonicCouture many years ago, but my consulting never involves my posts; I'm not an influencer and do not / would not hawk products for anyone; my posts reflect my opinions; if I like/love something, I post about it, but like to be transparent if I know a developer personally or have done some consulting in the past.)

Edited November 8, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[jeffdrawscomics]

Great find.  Just picked it up.  How is it on CPU usage?  (I find their instruments to be on the CPU-heavy side.)

[satya]

This was always free right? when i made account it was there

[audioschmaudio]

Is that basically the same as the SoundPaint 1928 Vintage Grand Steinway?

[PavlovsCat]

12 minutes ago, jeffdrawscomics said:

Great find.  Just picked it up.  How is it on CPU usage?  (I find their instruments to be on the CPU-heavy side.)

I'm not aware of any issues with it.  I'll let others weigh in. 

 

 

 

[PavlovsCat]

19 hours ago, audioschmaudio said:

Is that basically the same as the SoundPaint 1928 Vintage Grand Steinway?

It is, but there's something about the KONTAKT format that I really love for pianos.  If you have full KONTAKT,  I'd say, get this, install it, listen for yourself and report back here. 

That said, SoundPaint does let you do amazing programming and sound design work with ease that goes far beyond KONTAKT-- and I'm a huge fan.  I've heard developers describe SoundPaint as a blend of kind of a hybrid next-generation Omnisphere and KONTAKT.  There's a ton more you can do with a library in SoundPaint than KONTAKT . And maybe it's just me. But I think it's worth having both with the SoundPaint version used for effects, layering and sound design, and the KONTAKT version for a straight piano. I don't know if it's because of the way the layering/transitions or exactly what it is. Anyhow,  the fact that you can pick it up free makes this a no brainer. Of course, they're giving the SoundPaint version away free to entice people into trying out the SoundPaint sampler/ ecosystem, and I'd strongly recommend doing that too. 

Edited November 8, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Anxiousmofo]

Won't let me check out in any iOS device-- hangs on the Captcha after correct entry. 

[PavlovsCat]

4 minutes ago, Anxiousmofo said:

Won't let me check out in any iOS device-- hangs on the Captcha after correct entry. 

I "bought it" (for free) on my phone with no problems. But I have a Samsung (Android).  Try 8Dio's support. Hopefully, this wasn't a pricing error. 

Edited November 7, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Kirean]

No problem getting it free still. Used a desktop browser though.

On that  note, does someone have a database of historical lows for 8dio products? Sometimes I get the urge but then I remember that just a week later the same product might be 20% more cheaper/expensive.

[PavlovsCat]

Funny, I was going to 8Dio's site to see if their upright piano was on sale when I stumbled across this deal.  The upright is on sale for $49 USD, and I'm almost certain that I'm going to buy it, because I've been watching it for most of the year and this is the best price I've seen, but seeing the Steinway grand piano for free surprised me.  Sheesh, if 8Dio asked me for advice on a promotion, for a hot take, I might have said something like, price it at $29 USD (yes, I'm thinking of Waves sale pricing) , but free, that's a BFD!!! And hopefully, this isn't an error or an accidental early release of a BF deal that I've unintentionally spoiled.

If it is, 8Dio, please accept my apology! But I was too excited and had to share it before cclarry beat me to it!

This was the piano library I was interested in buying when I came across the Steinway Grand Piano for free and got distracted: 

https://8dio.com/products/1901-upright-studio-piano-for-kontakt-vst-au-aax-samples?variant=41309878354120
 

Edited November 8, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[PavlovsCat]

46 minutes ago, satya said:

This was always free right? when i made account it was there

No this KONTAKT library has never been free before. As I wrote in an earlier post, I believe that the lowest sale price I can recall seeing was probably $49 USD.

There is a SoundPaint version of the piano for free and I highly recommend getting that too. But, as I explained, there is just something special about the way this piano sounds in KONTAKT version that I love.  The SoundPaint version lets me do things with effects, sound design and the arpeggiator that I can't do in KONTAKT. But I don't know what it is, maybe it's the convolution reverbs and presets in KONTAKT, that makes me love this version of the piano. It's simply a very high end, superb KONTAKT grand piano library, and if you're a KONTAKT (full version) user, I think this is one of the best freebies I've ever known of for KONTAKT. 

Edited November 7, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[jngnz]

Where's the thread with 12 fire emojis and 37 exclamation marks for Hammersmith Free, which is quite a bit better sounding than this and has always been free?

[PavlovsCat]

18 hours ago, jngnz said:

Where's the thread with 12 fire emojis and 37 exclamation marks for Hammersmith Free, which is quite a bit better sounding than this and has always been free?

Haha! I mentioned Hammersmith FREE in the original post in this thread and recommended that anyone who didn't already download it do so. To answer your question why there's not a similar thread about Hammersmith FREE; it's been around for years and unless there's some big news about it or a sale on Hammersmith Pro, it's not really newsworthy. FTR, Hammersmith FREE is on the top of the two threads/lists of free sample libraries that I maintain on this forum for the piano sample library category. I give it my highest recommendation and, like you, I love the sound. 

So why is 8Dio giving away this piano free newsworthy? The library retails at $249 USD and the cheapest I recall seeing it for was probably $49 USD. Second, it sounds excellent. While the Hammersmith and the 8Dio piano are both Steinway D models, the Hammersmith library is a more recent model and the 8Dio piano is a 1928 Model D. They sound different. If you prefer the SonicCouture, that's great. But I have a collection of piano sample libraries that each has something special about them.  Having a favorite grand piano sample library doesn't mean that I don't want other options. My favorite grand piano library is NI's Noire. It's my go to. But I also love the sound of Embertone's 1955 Walker D and the 8Dio 1928 Scoring Grand. All of those pianos are all Steinway Ds, yet they all sound a bit different, which can be attributed to their being made in different eras and the strings and other components aging differently (I believe the 1928 Scoring Grand has the original strings, which of course, results in a different timbre than even the same year and model piano with newer strings or strings that were in different environments). So each piano has its own unique character and, of course, the room each piano was recorded in and the mic and gear used to record it are also factors that make each library unique. 

If we look at the technical, sampling side of things, Hammersmith FREE is a cut-down version of the paid Pro library. The Free version doesn't have sustain pedal samples, only pedal up samples. It doesn't have multiple mic positions. It doesn't have round-robin samples but uses scripting. Whereas the 8Dio piano has two mic positions, extensive velocity layers (I think there's 11 layers) , extensive round-robin samples, some very nice convolution reverb IRs,  around 2 dozen presets (I always appreciate when a library has great factory presets/snapshots)... It is a full-featured, premium, deep sampled KONTAKT piano library, not a cut-down free version of a premium sample library. There simply isn't premium piano library with this quality and similar specifications for KONTAKT that is free anywhere. That's why I think this is a straight up BFD.  

Edited November 8, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Solidos]

Ambient Guitar (normally $20) & Hybrid Rhythms (normally $148) are also FREE at the moment.

@PavlovsCat maybe you could add that to your title & first post

Edited November 7, 2023 by Solidos

[PavlovsCat]

9 minutes ago, Solidos said:

Ambient Guitar (normally $20) & Hybrid Rhythms (normally $148) are also FREE at the moment.

@PavlovsCat maybe you could at that to your title & first post

Hmmm...I'm wondering if these deals are a result of 8Dio working on their Black Friday sale and I'm unintentionally scoping them, which would normally be something Larry would do! I'll update my original post. 

I just saw a thread someone did for a  Sonuscore flash sale that's not free, but a fantastic deal, and I think I'm going to pull the trigger on IK's B-3X. We're only at the end of the first week of November and the deals are killer.  

Edited November 7, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Fleer]

Dealiolio

[Fleer]

Hybrid Rhythms was free December 2021. 

[Fleer]

Strangely they don’t seem to provide serials anymore. 

[PavlovsCat]

11 minutes ago, Fleer said:

Strangely they don’t seem to provide serials anymore. 

Are you referring to KONTAKT Player libraries or full KONTAKT libraries? Because KONTAKT Player libraries always have serials. I'm not sure if 8Dio has any KONTAKT Player libraries. I probably own a couple of dozen 8Dio libraries (and maybe a dozen SoundPaint libraries) and I don't think any are KONTAKT Player libraries. 

[Kirean]

Weren't the serials they gave just for downloading through their own downloader?