Best Service Galaxy D

I was looking for one single, truly great software piano to replace the onboard sounds of my Kawai MP8, which has never really satisfied. I tried a bunch of different software pianos before getting this one including PianoTeq, TruePianos, Pianissimo, the three Native Instruments classic pianos, and Galaxy II. This is by far the best piano I tried. By a very long way, actually.There are a few reasons it's amazing:1. It's the most playable of all the pianos I tried. The half pedaling, off-note samples, sympathetic resonance are exactly right. Some even very nice software pianos do not implement these. Playing this I actually feel a lot more connected to the piano, like I am playing an acoustic instrument, than I do with the onboard sounds. The other piano I tried that is very playable is PianoTeq, but their sound is nowhere near as good. When you play a piano that sounds good, like one of the Native Instruments piano, but it lacks something like half pedaling, it's a very uncomfortable and unsatisfying playing experience.2. Hardware requirements are low. It loads 230 MB of samples into ram and reads the rest from disk as needed. Either it's not needed much or it reads real fast and I don't notice. There is a CPU and DISK meter in the software and they almost never go above near zero. My system is by no means high end (a first generation core 2 duo with an old 7200 rpm drive) and this doesn't begin to approach taxing it. Note: I use ASIO drivers with my Behringer UCA202 sound interface. This gives me 8.7 ms of latency, which is completely imperceptible. Using native windows drivers you would have much higher latency.3. The sound is so good it's hard to believe. Long, beautiful samples. Warm, intimate tone. Never harsh, metallic, or processed-sounding. If anything I would describe its tone as "woody," especially a middle velocities and in the mid-rage. It sound absolutely incredible with or without reverb (i.e., it is not a very closely mic-ed sample). The upper register positively sings pure and clear, and the lower growls in a very pleasing manner. The mids have a lot of character. You can practically feel a dry, aged soundboard resonating as you play. This piano naturally emphasizes the highs and lows a little bit as the midsection is relatively subdued, especially at low velocities. By the way, the convolution reverb is very nicely implemented...much better than a built-in reverb in a digital piano, even a high end one.4. The dynamic and timbral range of the piano is astonishing. As you increase velocity, the timbre changes a LOT, throughout the entire range of the piano. This means as you are playing chords and plucking out the melody with your pinky finger, it really pops out. I just can't believe how easy it is to bring out melodies in the music. Quiet songs positively whisper--smooth and silky. Powerful chords growl in a very satisfying manner.5. The tonal controls are surprisingly effective. This is a sampled piano, not a modeled one, yet you have more control over the tone of the piano than in something like TruePianos. They have a dial for hard vs soft tone (it changes the velocity at which the higher of the 13 sound layers gets used). That's the money-maker. I turn it just a bit toward hard and it works for almost any song I want to play. There are also controls for brilliance, punch, etc. I don't use them much. A word about the reverbs: they are beautiful, but it is easy to put too much in them and you can sound like you are playing in a racquetball court. I find that easy does it (there's a knob for 'send', meaning the amount of a particular room's reverb you use. Remember, this piano is not very closely mic-ed. It actually sound really nice even with no reverb at all.The second best software piano I played was Galaxy II Steinway so I will use it as a basis of comparison. That's a 90 year newer model D and it also sounds fabulous. The tone on it is very good. The midsection is a lot more...robust sounding than that of the Vintage D. Actually "robust" is a good word for the entire piano. It's great for playing loud, powerful songs. Somehow you can tell that the soundboard is newer and less...dried out. Nevertheless, I found it much less expressive and there were far fewer tonal possibilities. If I was playing a particularly loud song with little dynamic range, I would prefer the Galaxy II Steinway, but if my song had some delicate passages as well as the fff, then I think Vintage D dominates. I played them A/B for many hours and by the end the only one I wanted to play as the Vintage D. In particular, Vintage D is great for delicate, sentimental passages. You just won't believe how many nuances of sound you can create. But I find it very satisfying in all ranges and at all volumes.It comes with Kontakt player, which is all you need to get started playing. Unfortunately it doesn't include a sequencer or recording ability. You can use it as a VST plugin, including with free software like VSThost. If you want to do a lot of recording it might make sense to buy a sequencer and recorder to get the quality software. The fact that there's no sequencer or recorder built into this is my number one gripe with this. Otherwise it's better than I thought a software piano could be.A lot of people say that digital pianos are really excellent these days. If you only listen to your digital piano you may think it's really good. But no matter how great your onboard DP sounds are, if you play them and then switch to Vintage D for a few seconds, you will be blown away and never want to use an onboard sound again. I can't even imagine playing or even practicing using onboard sounds again. I'm completely spoiled. 13 layers of uncompressed, long, 24-bit samples very professionally done and implemented in a really well-functioning software interface is pretty hard to beat. My guess is that even many years down the road technology will not have improved over this. If you (like me) are looking for just one fabulous piano that you will play all the time in a wide range of styles, go for the Vintage D. I can't imagine anyone ever regretting it.You will never say anything like "digital pianos are just lacking something compared with acoustic" again. You really won't.

I'm a longtime amateur musician (jazz pianist and composer), but I am quite new to the world of "software pianos" or "virtual pianos." I have had a Roland RD-700sx stage piano since 2007, and I like the on-board "Superior Grand" piano patch, but I was looking for something that would more realistically simulate the experience of playing a Steinway grand piano. I wanted features such as true una corda samples for when I'm in the mood to play classical music, and I wanted the instrument to be sampled from a Hamburg Steinway because I had been impressed by some recordings of Hamburg Steinways that I'd heard over the years (listen to some of Diana Krall's early recordings like "Love Scenes" in a drumless trio format, and you'll hear what I'm talking about). After doing a lot of research short of actually hearing competing software pianos (e.g., Ivory II, Native Instruments, Imperfect Samples, etc.) side by side, I decided to take a chance on Galaxy Vintage D based in part on a few excellent reviews here on Amazon.com. I'm very glad I took that chance because I'm thrilled so far with Galaxy Vintage D. I love the sound of the particular vintage Hamburg Steinway Model D Galaxy Instruments sampled to create this library, and the user interface is very simple and intuitive. The library functions very well within Kontakt 5, which is supplied with the sample library. My Windows Vista laptop is approaching seven years old, but the Vintage D runs just fine on it (I have a Focusrite FireWire-based interface, and I use USB MIDI between the stage piano and the laptop). The overall latency is under 10 ms in my setup.With the Vintage D, I found a combination of settings I really like for day-to-day jazz-piano practice pretty quickly, and I also found another combination of settings that I like for classical playing. In both cases, I didn't feel a need to tweak the tone color, resonances, or dynamic range at all. The default settings sound great to me. I also haven't felt any need to use the EQ functions "warmth," "punch," and "brilliance." At first, I thought I needed to tweak the velocity curve a bit to match my stage piano and my playing style, but after playing Vintage D for a few weeks, I discovered that a key touch setting of "medium" on the RD-700sx(the default) and the default linear velocity curve from 1 to 127 in Vintage D work almost perfectly together (at least for the way I play). The only change in settings I made for my preferred jazz and classical presets was to add some suitable reverb. The result is an immediately playable and enjoyable simulated Hamburg Steinway. I also like that Galaxy Instruments does not require a separate unlocking device (iLok) to license their software. Authorizing my DVD-based copy of Vintage D was pretty simple, though it does involve creating an account on both Native Instruments' and Best Service's Web sites. I'm not an expert on the competition (Ivory II, etc.), but I'm very pleased with Vintage D and highly recommend it to others who are looking for a good virtual piano. I've since acquired the Vienna Grand (the Boesendorfer Imperial 290 from the Galaxy II K4 Grand Piano Collection v. 1.2) as a download, and I really like that piano, too. It complements Vintage D nicely.

I'm a classical and modern music composer and I was looking for a realistic piano.I've never heard about Galaxy D and I found it by accident, after hours of research.I did my homework and tested it and compared it with other virtual pianos out there.This one really "got me at the first chord", very natural sound, I felt I was playing the real thing but in a virtual way.I use a very good keyboard controller with graded hammer action and three pedals so I can take advantage of all it's features.I enjoy the different presets that give the option to make it sound more pop, jazzy, classy, etc... and the pedal noises, 'una corda' bring you a very realistic feel.It really transports me to a real stage. Also the effects are very good...I use it with Logic Pro and sometimes I mix some of the effects if I wanted to have a pop rock sound.It's very versatile and the price... is just a little hard to believe I bought it at a decent price if you compare it with the quality of instrument you are getting.If you are looking for a real, classical, jazz sounding piano in which you can actually feel the ivory in its keys and the warmth and depth of a Grand Piano, then this might be one the winners!

I am so happy with this exceptional product. I install on a laptop with 500 GB hard disk at 5400 RPM, 4 GB RAM, Intel Core i5. Acomplished with ASIO4ALL sound drivers. Slightly complicated and confusing product registration and license of the libraries. If you have never installed this program, I recommend watching the tutorials on youtube, for example, before attempting installation. Copy libraries first, install Kontakt, then indicate Kontakt where the libraries are, Obtain the activation code (registration process is needed) and finally activate your libraries at Kontakt.