YC5 "Rock Piano" -- Impressions

I've only heard the online demos so far, but I think I'd prefer the Erard for rock than the new rock add-on. It doesn't help that I simply don't like the timbre of the bass notes of the Yamaha piano to begin with. (i.e even recordings of a real one)  ;^)
I think my ideal rock piano might be a Yamaha for everything except the bass notes, where I would replace them with a Bosendorfer. (I *only* like the bass notes from the Bosendorfer, it seems, too - tricky business)

Also, I want lots of shimmering metallic overtones for rock - so far I have only heard this kind of thing in the Pianoteq CP80 - none of the acoustics quite manage it. (IMHO of course)  I've recently acquired a sampled piano which is mostly for rock, and whilst it doesn't have the playability of Pianoteq, it has the metallic quality in spades.

Greg.

Jake,
It's the Sampletekk "White Grand".  Btw, I think it's expressive enough to play lots of different styles of music, although it doesn't have *very* mellow pp timbres - if it did have that as well it would be really something. I know it's been around for many years now.

Greg.

Interesting...  A actual trademark, not a vintage piano, in a Add On.

Well, let's see what people, familiarized with Yamaha C5, will say about this digital modelled version.

Minutes latter...    Well I tried it.  The emulations seens ok to me, despite never played a rea Yamaha C5.  I mean it seens natural, like a real piano. 
Just the lack of woodness that still are present, but also present in some samples, since it's perhaps like the way it is recorded, geting a too pure sound.

The fact is that Yamaha is a well know name, but that do not means a excellent piano.  While Stewinway manufacture one piano, Yamaha manufacture 25, or someting like that.

I notice few characteristics, like a kind of change in "sound essence" from one note to another, Like D3 to E3. I supose the original it's that way too.

I'm not a fan of "piano rock tuning".  But Modartt probably made a good job creating this add on.  For who likes Yamaha it's a very good option.

I like the idea of making all notes available to demo at first -- maybe for the first 2-3 days?

After that, about 1/3 of the notes could become disabled (far more than are currently disabled in the demo).

I think this would be fair (if it's easy to implement), especially for users who own the other licenses.

:-)

(P.S. - Yes, these pianos definitely grow on you!  I played a C5 in high school [it was the "band-room" grand, choke, cough], and I wasn't terribly fond of it.  Of course, the school didn't exactly tune/regulate the dang thing at _all_, so the comparison wouldn't be fair.)

I haven't been playing with them for long, but so far I think several patches of the new Yamaha models sound really, really good in the context of a mix. That, of course, is the key: in the context of a mix.

A rock piano has to sound *very* different than a classical piano. It needs to have a harder attack, a more limited dynamic range, a more metallic overtone, and be brighter. I think for the most part, the Pianoteq team got it right.

Playing along with a Bruce Hornsby mix and a Springsteen mix both fared well. The model cut through the mix well with no EQ, which isn't easy on a dense mix. I recorded (and played) a C5 for years at a studio where I used to engineer, and this model sounds very similar. I especially like the "Studio Close Mic" and the "Studio Mix Recording" patches for these purposes.

Again, for classical music, I'm never going to reach for a Yamaha C5. But for rock, folk, or pop, I'm always going to be interested in at least hearing a C5. Heck, that's most of the work I do these days. I'm really, really glad the Pianoteq team spent time on this model. I had tweaked the C3 model pretty hard to fit into a dense mix, but I think the YC5 will sit in there without too much tweaking.

One thing I'm noticing, though:
3.0.5 seems to be taking a bigger hit on my CPU than 3.0.4 did. I don't know why, but I'm getting a lot more audio glitches. Hmm. Odd.

Hi Julien,

I updated my profile with a technical signature. Sorry I hadn't done that before--I know that makes everyone's job a bit easier.

I haven't reverted to 3.0.4 to confirm, I just know that I used to play at 192 samples with 3.0.4 with no glitches, but I had to up it to 320 samples with 3.0.5 to avoid any glitches.

But again, I want to congratulate and thank you all so much for the new Rock add-on. I just purchased it after more testing. It really is sitting well with mixes for me in Rock, Folk, and Blues contexts. It feels more forward to me,  or "focused," as dhalfen said above, and it feels like it can get more "intimate" to me than any of your other models. It sounds fantastic to my ear so far. And you nailed the top end of the keyboard. The Yamaha kind of "craps out" up there in a cool way, and I think you captured that.