I still use most of my sampled pianos, of which I have many. And the very reason why I have many, is also the reason why I still use them: for me, timbre has to match content. Indescribably important, I find. Timbre, in my opinion, is always an essential part of the musical message, of what I want express musically. A phrase, or a few chords, played on one piano will often say something differently than that same phrase, or chords, played on another piano. So I spend a lot of time finding the right pianosound for what it is I want to say with it. And there are some things which you can say with one piano that simply can’t be said with another.
All virtual pianos are but an interpretation of the idea ‘piano’. They give us a single angle from which we look at something incredibly complex. It’s like looking at Paris by looking at a photograph of Paris on a postcard. What we conveniently call ‘a piano’, is in actual fact a near-infinite collection of musical identities, each with its own character, strengths, limitations and specific suitabilities, and no virtual piano covers all that ground, not even a tiny fraction of it. Hence my need for as many virtual instruments as I’m prepared to purchase.
The exact same thing applies to all virtual instruments. They’re all but single-angle snapshots of infinitely more complex realities. Nothing more playable, for example, than a SampleModeling woodwind, but again … there’s only so much you can express with it — because its timbre (and the character that timbre suggests) is what it is. So, next to the SampleModeling woodwinds, I also have several sampled alternatives, to speak at those moments when the modeled woodwind’s voice isn’t the one best suited to what the music wants to say.
_