Production Grand - a 437.5GB VST

[Meteo Xavier]

This is the biggest VST I've ever seen...

http://www.productiongrand.com/

[Nabeel Ansari]

This is the biggest VST I've ever seen...

http://www.productiongrand.com/

203 GB is not the worst, I don't think. Vienna Symphonic is definitely bigger.

[Moseph]

True, but Vienna Symphonic isn't a single piano.

Production Grand has 8 mic positions sampled in 24-bit at 96 kHz, apparently. 96 kHz seems like overkill to me, but maybe there's a market for that now. The uncompressed 400+ GB figure may also be including the lower kHz/bit-depth versions, since it looks like those are also included in the full version (because nobody wants to load 96 kHz samples under normal circumstances).

Specs on size of course, don't tell you everything. For example, this library has 12 velocity layers, and the Vienna Imperial, at around 60 GB, has (according to the Vienna site) 100 velocity layers.

EDIT: For what it's worth, Quantum Leap Pianos Platinum has a 262 GB drive footprint (compared with ~210 GB for Production Grand), though that includes 4 pianos rather than 1 and I'm not sure if/how EastWest compresses its samples.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Moseph

[Esperado]

while on the topic of extravagent piano VSTs. For real, how DO you tell the difference between which pianos are good and which are not?

For example, i can tell the difference between 4frontpiano and say, alicias keys because alicias keys sounds a bit better. However Im not so sure i could tell between alicias keys, and say, vienna imperial, especially when used in a mix. is it in the subtle tonal differences?

[timaeus222]

while on the topic of extravagent piano VSTs. For real, how DO you tell the difference between which pianos are good and which are not?

For example, i can tell the difference between 4frontpiano and say, alicias keys because alicias keys sounds a bit better. However Im not so sure i could tell between alicias keys, and say, vienna imperial, especially when used in a mix. is it in the subtle tonal differences?

For that kind of thing I just try to listen for the variation in tone at lower and higher velocities. Usually the better the dynamics, the better the library. It takes a really good dynamic demo though to show that.

Edited July 24, 2014 by timaeus222

[Argle]

Utterly ridiculous. But I'm not a high end customer so I can't say if this product has merit or not. In the same way I find a full Pro Tools rig completely and utterly unnecessary.... for me.

[Wiesty]

Yup sounds like a piano to me. Still sampled, whereas modeling is the way to go imho.

[timaeus222]

Yup sounds like a piano to me. Still sampled, whereas modeling is the way to go imho.

Haha, actually, my first piano VST that I liked was physically modeled.

[AngelsDen]

Also i think using sustain sounds more natural on physical modeled in comparision to sampled/rompler.

Anyway i will still go on with Native Instruments Pianos... <3 Berlin and Vienna Grand.

[Garrett Williamson]

anybody got a 4 TB computer?

this is ridiculous. I'd rather spend a crapload of money on a real grand than take up all of my hard drive memory on this. I don't care how good it sounds, they need to figure out how to pull back on the storage usage.

[Nabeel Ansari]

anybody got a 4 TB computer?

this is ridiculous. I'd rather spend a crapload of money on a real grand than take up all of my hard drive memory on this. I don't care how good it sounds, they need to figure out how to pull back on the storage usage.

It's 203 GB, dude. Calm down.

[Garrett Williamson]

It's 203 GB, dude. Calm down.

203 compressed. and that's still a lot.

also I suppose you're just reading my stuff wrong because it's not like I'm enraged over this lol

[Meteo Xavier]

To be fair, I think it actually ships on it's own external HD iirc.

[Garrett Williamson]

To be fair, I think it actually ships on it's own external HD iirc.

well that obviously helps a lot

hahaha

[Nabeel Ansari]

203 compressed. and that's still a lot.

Yes, lossless compressed. There's no reason to decompress them. And no, it's not still a lot in comparison to a lot of other libraries around this size. It is a lot for a single piano, but not prompting 4TB hard drive space (which is super cheap these days anyway) or buying a real grand piano (really?).

also I suppose you're just reading my stuff wrong because it's not like I'm enraged over this lol

ok

[Garrett Williamson]

It is a lot for a single piano, but not prompting 4TB hard drive space (which is super cheap these days anyway) or buying a real grand piano (really?).

I was exaggerating.

also I'm always more in favor of what's real over what's cheaper but what's real is obviously often way harder lol

[Master Mi]

Man, that's really expensive and hard disk eatin' stuff, dudes.

I use this one - sounds pretty nice as well, the price is around 30 Euro and it eat not much more hard disk space than 269 MB.

And this has also a very nice sound with good bunch of settings in the VST editor. =))

[Moseph]

Think 200 GB for a piano is bad? I have (but have not yet installed) a 25 GB sample library of old synth presets. As in, synth presets that occupied no more than a couple of megabytes on the original hardware.

[Master Mi]

Nah, not bad - but comparing to the size of my hard disk (about 1 TB) it's pretty much - and I guess the piano VSTI is not the only instrument/synthesizer you have in your DAW.

So the size would really freak me out.

And if I compare the sound of my over 200 MB Vita Century Keys and the high end grand piano VSTI there is not such a big difference I can hear by ear which would justify this large size in my opinion.

But you're the pros (hope you have some kind of a military high end computer network to deal with your DAW and Godzilla like VSTIs ).

Maybe try to make a remix with the grand piano and a not so large-size piano VSTI like the Century Keys and let the community decide if they can hear such a big difference within a whole track.

Edited July 26, 2014 by Master Mi

[timaeus222]

Nah, not bad - but comparing to the size of my hard disk (about 1 TB) it's pretty much - and I guess the piano VSTI is not the only instrument/synthesizer you have in your DAW.

So the size would really freak me out.

And if I compare the sound of my over 200 MB Vita Century Keys and the high end grand piano VSTI the is not such a big difference I can hear by ear which would justify this large size in my opinion.

But you're the pros (hope you have some kind of a military high end computer network to deal with your DAW and Godzilla like VSTIs ).

Maybe try to make a remix with the grand piano and a not so large-size piano VSTI like the Century Keys and let the community decide if they can hear such a big difference within a whole track.

Well, guess what? We can. Or at least, the judges can.

[Garrett Williamson]

Think 200 GB for a piano is bad? I have (but have not yet installed) a 25 GB sample library of old synth presets. As in, synth presets that occupied no more than a couple of megabytes on the original hardware.

see that just seems silly

[timaeus222]

Think 200 GB for a piano is bad? I have (but have not yet installed) a 25 GB sample library of old synth presets. As in, synth presets that occupied no more than a couple of megabytes on the original hardware.

o.o Geez, my Zebra2 presets are not even 50 KB per patch and they're pretty complex. xD

[Moseph]

Did anyone else notice the site's blurb that said Production Grand has a quasi-binaural player's perspective mic? I think this is the one used in the Bach demo, and it sounds really good. Binaural miking is a great idea, and I hope other piano library devs copy it. I'm not sure I would necessarily use that mic in a mix, but I would love it for playing/recording on headphones.

A thing that I don't think people talk enough about regarding samples is how actual physical instruments and real performances can be evaluated as good or bad entirely independently of any sampling considerations, which is to say that just being "realistic" does not necessarily make something good. I bring this up because the thing I don't like about Production Grand has nothing to do with its size or design philosophy. What I don't like about it is that it samples a Yamaha C7. Yamahas are popular, marketable, and versatile, and in that respect it totally makes sense to sample one for this library, but I personally don't care for Yamaha's pianos -- I find the tone too bright and the keys' action too stiff. And my experience with other Yahama-based piano libraries has been that my misgivings about real Yamaha pianos also apply to samples of Yamaha pianos. This is a thing that "realistic" samples can't remedy, because my objection is to the instrument itself and not to the samples' representation of the instrument.

[Nabeel Ansari]

o.o Geez, my Zebra2 presets are not even 50 KB per patch and they're pretty complex. xD

Storing a synth preset is different from storing a sampled synth preset.

Did anyone else notice the site's blurb that said Production Grand has a quasi-binaural player's perspective mic? I think this is the one used in the Bach demo, and it sounds really good. Binaural miking is a great idea, and I hope other piano library devs copy it. I'm not sure I would necessarily use that mic in a mix, but I would love it for playing/recording on headphones.

A thing that I don't think people talk enough about regarding samples is how actual physical instruments and real performances can be evaluated as good or bad entirely independently of any sampling considerations, which is to say that just being "realistic" does not necessarily make something good. I bring this up because the thing I don't like about Production Grand has nothing to do with its size or design philosophy. What I don't like about it is that it samples a Yamaha C7. Yamahas are popular, marketable, and versatile, and in that respect it totally makes sense to sample one for this library, but I personally don't care for Yamaha's pianos -- I find the tone too bright and the keys' action too stiff. And my experience with other Yahama-based piano libraries has been that my misgivings about real Yamaha pianos also apply to samples of Yamaha pianos. This is a thing that "realistic" samples can't remedy, because my objection is to the instrument itself and not to the samples' representation of the instrument.

I bought 8dio's Steinway Legacy Grand purely because Steinway's have my favorite piano tone and it captured it really well. It's really deep and smooth. I didn't really care about anything else.

Edited July 27, 2014 by Neblix

[Moseph]

I bought 8dio's Steinway Legacy Grand purely because Steinway's have my favorite piano tone and it captured it really well. It's really deep and smooth. I didn't really care about anything else.

I'll have to check out Legacy Grand. I, too, tend to prefer Steinways over other makes. (My current favorite sampled piano is the Steinway from QL Pianos.)