PIANOS

In summation, these are without question the most gorgeous sounding sampled pianos I've ever heard. The greatest accomplishment, in my view, is the way the room sound was captured. Even when using only the Player position I found it almost unneccessary to invoke the built-in convolution reverb, which is amazing in and of itself.

If you're looking for the most authentic sounding sampled grand pianos available at this time, and have a system that can handle it, Quantum Leap Pianos is a must-consider. Just make sure you have the latest vesion - and a computer that is ready for it!

Piano sound being such a personal thing, it‘s hard to predict which way players might jump if asked to choose between QL Pianos' instruments. Whatever your preference, it's clear that all four are very good sampled pianos, and since they're sold as a bundle, buyers will be spoiled for choice!

Editing the 68,000 samples in this library took four people eight months, and I bet pianist John Sawoski‘s fingers are still aching!

The ultimate test of whether all the effort was worth it comes when a musician sits down to play the instruments, and this musician spent many happy hours playing the ‘fab four’ (to coin a phrase) pianos included in this world-beating collection.

This collection of four superb instruments raises the bar for sampled grand piano playability without hiking the price too high.

The new meaning of heavyweight. Players agreed that EastWest has by far the most detailed and biggest-sounding pianos of the bunch. "The dead center of the Bosendorfer's dynamic range sings out for a long time," noted Fortner, "exactly like the real thing, and the nine extra notes below bottom A [a famous feature of the real thing] are just thunderous." Richard Leiter said, "This sounds like a good recording of a good piano. It makes me want to play late 19th Century classical - if I could!" Aikin added, "This'd be loverly for Chopin, but not the patch you'd load for Bach ... or Little Richard." Trying the Steinway, Aikin said, "I'd sit down and play this for pleasure over the Bosendorfer. It's very lively, with just the right combination of depth and brilliance." He was even happier with the Bechstein: "This makes me want to play Mozart. There's a nice singing quality and melodic projection over chords. I have a sense of comfort here, even more than with the Steinway." The Bechstein was also Fortner's favorite for his R&B-derived playing style: "Lean into it, and it doesn't go quite as far as the Yamaha, but the bell-like harmonics you want for pop come forward. Lean back, and it's brooding and mellow. Gorgeous." EastWest Pianos stands out because it's the biggest most ambitious sampled piano project ever, with the sound quality to prove it. You'll need a bad-ass computer to play the full-size presets with abandon, but if you have one - wow!