Comparing Radical Piano with Grand Rhapsody?

[chrischrischris]

Hi,

Is Anyone Comparing Reason Piano's with Grand Rhapsody at the moment?

I used My trial years ago for Radical Piano but would love to make a purchase and am trying out The 14GB Rhapsody now. I have Reason Piano's and I love The Steinway but I'm sure that there is better available.

CPU/DSP/Functionality/Sound ect

Thanks in advance

Chris

[FLVZ]

I'd choose Radical Piano over Grand Rhapsody for sure. Don't know about Reason's Piano, but I can't see Grand Rhapsody being better than Reason Pianos. Waves are great at effects but instruments not so much!

[mcatalao]

It's interesting that even with the promo Radikal Piano is cheaper than Reason Pianos.

I really like reason pianos. It's great that you can choose from 3 different pianos, and so many sound options. Still, as it comes to real instrument samples, you can see that there are many different brands and types of pianos. For example, the Waves Phapsody is a Faziolla. East West has a great Bozendorfer that is wonderful sounding, really nice for mellow stuff. So, since R9.5 has Rack Extentsions, Refills and VST support, if i was in your shoes, i'd try them all and go for the one that suits you most.

PS.: Don't forget Soundiron Emtional Piano, or Reason Abbey Road Keyboard that has 2 vintage pianos in there...

[chrischrischris]

I'd choose Radical Piano over Grand Rhapsody for sure. Don't know about Reason's Piano, but I can't see Grand Rhapsody being better than Reason Pianos. Waves are great at effects but instruments not so much!

Sorry I was referring to Radical Piano! )I have edited The Post) I have Reason Pianos.

Thanks in advance

Chris

[chrischrischris]

I'd choose Radical Piano over Grand Rhapsody for sure. Don't know about Reason's Piano, but I can't see Grand Rhapsody being better than Reason Pianos. Waves are great at effects but instruments not so much!

With 1 Piano weighing in at 14GB I would have thought that the Multi Samples would be much more impressive. That is the way I am finding Playing Grand Rhapsody but Reason Pianos seems to "Jump a little" in velocity terms.
I know it will be down to Reason Refill Packing to some extent but Reason 24bit Pianos Refill is under 2GB. That's for 3 Pianos with 6 Mic Positions!

I wonder if someone knows off hand The Download Size Of Radical Piano?

Thanks in advance

Chris

[mcatalao]

chrischrischris,

The way Reason Pianos is done, allows it to be leaner, because it doesn't sample all the 88 notes of the pianos. I think they sampled the notes in 3 semitone steps (you can check that in the documentation), allowing a smaller footprint. They also have multiple layers per mic, plus the hammer and box resonance, i think, but way less than for example a 80 GB imperial bosendorfer grand from East West.

Normal sampled pianos, usually not only have all the notes sampled (3 times more), and most of the times they have more than 7 layers for intensity. This results (Theoretically) in a obviously heavier sample pack, but the resonance evolution vs intensity is more detailed, giving you a very dynamic piano (Really really very dynamic).

This being said, my piano arsenal is composed of Reason Pianos, Reason Abbey Road Keyboards, and East West Pianos Gold. The heavylift of the gold on a big song, would would not be noticed, after so much audio hurt you apply on a Pop song. But i've used the Rpi's on calm songs and it didn't compromise either.

[mcatalao]

BTW, here's a little video i did sometime ago comparing the lot of pianos available for reason. I didn't include the base piano cause it doesn't stand imho against the others.
I couldn't test Radical Piano because i tried it already and i don't have plans to get it having all this piano stuff...

[QVprod]

Keep in mind that you have to adjust velocity curves on Grand Rhapsody to suit your keyboard action if you haven't done so already. The downside of course being that you have to change it every time you load a patch, but then again it's the same for Radical.

It of course comes down to what you like the sound of. I personally don't think Radical Piano is great for natural sound. The sonic capabilities of Grand Rhapsody is far greater than Radical and rivals what's offered in Reason Pianos because of all the mic positions. At $25 I'd say it's a no brainer buy period, but definitely against Radical Piano.

That said I just went ahead and bought Grand Rhapsody after this video in the other thread. Downloading it tonight.

[chrischrischris]

Keep in mind that you have to adjust velocity curves on Grand Rhapsody to suit your keyboard action if you haven't done so already. The downside of course being that you have to change it every time you load a patch, but then again it's the same for Radical.

It of course comes down to what you like the sound of. I personally don't think Radical Piano is great for natural sound. The sonic capabilities of Grand Rhapsody is far greater than Radical and rivals what's offered in Reason Pianos because of all the mic positions. At $25 I'd say it's a no brainer buy period, but definitely against Radical Piano.

That said I just went ahead and bought Grand Rhapsody after this video in the other thread. Downloading it tonight.

Thanks. I would appreciate Your opinion after running G R in Reason. I downloaded it this week to test it took about 14 hours! There is a warning on their site to let You know that it might take a while.

I watched that guys video after a day or two testing. It's worth noting that The User Velocity Curve does save with Your Patch. Also The Studio Resonance is only "applied" while You have The Sustain Pedal pressed in/down.

Thanks

Chris

[FLVZ]

I'd choose Radical Piano over Grand Rhapsody for sure. Don't know about Reason's Piano, but I can't see Grand Rhapsody being better than Reason Pianos. Waves are great at effects but instruments not so much!

With 1 Piano weighing in at 14GB I would have thought that the Multi Samples would be much more impressive. That is the way I am finding Playing Grand Rhapsody but Reason Pianos seems to "Jump a little" in velocity terms.
I know it will be down to Reason Refill Packing to some extent but Reason 24bit Pianos Refill is under 2GB. That's for 3 Pianos with 6 Mic Positions!

I wonder if someone knows off hand The Download Size Of Radical Piano?

Thanks in advance

Chris

Yeah the thing is its only one Piano, Radical has 3. I've always been an advocate for variety. Add the fact that GR isn't exactly impress sounding it feels more like a token buy because of the price. This is how I arrived to the decision personally.