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Ravenscroft vs digital piano stock sounds
Hello, piano noob here. I recently purchased a Casio Privia digital piano for my family, which I also plan to use on some tracks. It sounds pretty great to me, but I don’t have a ton of experience with using piano samples. Does anyone know how the quality of the stock sounds for a digital piano would stack up against an app like Ravenscroft? The piano has midi out, so I would be happy to invest in a good piano app if it will produce a more realistic sound when recording tracks.
The Casio has string resonance, damper resonance, pedal noise, lid simulator and some level of round Robin and velocity layers (haven’t been able to find specifics on that info).
Comments
You will need to get the sound of the Casio into the iPad. Does this Privia have the USB Audio "out" capability. If not you'd have to run audio into the iPad using an audio interface to keep the sound decent. If you try a mic the problems of maintaining quality will get worse.
In general, the Ravenscroft competes well with the Casio and keeps everything in digital format so the sound is not altered in the recording process.
I'm sure the Casio would have USB out for the MIDI so the Casio will be a good MIDI controller to drive the Ravenscroft with good piano velocity levels.
Watch for Ravenscroft sales... It periodically drops to 50% off once or twice a year: Black Friday is a typical sale event for UVI apps.
Ravenscroft sounds great, but it's hard to say whether it will sound "better" as that is very subjective, and also will depend on what you use the piano for. Some pianos work better than others for fitting in to a mix with other instruments.
Pianoteq is also developing an iOS version of their physical modelling piano, so that's something worth keeping an eye out for too.
A good rule of thumb for digital pianos is that the realism of the action and sound is proportional to the price, so it depends which model you have. I have played some Casio pianos, and I quite like the action on them, but the sound doesn't tend to make me think of a real piano (however it's possible I didn't play something in the high-end of their range).
I haven't played Ravenscroft, but as it's an iPad app, it's likely to not be an enormous sample library. Desktop libraries are probably bigger, and some of them sound amazing. Digital pianos don't necessary have huge sample libraries, but they have technology that is dedicated to processing those samples to make them sound more like an acoustic piano.
Maybe search online for some high quality recordings of iOS apps and then compare them with your piano? Ultimately it will be your ears that decide on what sounds closest to what you want to hear.
Ravenscroft has a decent sized sample library, around 850 MB. I realise it's not as big as some of the desktop instruments, but probably many many times larger than what is in the Casio.
You’ll need an audio interface and four cables to get the sound out of the Casio into aN iPad host. Casio pianos can be decent, but that’s all. I recommend, like @McD, to get Ravenscroft on sale for $17. Even at $36 it’s an incredible bargain. And much less expensive than getting an interface which will have the appropriate connectivity (Steinberg UR22 mkll is $169, for example, plus cables).
thanks everyone. I have an interface, and have already done some recording with the piano. I haven’t used many piano sample libraries though.
I assume that Ravenscroft has a larger sample set. The samples I’ve heard from Ravenscroft sound good, but it’s hard to tell how natural it would feel to play a piece of music. The Casio PX-870, from my understanding, has multiple different simulations going on at once to make the samples sound more “acoustic”. I’m not sure what all Ravenscroft is doing under the hood beyond layered sample play back, EQ and reverb.
I guess the only real way to know Is to do a side by side comparison. I’ll keep an eye out for a sale and see how they compare.
When I was researching digital pianos before purchasing, I was regularly reading that digital pianos (even high end ones) are great for practice but can be lackluster for recording when compared to a good desktop VST. Knowing how many iOS apps are often slimmed down a bit compared to desktop, I wasn’t sure where Ravenscroft iOS stood on the hierarchy of acoustic piano emulations.
It’s all subjective of course…I find Ravenscroft sounds excellent, but there’s a Piano IAP in Beathawk that’s downright delicious. I wish UVI would add that to the RavensCroft App
Search through the forum.You will find a lot of examples to listen to of what the various piano apps sound like. Pure Piano won a few blind surveys that involved Ravenscroft and the Korg Module Steinway.
As a pianist, I have done extensive listening and playing of digital pianos (Casio, Korg etc). While there are good ones, I have found that the Ravenscroft app with a decent weighted midi controller provides everything I need. Many digital pianos I have discovered annoying anomalies (bad sample transitions, mapping etc), but extensive playing of the Ravenscroft doesn't present the same problems. Bear in mind I will practice/play an hour or so every second day with this! I'm more than happy with the Ravenscroft in all live and recorded situations - mainly jazz but also classical.
However, you NEED to spend time tweaking it to get the sound you want, specifically Timbre, EQ and velocity. The presets are a bit meh.
I also have Pure Piano, Korg Module and have tried a number of others - Ravenscroft is still my preferred piano.
And don’t forget that the 883 MB of Ravenscroft are FLAC lossless-compressed (3 GB uncompressed). Other than a few features less, it is exactly the same quality as the Desktop version.
In addition to samples, it also uses « hybrid-modeling » and « advanced scripting » to simulate resonances. I don’t think other iOS pianos do that and this makes the difference for me in the long run.
Lots of free pianos on my site to try. All you need is a cheap hosting app like bs-16i and you are good to go.
Honestly I've tried them all (Ravenscroft, Pure, Korg Module, iGrand, Colossus) and I prefer the freebies.
https://sites.google.com/site/soundfonts4u/
That’s great information. Thanks.
IMO, Ravenscroft is unrivalled as a playable instrument but I’ll give the slight edge to Pure Piano for its more familiar tone. @SilentObserver would you mind sharing a screenshot of your preferred settings? No matter how hard I try I’m unable to make the treble sing like my (ageing) Kawai stage piano.
@FriedTapeworm something to consider is digital piano fatigue. I’m confident that your Casio can hang with the best iOS pianos but eventually your ears will experience tone fatigue. That’s another reason to pick up Ravenscroft and or Pure, especially when they go on sale.
For the cost conscious buyer and for the record:
Ravenscroft costs $37
Pure Piano costs $27
Korg Module Pro costs $20 and the Ivory American D is an IAP for $20-30 (can't find the price after you buy it)
There are several decent SoundFont options to use the free pianos: BS-16-i $8, SoundFonts $5.
When Ravenscroft goes on sale we always recommend it as a must own app. Korg does 50% off periodically and Module Pro makes the iPad act like a Stage Piano with an easily accessible array of sounds that load quickly. Of course, you'll sink well over $100 into IAPs
but the one-stop keyboard performance app is worth considering for any live work.
Sure, here is my preferred setting. Bear in mind that I also use an Arturia Keylab 88 as a controller and have set the velocity curve on that as well: min: 001, p: 29, mf: 82, ff: 91, max: 124. I've found that backing the max off 127 reduces a little of the harshness at full velocity and gives a more natural response.
Thanks @SilentObserver. Those settings are not far off mine. And good point about the controller’s velocity settings. Nice that your Keylab offers that level of tweak-ability:)
I tried Ravenscroft, Pure Piano, Ivory in Module, Colossus, and about every other app you can name. The Yamaha in the Nice Keys Complete soundfont is the best for me. Honestly all of the soundfonts on this site are great, and I stopped using a lot of apps since I discovered this site. Thanks @Ruben !!!