Embertone: Walker 1955 Steinway D (A Review)

[@felixchen8295]

Hi Christopher, I have this VST for years but I found it difficult for real-time performance because very often the CPU usage exceeds 100% and everything broke until it cools down. I have minimized the configuration down to no meaning. What is the trick to make it work smooth?

[@earlteigrob9211]

My favorite VST. No technical issues so far. Runung on a very fast desktop.

[@headsman2023]

Man i love this one, this sounds to be the only v.instrument that captured the soul of a 9foot Steinway d❤ that's awesome

[@WillfoxPiano]

damn, sounds great. One day when I do more piano specific stuff, I'll def look into this

[@ryanvillamormusic]

I just got my full version of the walker concert D. Do you have video instructions of how to install and load the embertone library properly from the Connect App to Native Access and to Kontakt. Thank you

[@arbous65]

Hi. I just finished watching your 2023 favorite pianos. So considering this is a piano with much more layers which perhaps contribute to make it more natural sounding and considering this is a review from 6 years ago, what has happened in your journey to pick those two libraries considering they are much smaller size? Have you decided a particular tone and expression is more important than sounding natural and having many layers? Or because this library has flaws (like pedaling, tuning, etc.) Have you checked version 1.1? Are the problems still there? Is there any other good size library with many layers (I would say probably at least 18 layers of 88 individual key samples at 24 bit to make it sound natural) that sounds as good or better than this one by means of having natural timbre variation corresponding to playing dynamics (covering ppp to fff and anywhere in between with complete sense of continuity), being responsive, expressive, detailed, balanced for low notes vs. high notes, and plays well under your fingers (seamless coherence between the MIDI keyboard key actions and the playback)?

[@Metalpazallteway]

The Walker or The Grandeur? Which would be a better route in terms of rich overtones but also dryness?

[@headsman2023]

The grandeur has a overtone simulator so you can play with it and find the level you want (of course it's not the most accurate overtones) The walker have it in the recordings (it's less than grandeur obviously but it's more of a natural tone and you can feel that it's coming from the piano itself, and if you want it to sound louder you should mix more of the mid mics)

[@mithramusic5909]

So there's no mic mixer? Are the mic positions not in phase?

[@headsman2023]

Is there a patch that has all the mic positions so you can just mix them? Or you have to open every mic as an individual patch in kontakt?💀💀💀

[@AshtonGleckman]

Nice review, Christopher! I'm looking into getting either the Hans Zimmer Piano or the Steinway D. I wonder if you happen to have a recommendation? HZP looks great, but 400+ GB seems a little wild for a piano library. Edit: I think it's 400 GB uncompressed actually.

[@ChristopherSiu]

Hey Ashton, thanks! I personally love the tone of HZ, it's just so pretty and sparkly. That being said, the hefty size made me hold off, so I'm glad I got my hands on this one instead. I love that every note is slightly imperfect, so it just adds to the realism. Besides, the tone can be tweaked to sound quite close to HZ, so if I had to choose, I'd go with this one. Feel free to call me Chris!

[@AshtonGleckman]

Thanks Chris !

[@anothercrappypianist]

I was initially quite enamored with HZP but the honeymoon period quickly wore off. With the benefit of hindsight, if I had to pick between Embertone's Walker and HZP, I'd choose the Walker. I think it has sufficient mic flexibility, a nice enough tone, and has vastly better playability. (Despite a pedaling issue I quickly encountered, Embertone is at least *trying* to bring good playability to the Walker, meanwhile HZP just feels to me as a player like triggering a series of samples. Nice sounding samples, granted, but I personally feel no connection or inspiration while playing it.)

[@SheldonTam]

@@anothercrappypianist Hi, wondering has the Walker's pedalling issue been resolved? Thanks.

[@anothercrappypianist]

@@SheldonTam I've been working with Embertone and they have a fix. I don't know when it will land in public hands, but I can say it plays a lot better. :)

[@ResonantP]

Can you open the lite version standalone without a DAW?

[@anothercrappypianist]

Chris, are you using a continuous sustain pedal or a discrete pedal? Unfortunately in my case (with a continuous pedal) playing classical music I found very quickly (under a minute) this piano was unsuitable for my playing style due to wonky pedaling behavior. (I suspect that anyone using a continuous pedal playing a nontrivial piece would run into this issue quickly enough.) Embertone is on the case, and they've been great as they always are, so I'm optimistic for improvements in a future release.

[@ChristopherSiu]

anothercrappypianist Good question! I actually don’t know about my pedal; however I find no issues playing classical music with it really, fast or slow.

[@anothercrappypianist]

Ah, well, I don't think the problem I encountered would manifest with a discrete pedal, so I imagine that's why you haven't run into any issues. (I have a [admittedly somewhat snarky] video on my channel with more specific detail about the problem if you're morbidly curious.)

[@alexandrebaroni1057]

Hi Siu. I bought this library based on your review, I have a question. On Komplete Kontrol software, this library is under Native Instruments Vendor and not under Embertone. can you check it for me please? Thank you.

[@rolandguilford8301]

Hey Christopher. Thanks for the video! This piano sounds great. Can I ask how it compares to Galaxy's Vintage Steinway D if you're familiar with it please? Thanks! All the best.

[@SheldonTam]

Hey Chris, can I ask how do you like the Walker compared with CinePiano and Cinematic Studio Piano? They are both cheaper than the Walker during the Black Friday weekend. Wondering what is your opinion on these libraries, thanks.

[@ChristopherSiu]

Hey Sheldon! Tbh I use cinepiano the most, it has some great patches that just inspire out of the box. I just don’t prefer the sound of these two as much now, but they’re still beautiful libraries.

[@SheldonTam]

@@ChristopherSiu Just would like to clarity one point. When you say you "don’t prefer the sound of these two as much now". Are "these two" referring to the Walker and Cinematic Studio Piano? And you are still using CinePiano the most? Sorry, a bit confused, thx.

[@ChristopherSiu]

Sheldon Tam yes that’s right :)

[@mrfuzztone]

cool. I bought one after listening to your review. Very inexpensive for such a nice piano

[@anatol1204]

Very good piano❤

[@LuzCalorSom]

Hello friend :) Very beautiful work. This piano vst is heavy for many cpu.In some moments your cpu bootlenecked the samples. Kontakt shows that in the cpu indication and we can hear the cuts too. But thank you very much for all thge explanations you did here. Helps a lot.

[@ChristopherSiu]

Thank you for the heads up Luz! At the time I didn’t have enough RAM, but now that I’ve upgraded I haven’t had any issues luckily.

[@LuzCalorSom]

@@ChristopherSiu I am happy that you can play even better now. Beautiful music you played in the video :)

[@xianning]

The piano sounds wonderful. However, the thing I don’t like about this library is that it’s way too large. If your laptop is not good enough, it won’t be fun.

[@kaisfp]

Embertone sounds great, but the staccatos are the best on the Ravenscroft 275, that's one of the reasons jazz guys love that plugin, also it sounds very clean even at lower registers, and when those jazz guys playing those crowded jazzy chords even at lower registers it won't sound muddy, on the other hand Ravenscroft sounds a little metallic and some people just can't stand that type of metallic piano sound.

[@kaisfp]

Also, luckily in Ravenscroft you don't need to press a Staccato-swith when you want to play staccato and the staccatos sound stellar.

[@JuanLopezmusica]

what version is this one? $99 or $149?

[@ChristopherSiu]

Juan Lopez This one is the complete version with all the mic positions.

[@JuanLopezmusica]

Christopher Siu do you know if when you buy the full version come with all mic positions or you have to buy it individuality?

[@JuanLopezmusica]

@@ChristopherSiu I purchase the full library, but I can't se the same way on mu kontrakt. I need help? how I can load my library from my hard drive?

[@ChristopherSiu]

Juan Lopez Hi Juan, please contact Embertone directly for support.

[@Lightmore]

UNA CORDA - delete NKX and you have 100gb on hard. No problems make soft sound....and hammersmith 60gb - the same sound.

[@mrteera88]

Cool!

[@Ahobakachan]

6:56 yeah, it stands obvious because of panorama flip

[@self4autism333]

The pedal noise is extremely distracting. I thought you had a mic on your headphones and you were hitting the chord as you played???

[@christophrichthofen1241]

Great video, but just out of interest, why is there a popping / interference noise sometimes?

[@ChristopherSiu]

Hi Christoph, at the time of recording this video, I had very limited RAM on my CPU, hence the pops and clicks. The newest videos are much better!

[@christophrichthofen1241]

@@ChristopherSiu Great, thanks Christopher. Can I ask what RAM / CPU you currently have please? I only have 8GB of DDR4 RAM and an intel i5 2500K processor.

[@ankurkaushal619]

@@christophrichthofen1241 I use it with 16 gigs of ram and it still occasionally clicks and pops, the best tradeoff is to increase the buffer size and manage with some latency

[@christophrichthofen1241]

@@ankurkaushal619 Thank you!

[@alyctro8158]

but it's almost 200gb...

[@maximebompois4571]

I think the flip perspective just means flip left/right channels.

[@t1merickson]

Nope, it means player vs audience perspective

[@SonOfInfernum]

​@@t1merickson Which means? Flipped left-right channels :) They didn't put extra mics for that. Try that: load twice the piano, one with flipped perspective, and one without. Then flip left-right channel on one of them in your DAW, and both will sound exactly the same :)

[@sasufreqchann]

when your cpu says NO ! xD