Sound Magic has released Piano One Version 5.0, a free virtual instrument, for Mac & Windows.
The new version updates Piano One to the latest engine utilized in Sound Magic’s commercial pianos.
Changes:
- Piano One now uses the latest engine.
- A Full User-Friendly GUI.
- Supports 4K resolution.
Video Intro:
The free Piano One differs from the company’s commercial pianos in several ways: it lacks Sympathetic Resonance, Mechanical Noises, HD Velocity Layers and Multi Microphone Perspective support and uses less sample data for modeling.
See the Sound Magic site for more details.
Why is the included video a how-to for downloading, installing and invoking the instrument? That’s step 2, where step 1 is to hear a demo of the sound to judge if it is worth proceeding to step 2.
I’ve yet to try the new iteration, which promises to be a good deal better, but I didn’t like at all its predecessor. I only played it for a couple hours, but it seemed dull (that is lacking in expressivity and dynamic) and sounded somewhat artificial, quite metallic in the highest and lowest ranges. If you absolutely need a free piano, it’ll sound decent enough if you take your time to carefully configure it (there are worse ones out there), but the ones included in Logic, for one, are way better.
I think some of the charm of Pianoteq is its ability to make unusual non-piano sounds that are “organic”.
Does Sound Magic provide that kind of control?