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Hey guys,

just saw this was released today (Friday April 29, 2022).
Any thoughts on this anybody? By any chance anybody that can already give feedback?

I own the Ravenscroft275 and love it. I also got the Modern U... playability is nice but I have buyer's remorse due to lack of dynamics, low end etc.
The Ravenscroft275 is so good that I am thinking about getting the 220... However the 220 VI has been sampled through a company called "prime studios". Are they any good?

let's discuss!

Ravenscroft 220 VI by Prime Studios

Hello,

@lovelovemale, Thanks for posting!

It looks to me as if that website is as new as the "coming soon" virtual piano library. Maybe the company is also new?

I've never heard of them before (has anybody?) so it'd be hard to tell if they're good.

The website doesn't tell anything remarkable or interesting about this new instrument, and the pricing at first glance seems prohibitively high. The fact that it is a Kontakt (incl. Player) instrument also puzzles me. The really superb pianos all run on/in other platforms.

No sound examples, no videos to be found.

Their general terms are one big disclaimer. I cannot find an explicit trial/return/refund policy. I will probably never again purchase a virtual instrument that cannot be fully tried before purchase or at least have a no-hassle no questions asked return and refund policy. Even more so at such high prices.

Maybe it's all a bit in a (too) early stage yet.

Cheers and be careful,

HZ

Also: "The Ravenscroft275 is so good that I am thinking about getting the 220.". There is no relationship whatsoever between the VI Labs 275 project and this new Austrian one, so also no causal relationship to assume quality.

Cheers and be careful,

HZ

Hey HZPiano,

yeah I totally agree!
I found this because I actually live close to Scottsdale, Arizona and I am following Ravenscroft Pianos via Facebook... they posted this and said new partnership of our Ravenscroft 220... so I thought there might be a relationship since they actually also made the 275 in collaboration with VI LABS.

I also felt the Marketing on the prime studios website is really "weak" but I am no expert so I figured I share this to get ideas from the biggest community

Thanks for your input so far and happy Friday!

Hello,

@lovelovemale, Thank you, good Friday to you too. Mine is already coming to a close and the weekend about to start 🙂.

Did you ever visit Ravenscroft? Do they actually build their instruments in Scottsdale? Would be interesting to see that.

At one of my travels I stayed in Scottsdale (after landing on the Sky Harbor) for a few days before starting out into Arizona and Utah. I'm rather fond of those areas.

Cheers and happy explorations,

HZ

There are a few examples under the "lite" tab... Did not listen to them.

@HZPiano:

I actually did visit Ravenscroft but it was before they moved their location. It was a small factory, it was quite hard to find initially. There was somebody working on Piano in the back... I told him I own the VST and was very excited to see a Ravenscroft in person for the first time. I am originally from Germany and lived in Hamburg where I could visit and play Steinways as a hobby (there is a place in Hamburg it allows you to play on Steinways for 2-5 Euros an hour!!!).
So he let me play on a Ravenscroft and continued to work, it was so awesome (except that I am a self taught beginner player so :p)

Anyways, If it's interesting I can definitely swing by their new location and take some pictures and post them here.

@HZPiano just off topic: BTW I graduated for my Bachelors in Enschede, the Netherlands and worked for about 2 years in Hengelo :p! Miss the beautiful Netherlands... Arizona is def VERY VERY different than other places of the world :p

In case anybody checks out the new Ravenscroft 220 plugin let us know what you think!

Wow! I've been hoping the 220 would be samples. I like the sound of a smaller grand and I love the ravenscroft -- just surprised (and disappointed) that it's not VI labs doing. I'm hoping there's some sampling real talent behind this new Prime Studios to justify that kind of price.

@HZPiano, the general terms do say:

"The right of revocation or, respectively, the withdrawal period for consumers (B2C) is 14 calendar days. It begins on the day the product is received by the customer.
....

The Prime Studio GmbH undertakes, in the event of justified withdrawal / revocation by the customer within 30 days of receipt of the returned product, to refund the customer the purchase price of the product, but less the shipping charges and expenses for processing the order, which were already included in the price. The Prime Studio GmbH will inform the customer of this circumstance and the specific amount withheld, if any, by e-mail."

But I agree that I'd like more explicit language.

The only have some examples in the "light" tab as unlisted Youtube videos. It sounds like a jazz improvisation. The piece is not too exciting, and to me it sounds like that the piano was captured at a close mic sound. I don't hear any hall at all, and so it's not very natural I think. Now I favor pianos that have some kind of room baked in, as they sound natural to a classical player like me.

I wouldn't be interested in this VST. However, to their credit, there's una corda samples, which is great!!!

David

I also thought the demos were unexcting. Yet, I love the original Ravenscroft so much I decided to brave it and hope they'd honor a potential return. Brazen, I know, but I just spent a lot less money on a new keyboard than I was expecting to, so decided what the hey. The fact that they have una corda, half pedaling, sympathetic resonance, and release samples, and repedaling boded well, and I have some pretty rockin external reverbs anyway.

I can't offer particularly good playing samples, but I'll report back my playability findings

After VI Lab's success with the Modern U, I think a lot of us were waiting for another VI Lab's grand. . .

The processing fee can be any amount they wish. I'd like to see precise numbers.
And by justified they may mean the product does not work, and cannot be made to work, on customer computer.

Well, I installed it and played with it for about an hour and my conclusion is unfortunately to wait this one out.

There's a lot to like. I like the sound of the piano and the quality of samples a lot (the piano is a bit bright but sounds quite unique). The resonances sound great. The bass is both more thunderous and less muddy than on the Ravenscroft 275.

But as I feared, the playability is just not up there with the VI Labs option. In particular, there's this weird issue where lowish velocity samples sound totally different when the pedal is down vs when the pedal is up.

Even more strange, this doesn't happen in some of the presets. It also stops being an issue if you turn off the pedal resonance knob (although some degree of pedal resonance remains). By default, the release samples seem to quiet and the attack just kind of fades away. But if you turn up the release samples, it sounds a lot better, but then the pedal releases are too loud.

My test piece is always the Chopin Prelude in E Minor because it's good for determining pedaling behavior, dynamic range, and the degree of gradation at low velocity levels. And so far it just doesn't sound great with it.

Overall, the velocity layers are pretty good, but I think I can also notice the differences more than on the VI Labs.

Alas. I might be able to get it to sound and play well with some more tweaks, and it's probably fine for most production uses. But it's just not the out of box greatness of the VI Labs 275. Hopefully some tweaks and the full version can make it better, but for now I suggest you wait until there are more impressions (or Prime Studios implements a clear return policy)



Yeah, my hopes weren't high on that front anyway, but I'll see.

Just listened through the demos on their website. It's a very bright and in-your-face tone. The wide stereo note panning doesn't sound good to my ears on headphones – almost like two pianos playing left & right. Would be interesting to feel how it plays.

Hello,

Agreeing to most if not all posts above.

I noticed something odd: Yesterday after @lovelovemale's initial post I visited that website and both versions (a 'full' and a 'lite'), yet today it only shows the 'lite'.

While yesterday it was all 'coming soon' (if I remember correctly!) but now the Lite has an order/PayPal button.

@napilopez Did you order and test the Lite version? Thanks a lot for your bravery and impressions!

Cheers and all be careful,

HZ

Hello,

Just to make sure:

This Ravenscroft 220 virtual instrument is *not* a new library by VI Labs Audio!!

This release has nothing to do with VI Labs as far as I can see.

Commercially speaking, it is a rather peculiar move by Ravenscroft Pianos to partner with another company for this new library, instead of making a profitable use of the huge name, installed base and leverage that they have gathered through the cooperation with VI Labs.

Cheers and all be careful,

HZ

For realism and joy in playing "as if really at the piano", Modern U is still my no.1 benchmark. So yes, I am one of those eager to see what their next release is going to be.

Their historical development/timeline as I see it:

-> True Keys Pianos -- not good enough for true solo piano playing. Production tools, sitting in a mix, at most.

-> Ravenscroft 275 -- a huge leap in quality, I can surely see the love that it gets. Yet to me something intangible is missing, making it still miss that essential illusion of sitting at a real piano. So for me, it still doesn't cut it.

-> Modern U -- close to excellent. My benchmark for realism as said above. If it weren't for Modern U, digital piano playing just wouldn't have worked out for me.

SO -- for a next release they have some huge shoes of their own to fill. This may be tricky -- I hope they'll pull it off maintaining/exceeding the level of realism and playability as a true solo piano they managed in Modern U.

Cheers and happy anticipation,

HZ

Just "close" to excellent? You're a hard person to please :-)

I agree that it's odd Ravenscroft didn't partner with VILabs on this. That would be about as close to a sure thing as you get in the sampling world, I imagine.

😋 Oops, guilty as charged!


Yes. From the first not so favorable responses here on this 220, it seems to be a huge missed opportunity for Ravenscroft Pianos and (perhaps) VI Labs. Of course we don't know what is going on in their minds and/or what VI Labs currently is up to.

Cheers and happy playing,

HZ

A fun notion!!

🙂

HZ