Jetro da Silva: Assistant Chair of the Piano Department at Berklee College of Music in Boston and Pianist/keyboardist for Whitney Houston.

"The first time I played with the Bosendorfer sample in Logic I was very impressed with the sound quality of this piano sample. It sounds rich. The sustain is great. I am using it in my Powerbook and in order to take full use of the piano I did maximize the memory in my Powerbook. I did hear the difference right away. I am glad I now have an Imperial Bosendorfer inside of my Powerbook! Michiel did a great job recording these piano samples. As a pianist who is used to play in the best pianos I am confident that this is one of the best choices out there in piano sound".

Mark Wherry, SOUND ON SOUND UK

"As a musical instrument the Grandioso 290 really is a complete joy to play: the programming is first-rate, and the attention to detail is almost unparalleled... The response between the layers is totally transparent and natural .... the Bösendorfer 290's sonic qualities should make it appeal to a wide range of musicians for western art, jazz and some rock styles..."

James Ryan, Rampage Music New York, http://www.rampagemusic.net

"Really wonderful sounding instruments"

"The smoothest transitions ever heard on a sampled piano."

"The best piano out there."

Jim van Buskirk (TASCAM, Research & Development, Founding Member)

"I LOVE the Steinway D, which sounds the best for any musical context to my ear!!! This is a beautiful instrument that has more character than any other GIG Steinway, and TASCAM is sure to be proud to distribute it for you ."

Bruce A. Richardson (Senior Editor ProRec)

"I am listening to a piece I recorded with a real acoustic violin player last night, and I made a track with your new piano. It blends perfectly. I would never listen to this and guess it was a sampled piano. If someone told me it was sampled, I would demand to know who made it and where I could get it!"

Doug Rogers (East West) on PMI Bösendorfer 290

"It's fantastic by the way, Michiel did a brilliant job of capturing the piano."

Quotes from Northern Sounds Forum members:

Posted by pianojoe on 10-26-2002

"I've cancelled my C7 rental for next month's recording of my new CD! I'm shocked that I feel comfortable using the PMI Bos for my recording. I never expected to ever seriously consider this. I'm saving big $$$, & don't have to worry about tunings & miking. The 16 layer dry update sound is the one I plan to use. A little TC reverb (M2000 hall) & TC finalizing(bass eq bump, lo-band compression, & stereo enhance) takes the sound to yet a new height! Trash the NFX verb & EQ... I've played sample recordings of this for some serious piano pros & they laughed at me when I told them it was a sample. One just went & got Giga for himself! Keep tinkling the plastics!"

I'd say it is excellent. The soft samples may be a bit dark, depending on your tastes, however adding a little boost to the high end generally corrects for this problem. I've also tried the Post Bosendorfer, which is perhaps easier to use than the Steinway, although I find the Steinway sound has more dynamic range and prefer it for most things. The softs are gentle and dark and the louds are stormy and bright.

The added brightness on the Post Bosendorfer does give it more presence..it feels more like a live instrument than the Steinway, and the bass end is monstrous with huge sustaining tones. It is a tremendous piano and a wonderfully recorded and programmed sample, but perhaps not as intimate as the Steinway can be.

My guess is that if you want to do rock or jazz you would prefer the Bosendorfer, while for classical it boils more down to a matter of taste and the particular style.

The Brahms Piano Concerto #2 on my site was made with the post grandioso steinway:

http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/380/duncan_brinsmead.html

"Try the PMI Grandioso Steinway D. It is the best I have played."

"In my opinion, I strongly believe the PMI Grandioso piano series to be highest level in their category, no doubts."

"I may as well chime in for the PMI Bos. The best sample out there, right now, IMO."

"I use the PMI Bosen, I love it. Dry or wet, I can't stop playing it. The wet programs are so delicate, I love being in that room. Feels woody. Damn I can't stop pythonize. PMI Bosie is the only wet and breathy intimate piano existing. For close mic'ed prgs, it is the same quality as PMI Steinway D plus a huge width and a fatter sound."

Posted by JohnGrant on 11-05-2002

"But the BOS wet sample--unlike ALL other piano samples--conquers the problematic issue of accuracy in the midrange (the notes between G above middle C to about an octave below). On the PMI BOS they're perfect. That's a major achievement."

http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/42/john_lewis_grant.html

"THE ACTUAL SOUND: Beautiful!... and this from a Yamaha guy! The pianissimo passages had warmth & delicacy, the piano really opened up and the brightness grew in relative proportion to the velocity. Open & full sounding... lots of air which I love & yearn for. perfect choice of mic placement as there is still a nice amount of stereo spread from the low keys to the high. This piano was not close mic'd, from the picture in the manual (yes it comes with one!) it appears to be mic'd about 3 feet above the soundboard. Lovely & natural room/hall sound! I did find myself reaching for the bass and adding a touch of 80-90hz, about 3 db really filled out the bottom end. I have no problem with having to do that! This was the 8 layer Dry patch with long release. After some time, I began to notice a bit more clarity from the patch w/o the release.. just my own taste. The wet patches didn't do much for me personally, though when my father plays them ( an accomplished classical pianist) I'll report his findings. They are obviously suited for this style. The combo dry/wet patch interests me, but my yamaha P120 master hasn't a modwheel to control the wet/dry balance? Maybe Michiel will instruct me how to adjust this manually! my one "gripe" if I had to pick one, would be length of the samples. When you play a low-mid key & allow it sustain fully, I feel like I can hear the fader going to work (very smoothly) to shorten the sample. If this not so, then the piano is lacking just a touch in sustain, for mt taste & stlye. I understand that when you have release samples & sustain layers that this preserves polyphony. It is also not obvious when playing. My Utopian Gigapiano would just sustain a little longer, that's all... Just a couple of instances had me wondering of slight phase cancellation, and I mean slight. When I move the cpu back to the studio in a controlled environment & listen thru my beloved Tannoys, this may very well disappear.

PLAYABILITY: Impressive! initially, some of the sample layers were obvious (remember I'm a picky bastard) but as I played more, I began to refine my touch & the sample layers smoothed out considerably. I did not have to change the "touch" controls on the master, as the default medium setting was just right. A few notes still "jump out & scare me" sometimes, but I obviously must learn how to set my own sample layer points... Michiel? The tuning of this piano is impeccable! The consistency in timbre and volume of the notes throughout each layer was very good, for the most part. The development of my editing skills will most likely solve the bulk of my concerns. For kicks, I opened up the Gigapiano (big mistake), played it for about 10 seconds, whincedunder reloaded the Bos as fast as I could.

CONCLUSION: My faith has been restored in Giga! michiel has done a fantastic job allowing us to play the Bos for a couple hundred bucks! I'm sure with a few more days playing ubder my belt, I'll grow happier & happier with the piano. Thanks Michiel!

Update: After moving the cpu to back to the studio, the suspect phasing I mentioned is not apparent in any way! I am in love with this piano sound. It's easy to adapt to & incredibly expressive. One thing... why are there not 16 layer versions of the "dry" piano, as there are for the "wet" piano?"

Posted by Lougheed on 10-22-2002

"One of the amazing things about the PMI Bosendorfer is that is really does fill many needs. First, it is two recordings of the same piano, from two different mic positions. (This is a first in the industry, for a Giga piano, I believe).

I have played the WET version a lot, and love playing it, but there really is too much "room" for my type of music (New Age), probably due in part to the fact that I use a lot of sustain pedal. However, I can hear (in examples of John's work, for example) that for pure classical piano, the WET version is superb.

I next worked with the DRY version, but even with reverb, it didn't produce the sound that I wanted. It lacked the richness and sustain of the WET version, although there certainly was no problem with too much "room".

I also worked with the Low Pass filtered versions.

I found that I liked the LP versions, but that the WET wasn't filtered quite enough, and the DRY was filtered just a bit too much.

I was about to e-mail Michiel to ask advice about adjusting thefilteringg when "pianojoe's" post appeared.

For some reason, this inspired me to check out the mix or layered versions, which combine both the WET and the DRY at the same time. After a bit of experimenting with the mod wheel (which controls the cross fade between the two samples) I felt that about the 50% location is "right" for my style of playing, and style of music.

Also, the combination now produces the correct LP filtering (again, for my ears, my style), a happy fix, without any further editing or dinking around required!

I really am thrilled with this piano. The fact that a dude like John Grant can be equally thrilled, whilst producing quite different music / sound is a compelling example of the versatility of the PMI Bosendorfer.

I encourage anyone who owns this piano to experiment with the various instruments provided, as well as experimenting with your keyboard's velocity settings, to come up with the optimal sound for your requirements.

I must also comment that I discovered a couple of notes in the wet sample (at one velocity pont) that were bugging me. I emailed Michiel. He promptly emailed a reply, promising a fix. The fix was posted the following day, and it 100% addresses my concerns. Now that's superb customer service! Much appreciated Michiel.

I have two albums planned at the moment. One of them will be a solo piano album, which I feel I can now produce, using the PMI Bosendorfer. I've never felt that confidence in a sampled piano before, even though folks have raved about how good my EW Steinway B sounds.

To get that awesome sound from the Steinwayrequiredd a ----load of editing. NOT FUN!

To get an awesome sound from the PMI requires NO editing, beyond a cosmetic velocity edit here and there.

I'm going to be much more productive, making music, with this piano."

Posted by Ben Ripley with regard to Grandioso FX, 8-1-2003

Anyways, I love what you're doing. Don't settle with limitations. Keep up the good work."

Posted by Chris Lewis on both the Steinway D andBosendorferr 290 jazz demo’s, 20-12-2002

"Lovely. Just lovely."

Posted by Noenoeil regarding Tango demo’s, 13-12-2002

"Thanks Michiel. One minute of music and I forgot that I was listening to a sampled piano demo, it's full of life, bravo."

Posted by sjduck on 10-07-2002

"I received the new Bosy in the post today. Thanks Michiel - this was speedy and efficient.

I don't have a lot of time to be detailed right now but here are a few personal observations:

1) The piano and the sampling are incredibly even. This is probably the most even instrument across the keyboard that I've played.

2) The tuning is spot on.

3) The samples are not noisy in any way. (Although I think I heard an artifact on a low Eb earlier. Will check on that - although it was minor.)

4) The velocity scaling is excellent.

5) The ambience is a significant part of the sound. The Wet samples really are wet beyond belief!. Playing the wet samples makes me feel like I'm playing with 50 ft arms from the balcony. I doubt that I'll be able to use them in my jazz context, unless we're doing a really ambient ballad. Even the release samples are heavy. As a result, myfavoritee patch is the Dry 8 Layer No Release Sample, which really is excellent.

6) From the MP3 demos at Michiel's site, the Bosy doesn't appear to have quite as many sympathetic resonances as his Steinway. However, the timbre is sublimely smooth and evolving.

7) I'm a happy customer. This has been a real eye opener and I'm looking forward to playing the sample again and again.

Thank you Michiel for putting all the hard work in. As far as I can tell, every piano you record gets better and better.

I think you've managed to capture the classical audience perspective with the wet and the piano player's perspective with the dry. Having the best of both worlds side by side has shown me that for jazz, I prefer a dryer sample. Well done and 'dank u!'"

Posted by ChrisAxia (Member # 1773) on 10-07-2002, 05:47 PM:

"BTW, I again fooled 2 out of 3 professional musicians/producers with a mock up from a movie I wrote a few cues for. One was the real thing, a Fazioli in Sony's London studio, the other the Post Steinway D. Makes me laughevery timee!"

Posted by sjduck (Member # 2025) on 10-08-2002, 08:16 PM:

"By the way, as an additional comment, this is the first piano sample I have played with 8 not 4 velocity layers. What a world of difference! 8 layers has to be the standard from now on IMHO."

Posted by noenoeil (Member # 1817) on 10-03-2002, 09:24 PM:

"I recorded a jazz trio in august using the Grandioso Steinway. The piano player was amazed. Unfortunately I can't post one of the tunes right now but I can say the PMI Stein really do the job fine... No one could ever guess it's sampled. Idefinitelyy love it."

Posted by JohnGrant on 10-04-2002

The POST BOSIE meets my initialexpectationss, listening only through my Grado phones. It's head and shoulders above everything else, including in my view Post's own Grandioso Steinway--and I'm a Steinway man, so this is not easy for me to admit.

I CAN say one thing fairly definitive. Compare my Steinway B sound, or even Post's Grandioso Steinway (C?) to this BOS. What the BOS 16 layer WET sample has that the others don't is PRESENCE or what some call "AIR." That's critical to me. It's what I hear in all modern solo piano recordings that no piano sample hitherto has duplicated. Now we have it. And we get a beautiful tone as well.

Can't get enough of it! This sample is a masterpiece .... the BEST sampled piano I've ever used, period. It's absolutely fabulous, perfect. I love it.

Bye bye East-West Steinway B. Finally, something that's indisputably superior in every way.

Posted by Alberto R.S. on 09-22-2002

"I fully agree with John when stating that PMI Bosendorfer grandioso is the best sampled piano ever released in the history until now."

Posted by Sovereign on 09-23-2002

"Wow, this one sounds amazing. Sure kicks my digital piano in the nuts."

Posted by Marty on 09-23-2002

"The piano has to be the BEST thing, the most realistically sounding sampled piano I've ever heard!"

Posted by Z6 on 09-24-2002

"Jeez John, that Chopin is truly magnificent. When I listen to it, I can almost see a half-crazed pianist dripping in sweat in a deep, but animated, trance. The dynamic variation is quite astonishing; a credit to Michiel's skills; and yours.

Wonderful work Michiel. Truly astonishing."

Posted by JohnGrant on 09-26-2002

"Well, the stunning beauty of the sample obviously shines through. I'm enthralled by this sampled piano. It's unbelievable. Just fabulous."

Posted by MartinL on 09-28-2002

"This piano is amazingly beautiful! That's it for me: I'm ordering it. Good job Michiel!"

Posted by Maarten Spruijt on 08-28-2002

"Sounds amazing Michiel! Great quality piano library!"

Posted by B.Mitchell on 08-28-2002

"The more I use this piano the more I like it. Very clean and powerful. Probably the best I've ever used."