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Salamander Grand Piano for iOS
Possibly the best free piano available on the net has been the Salamander Grand by Alexander Holm who sampled a Yamaha C5.
A very detailed piano with resonance and other effects but it suffered a little from normalisation and attenuation problems and there didn't seem to be a way of running it on iOS. I have normalised and re-attenuated it, converted it to sf2 and also added a few brightness settings as well as two virtual velocity curves and looped the very faint tail ends to reduce the size a little. It still weighs in at 787mb but will run very nicely on iPad Air 2/iPhone 6s using the bs-16i app.
If you are seeking a very responsive piano (it has 15 level velocity samples) then give the SalamanderCompact-sf2mod-JNv2.8 a try.
Its available from my site.
https://sites.google.com/site/soundfonts4u/
Comments
Wow thanks so much and appreciated
Is there an IOS sampler that will disk stream this file instead of loading to RAM?
Lyra in Auria Pro.
In fact, there's a free Salamander available for download in Auria's store: perhaps even the same!
Even large (10 GB or more) will work with Auria, such as the Faziolli grand, as long as they are EXS or SFZ!
Anyone know if it is equal to or better than the iGrand selections?
The original Salamander, Reuben's one or Auria's? I think Auria's Salamander and iGrand's pianos are equally good but sound different.
Nice work
The Fazioli is quite amazing in Lyra but I also can recommend CMP Grand, especially the Bechstein, which I've had the pleasure of playing in the real world
Also from Imperfect Samples?
Salamander piano in Auria Pro is really natural sounding, its big download but it sounds great
No that ones an app, IAA, AB
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cmp-grand-piano/id566874816?mt=8
Beautiful (the Bechstein is an IAP) the app is also universal, Bechstein on your phone - crazy
Agree with this. When working just within AP this always seems to be the one I end up using...
Martygras,
It depends on personal tastes. I have iGrand, Module with Ivory expansion as well as the usual Garage Band, ThumJam and Sample Tank and to me the Salamander makes these sound like toys.
How do I get the Salamander grand? I have Ivory w/module, and for the most part I'm happy with it, where can I hear a demo? Thanks
Nice, thanks Reuben. Also styles make a difference when choosing which piano to use for me.
Sorry for my 1st post, I did manage to download the Salamander grand, can anyone tell me how to set it up in Auria Pro? I set up a midi track, but I can't seem to select an instrument.
Any reason why you can't use Salamander in bs-16i?
Reid: check this out https://sites.google.com/site/soundfonts4u/
OK - I have had requests for a demo. Well if you can put up with my mediocre playing here is a soundcloud link to the Bright Version with Resonance On. PS: Played on a $50 keyboard from Aldi!
Any clue? Is is the same Salamander piano in Lyra (Auria Pro) as this thread mention? 1050MB...
Gotta say, I really appreciate the songwriter-style demo. Most piano demos features these like virtuoso Rachmaninoff examples 'n stuff -- which tell me nothing about how it would sound for the way I (and I would imagine most people today) play.
The Salamader piano included in Auria (Lyra) is exactly the same as the open source one. We obtained permission from the author to include it free with Lyra.
Rim
Rim, I'm not shure that this Salamander (1050MB) linked in the first post is the same as yours...
When I listen in Auria Pro (an pro midifile Franz Liszt) it seems to me that yours sound better (less noise and more ambient) and this threads Salamander piano a little more EQ to treble and more thin...
But, they both sounds good depending on chosen occasion...
But for me probably the Steinway piano from my Logic Pro X (installed in Auria Pro) sounds best with Franz Liszt...
The samples are the same. I demoed the brighter version but the standard version is also included in my set. As for resonance you can add as much or little as you like by putting resonance on a separate track on the same channel.
Having said that it probably has a different character to the Auria Pro version but I don't have this to compare. Also as mentioned in my opening post I did reduce the size a little by leaving out pedal noises and looped the very faint tail ends of the samples in one of the versions. In the end I wanted something that would run as sf2 on an iPad and tailored mainly for bs-16i.
Glad you did.