Worth the time!

Although it took several HOURS to load the library, (and some email exchanges with Technical Support), it was worth the effort!

I've compared tracks I've recorded using Ivory II with some Nashville tracks I have, and there's no noticeable difference, whatsoever, in the sound of the Yamaha C7! Down to the sound of the dampers lifting off the strings! It's really amazing!

Ivory II pays for itself with one day of recording at home, versus a trip to the studio!

I wish I had bought it sooner!

It's finally arrived !

I've owned many virtual pianos over the years, PMI, various running under Kontact, etc., but this one is the real deal. The Steinway is the star for me, but the other two will have their place, depending on the need. The ability to layer various synth pads with the piano and have so much control with how the pad interacts with the piano is fabulous. A definite five stars, PLUS.

No brainer...

This is the best virtual piano in the market, and i´ve played with virtual instruments for a decade now, produced and toured, using sound modules, virtual instruments and of course sometimes recording real pianos in studio. You have an unprecedented level of control of the environment already inside Ivory.

I bought it for a tv ad music, needed no guessing on the piano sound as the music for it was only piano. Went for the ivory. 1st screening, approved!

This saved me a lot of time and gave me inspiration as a bonus.

This is it

Great sounding piano with many options to fit with your keyboard controller . sound quality is fantastic . great layers for real dynamic sounding...If someone is serious about piano vsti .....This is it

Pristine Pianos!!

I usually don't write reviews but this Ivory II Grands is just something different!! As a pianist I realice that the favorite piano sound is very personal and different from one to another. I have used some good stage pianos but there was "something" that I could not find in any of them, that "orchestral" sound that have the Yamaha grand from a local church, this inspiring tone, depth and clarity. The closest thing for me to this was the Nord Piano 88 for wich I was saving. But then I decided to give a try to these virtual pianos and I was totally blown away!! Just using a privia PX-330 as a controller and Ivory II loaded on my macbook pro I was not playing, but living the piano playing experience!! You can easily, very easily fool yourself closing your eyes and believing you are playing the real thing!! The German Grand, a Steinway is my favorite, it has a huge dynamic range (18 layers... that's a lot!!) and you can enjoy the romantics pianissimos and the full deep fortes. It's super for piano solos and classical performances. The Bosendorfer is my second choice, just because I like more the dark tone of the Steinway. The particular this about this piano is that it have such a strong deep and at the same time bright bass like I have never heard before. I haven't tweaked to much yet with the C7 but I have to say, I would have buy this virtual instrument only for the steinway! I'm looking forward to get the uprights and the italian grand from synthogy. If you are looking for an authentic piano sounds in a very versatile collection look no more, Ivory is what you are looking for!!

Just what we needed

I was restoring a solo piano recording tracked during the mid-90s as MIDI, played through a Clavinova, and mastered to CD. The piano sounded unrealistic and flat - in part a limitation of technology back then. Playing through preset-day, plain vanilla virtual pianos, there was an improvement, but we needed more fidelity. Enter Ivory II. After researching on-line, listening to samples, and consulting with our Sweetwater engineer, we knew it was the way to go. As you've probably read elsewhere, the sound quality and tweakability are simply superb. I gave it only 4 stars because 1) not all three pianos are recorded at 18 levels (only the Steinway) , and 2) the user interface is no the greatest. Ivory uses a hierarchical preset scheme where piano settings are nested underneath ambiance settings and these, in turn, under session settings. These don't work reliably and care must be taken when saving a user preset, to ensure it was saved. I would recommend this product and also recommend doing any tweaking via the stand-alone interface.