New: AcustiX Bösendorfer Piano II: fully revised and now in SFZ format

The AcustiX Bösendorfer Piano is the result of the challenge to create a top-quality digital concert piano with breathtakingly rich and realistic sound, whose tonal precision and outstanding dynamic qualities rival those of a real, quality acoustic concert grand piano. The result is an awesome piano with powerful bass, crystal clear mid-range and brilliant treble. This piano uses only 78 MB of carefully selected samples from a famous Bösendorfer Grand Piano.

This piano sounds extremely warm and lyrical in the lower velocities, full of body in the mid velocities and crystal clear in the fortes.
This character makes the AcustiX Bösendorfer Piano perfectly suited for all kinds of music ranging from Jazz to Classical and Pop Music.

The AcustiX Bösendorfer Piano is currently available in SFZ and Halion instrument format. The SFZ High Quality Sample Player from RGCAudio is included in the package (as VST and standalone). So there is no need to buy a seperate sample player.

Convince yourself by listening to some midi pieces played by the AcustiX Bösendorfer Piano.

Please also visit the digital piano shootout page at purgatorycreek.com, the reference site for digital piano comparison. The AcustiX Piano's are reviewed there and you can hear for yourself how a reference midi file sounds compared to other digital piano's on the market.

You can download a free trial version (8MB) of the AcustiX Bösendorfer Piano in SFZ and Halion format. You can buy this instrument online.

New: AcustiX Steinway Piano III: resampled and now in SFZ format

There are a lot of sampled pianos available on the market today, especially in GIGA format. Most of them are very large in size, others sound to bright or metallic and lack the warmth of a real concert piano.

The AcustiX Steinway Piano was created with the smaller equipped music workstation in mind, without compromising on sound quality.
This piano uses only 74 MB of carefully selected samples from 2 famous Steinway Grand Pianos blended together. This makes it the ideal choice for orchestration setups where other instruments besides the piano are required, fi. piano concertos.

The AcustiX Steinway Piano is currently available in SFZ and Halion instrument format. The SFZ High Quality Sample Player from RGCAudio is included in the package (as VST and standalone). So there is no need to buy a seperate sample player.

Convince yourself by listening to some midi pieces played by the AcustiX Steinway Piano.

Please also visit the digital piano shootout page at purgatorycreek.com, the reference site for digital piano comparison. The AcustiX Piano's are reviewed there and you can hear for yourself how a reference midi file sounds compared to other digital piano's on the market.

You can download a free trial version (8MB) of the AcustiX Steinway Piano in SFZ and Halion format. You can buy this instrument online.

AcustiX Orchestra

AcustiX Orchestra is a Hi-Fi Orchestral samples library in SFZ format. AcustiX Orchestra contains only orchestral instruments and percussion. 

A lot of effort was put in the faithful reproduction of the instruments found in a symphonic orchestra. A lot of hours fine-tuning went into the strings and brass sections. Strings and brass are very difficult to reproduce, because of the fact that these sections are able to play in so many totally different ways, fi. legato, glissando, pizzicato, tremolo,  spiccato, sforzando etc.

The solo strings instruments are the most difficult to reproduce, because it is impossible to sample every possible action a string soloist can perform. However the solo strings assembled into AcustiX Orchestra sound very convincing and belong to the best ever heard.

Also the solo brass and reed instruments like trumpet, trombone, tuba,  oboe, English horn, bassoon, clarinet, flute and piccolo have been given very special attention, by using longer samples for each instrument and thus avoiding vibrato's and other expressions to be simulated by LFO's. The same goes for the French horns and brass sections.

All instruments are multisampled and many have several velocity layers. Also the orchestral and chromatic percussion including a separate timpani have been faithfully reproduced after countless hours of passionate work.

Convince yourself by listening to some midi pieces played by the AcustiX Orchestra.

New: AcustiX EtudiX Piano Tutor

EtudiX Piano Tutor is a program to help you visually learn to play the piano or keyboard without learning to read music scores in a traditional way. EtudiX is meant for people who have a good musical ear but who find it difficult to learn the classical music theory of notes, bars and measures.

With EtudiX you can:

• Learn to play midi tracks forward and backward note by note.

• Learn to play midi tracks forward and backward chord by chord.

• Learn to play using a midi keyboard or piano.

• Play and listen to single midi tracks.

• Change the instrument when using a midi keyboard.

The first prerequisite for learning to play a piece using EtudiX, is that you already listened to the piece several times, so that you can almost sing or whistle the piece by heart. In other words, you can sing along with the tempo and the main melody of the piece. This is very important since EtudiX does not show the tempo or accents of a piece, it only shows you visually where to put your fingers on the keyboard.

The second prerequisite is that you have a decent midi file of the piece you want to learn. Millions of midi files can be found on the Internet. Note however that you will have more satisfactory results with EtudiX, if the midi file was not recorded from a live keyboard player, but created by inputting the exact notes from the original score i.e. if the notes are quantized to the exact tempo of the score. If you cannot find a quantized version of your piece, you can always quantize the piece yourself using a midi editing program like Steinberg Cubase or Cakewalk Sonar.

Learn more about using EtudiX here.

You can download AcustiX EtudiX Piano Tutor 1.2.1. here. The unregistered version is fully functional. It only shows a nag screen from time to time. You can register here.