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| 30-05-08 / 22:28 : Synthogy Ivory Italian Grand : short review (cjed) |
| Here are my first thoughts about Synthogy Ivory Italian Grand (new standalone version). Choosed among its lowest price and and its lower size compared with Galaxy II (more expensive and uses 10Gb more disk space - 3 pianos included), and despite the later looking better in the demos, Ivory should have been the proof of progress in piano samples libraries since the Roland Complete Piano card (2005). And also a test of the G4, to see if its performances under the PLAY engine are acceptable compared with other modern samples players like Synthogy's one : I was stunned as on my PowerPC G4 MDD single 1,25 Ghz I can play without any problem the fullest piano patch (12 velocity layers, that is 19 Gb and 800Mb loaded in ram, with 2 to 11Mbytes/s stream from my firewire disk without any hit in performance !), and all that with all parameters on (hold pedal samples, release samples, sustain DSP algorithm, included reverb and other effects). That is one sound about the size of the whole MOR library ! It used only from 20 to 30% CPU and I even couldn't go higher than 40% CPU at only 256 samples size buffer (and noticed only one time a sound cut, hardly to trigger again, and never happened at 512 samples buffer size) ! Same results with standalone Synthogy player and AU mode (their player is said to use the code from the AU plugin). Then this is a proof an universal binary (Intel and PowerPC mac) samples player application with great performance is possible. On the downside I must say I was disapointed by the sound of Ivory Italian Grand, very deceiving compared with my Roland Complete Piano, and not that better than Colossus's Fazioli - same piano (and only 2 Gb) - or Steinway B, or Kontakt 2's Steinway D and August Forester - the later offers even better resonance than the Ivory. The problem with the Italian Grand is that notes attack is really short and harsh, the problem probably comes with this piano model only. The sustain and resonance is not that great either. A more complete review to come, as I also wasn't convinced by my Roland Complete Piano card the first time I played it, but was able to program a great patch at the end (using only the 3 first velocity layers and the enhancer). The fact is that this Roland with only 3 velocity layers (and only 64 Mb !) sounds far more present than the Ivory Itlian - and far more better/stronger in bass register - (the notes resonance is also great on my XV5050, without even such algorithm found on the RD-SX pianos) ! The Ivory Italian seems precise (also in low register, wich is rare) even if it lacks of thickness, but I would have expected more from that 20 Gb / 12 velocity layers piano years after the Roland Complete Piano. And finally, despite the great Ivory engine, what about playing with the hard disk sound in the back (up to 11 Mbytes/s) all the time, and what about the disk life at this use rate ? |
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