Frist impressions of the GRAND 2

Raymond Robijns · Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 12:11 am Post subject: Frist impressions of the GRAND 2

I spent the whole afternoon testing my upgrade from The Grand to the Grand 2.
With the package came a demo of Cubase SX 3 (also with activation key) so I could test it with a really professional program, instead of my usual small VST program Cubasis 5.0.
Read this carefully, I don't use real performance. All music I make is coming from a notation program which exports midi. It is only piano, no other instruments are used.

Is it an improvement of The Grand version 1.x? Yes. Is it worth buying the whole package (if you don't have The Grand 1.x), No.
The package comes on de DVD and contains two different grand pianos. Model 1 is a better version of the original Grand and Model 2 is another obscure instrument.
System requirements (according to Steinberg) at least 512 Mb. I have 1 Gb and still that is not enough.

The whole thing is a memory swallower, once you want some more voices than 16 and a better diskstreaming.
Cubase SX 3 as well as Cubasis (which is significant smaller) gave me headaches. Crackles all over the place and that means: not enough CPU power (sometimes 100%) and not enough memory. So I have to buy more memory (a bit of a problem with an ASUS P4B533 board!).

The sound? They corrected some flaws of the original Grand and made it model 1. Better sounding, yes.
Model 2 is different. You have to like this sound. I don't, at least not yet.
The Reverb module in it, represented by a button named: Room, don't use it. Any cheap reverb on the exported wave file, sounds better (IMHO).

Tomorrow I will test it a bit more carefully and give you the results.
In another thread people are speaking about the PMI Bosendorfer/Steinway: yes, I was very impressed. Why didn't I buy that one?
Because I had the Grand in the first place and wanted it to give it a second change.

Raymond
_________________
P IV - 2,26 Ghz - 1.5GB DDR
JV1010, 1x HD 60Gb, 1x HD 200Gb,
Audiophile 2496
Cubasis VST 5.0
The Grand2
Mozart Notation software
Midi Maestro

Fogwall · New Member Joined: 09 Apr 2005 Posts: 12

Thanks for this probably very first review on the internet of The Grand 2. Do you have any audio samples?

What astonishes me is that there are no audio samples on Steinberg's site or anywhere else, the only thing they have is a short Quicktime movie. How come they don't want people to hear and judge themselves the performance of this long awaited update before deciding to buy it?

They have these fancy screenshots which look good, but, for example, the room ambience is apparently not much to have in comparison to most reverb plugins available. In what way is the piano sound improved in the first piano preset? And is the performance of this update worse than the first version? (this update now have a RAM saver or what they call it, so should help in theory)
_________________
www.fogwall.com

Raymond Robijns · Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 12:33 pm Post subject:

lucky909091 · Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 3:54 pm Post subject:

Raymond, thank you. That is very interesting for me.

I do not like the sound of the grand 1 in the mid-EQ. sound like a "nose".

the sound of "steinway galaxy" sounds better for me.

now I wanted to buy the grand update, but after your test I think there is no improvement at all.

Raymond Robijns · Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 4:40 pm Post subject:

funkster1 · Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:09 pm Post subject:

Raymond Robijns · Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:28 pm Post subject:

Raymond Robijns · Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:44 pm Post subject:

Roca · Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:12 pm Post subject:

It will give you some more info. I forgot to mention the processor, obvious it is a P4 - 2,26.

I will try to implement you ideas (Halion) and found out that the diskstreaming in fact is some Ram-preload.

Thanks,

Raymond[/quote]
For The Grand 2
* Required: Pentium / Athlon 1 GHz
* 512 MB RAM
* 3 GB free HD space for Content
* Windows XP Home or XP Professional
* Windows MME compatible audio hardware
* For using as plug-in, a VST2 or DXi2 compatible Host is required
* Steinberg Key and USB port required
* DVD-Rom required for Installation

* Recommended: Pentium / Athlon 1.4 GHz or faster
* 1 GB RAM
* ASIO compatible audio hardware recommended

I think you have widosws 2000 right? well it says that you Need XP. That maybe why is not working for you.

I don't have none of Tthe Grand but I am interesting on getting it or Ivory if The Grand 2 is so bad. But I don't know yet.
_________________
2 Opteron 2212 2.0G DUAL CORE Socket F PC
4 G of DDR
3 SATA HD 7200 rpm
Win XP SP2
Cubase 5, Rosetta 800 with X-FireWire Card, UAD-1, UAD-2 Quad,Focusrite ISA 430, Mackie Controller, KRK V8 version2, U87......

Kitchen Sink · Grand Senior Member Joined: 09 Jan 2005 Posts: 4340

It's funny how quickly a product can become "bad". One people has some problems with some configuration, and soon everybody knows the product is bad... Shocked

MarkEdmonds · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2005 Posts: 776

I think that TG2 is based on the Halion Player engine so if you are having problems getting the desired performance, it might be worth spending time in the Halion forum getting tips there. I'm not an expert on samplers by any means and muddle along with Halion 2 nicely in light use but it wouldn't surprise me if there are some good tweaks out there to improve things. Give it a shot...

Mark

funkster1 · Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:55 pm Post subject:

Raymond Robijns · Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 9:38 pm Post subject:

Kitchen Sink · Grand Senior Member Joined: 09 Jan 2005 Posts: 4340

I didn't mean that your "report" of first experiences had anything wrong. It's the interpretation, how people understood it. You mentioned some (seemingly minor) problems, but when other people refer to that, it's suddenly a "bad" product??? But that's how the internet works, unfortunately. If you want to give a good review of something, you have to give the impression that it's the best thing since sliced bread, it changed your whole life, it will cure AIDS and remove the world hunger, or otherweise it's a bad product.

Many people come to web forums to see what other people think about some product X. Then they see all these posts about problems... (because people without problems are just happy using the product and never post anything) they get frightened and don't buy the product. But if they hadn't visited the forum, they might have just bought the product and been happy for the rest of their lives. Funny, but that's how it goes. Some companies don't want to have a public forum because of this phenomenon.

Fogwall · New Member Joined: 09 Apr 2005 Posts: 12

lucky909091 · Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 12:10 pm Post subject:

it sounds good to me that Raymond says, the Mid-Range-sound of the Grand is improved.

Raymond Robijns · Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 7:34 pm Post subject:

Paulo Ribeiro · Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 12:25 am Post subject:

Hi Raymond ,

I'm not a The Grand I or II user so i won't even discuss your observations about them . It sure must be exactlly has you state .

Still , i'm a Halion3 and Cubase SX3 user and they work flawlessly so ... i was wondering why would you have those problems you mentioned , namelly with SX .

I did a bit of research and confirmed that both Cubase SX3 and The Grand II need as system requirements Windows XP ... and you have Windows 2000 ... could this be the case ?

Just a thought . Hope this helps .

Best Regards

Paulo ribeiro

Raymond Robijns · Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 12:17 pm Post subject:

Paulo Ribeiro · Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 12:46 pm Post subject:

Hi there again Raymond ,

I cannot explain to you why Win XP is better for audio than Win 2000 but that is a fact stated by Microsoft and by users .

I also had Win 2000 before and i noticed stabillity improvement when i changed to XP . Also the upgrade to SX pushed me to that decision .

You may find some tweak hints here : www.musicxp.net . But this is for XP . Don't know where to for 2000 .

I suppose that unfortunatelly for you , me , and everybody else we are dependent of OS development so we have to play the game ... and pay for it , of course . But on the other hand that is the price and benefit of R&D .

Best of luck for you my friend .

Regards

Paulo Ribeiro