Best Service''s Galaxy Steinway brings surround sound piano to a desktop near you.

The Galaxy Steinway 5.1 virtual instrument ($299.95) from Best Service is a stereo-compatible 5.1-surround sampled-piano library. Best Service recorded a Steinway grand piano (details not disclosed) in a 3,440-square-foot hall with 26-foot ceilings at Galaxy Studios in Belgium. Five Brüel & Kjær mics were used for close-in recording, and Neumann room mics were used to capture the ambience of the hall. Recording was direct to Pro Tools HD using a Neve Capricorn console.

Galaxy Steinway can run standalone or as a virtual-instrument plug-in. The standalone version supports ASIO 2.0, DirectSound, and MME under Windows; ASIO 2.0 and Sound Manager under Mac OS 9; and CoreAudio under Mac OS X. The plug-in version comes in VST 2.0, DXi, Audio Units, and RTAS formats, making it compatible with all major software hosts. Product authorization uses an online registration tool, but you can run Galaxy Steinway for 30 days without authorization.

Kompakt But Not Compact

Galaxy Steinway has six discrete channels of 48 kHz, 16- or 24-bit samples. There are no loops; each note is sampled for its full natural decay. Ten Velocity layers are used to capture the Velocity-dependent timbral changes of the piano. Every other note of the piano was sampled, so no note is transposed more than a semitone.

As you might imagine, the resulting sample library is gargantuan; the full surround version ships on three DVDs and takes up 6.5 GB of disk space. A smaller, stereo version requiring 1.2 GB is also provided, but even a library of that size won't fit into most users' RAM. Galaxy Steinway uses Native Instruments' Kompakt sample player, which addresses the size problem by defaulting to Direct From Disc (DFD) playback.

Kompakt also has a number of effects that can be used to process Galaxy Steinway, including a resonant filter, EQ, reverb, chorus, and delay. Volume and filter envelopes along with four LFOs are given for modulation.

Kompakt does not directly support surround-sample playback but rather allows multiple stereo-sampled instruments to be driven by the same MIDI input and routed independently to different outputs. That means that adjusting some parameters — for example, reverb, delay, and chorus — has to be done separately for each pair of outputs.

In Action

I reviewed Galaxy Steinway on a Pro Tools HD system running on a dual G4/837 MHz Mac with 768 MB of RAM under Mac OS 10.3.4. In the process, I discovered an undocumented problem with the RTAS version: RTAS plug-ins are assignable to only mono or stereo tracks in Pro Tools; they do not work with multichannel audio tracks. Therefore, assigning Galaxy Steinway to a 5.1 audio track is impossible, which effectively cripples Galaxy Steinway in surround mode under Pro Tools. I was able to instantiate the stereo version of Galaxy Steinway, which sounded fine and ran without incident. But the latency under my configuration made the instrument feel sluggish and pillowy. As the saying goes, “Your mileage may differ,” depending on your host and your computer.

I had a more satisfying experience in standalone mode. Running it through my Digidesign 192 I/O using CoreAudio with Digi CoreAudio driver 6.5.2, I experienced minimal latency. The piano was really able to strut its stuff in surround, and I was finally able to enjoy what the folks at Best Service worked so hard to create.

Hearing Is Believing

I enjoyed the sound of Galaxy Steinway's low-bass strings. They are rich, deep, and huge, and they respond to Velocity smoothly, with an accurate and appropriate brightening in timbre as the key is struck harder. The midrange is well recorded, but I had a nagging sense of stasis as I played in that range; the notes felt somewhat pinched and frozen. The high end of the instrument is more satisfying, providing good detail particularly for the undamped strings near the top of the piano. To hear it for yourself, check out Web Clip 1.

Needless-to-say, Galaxy Steinway is not a perfect replacement for the real instrument; there are too many variables to be captured using a sample-playback paradigm. Nevertheless, Galaxy Steinway compares favorably with other sampled-piano libraries I've heard. It's clean and smooth and would work well in a supporting role within a recording. The Kompakt engine's sample effects are a nice touch if you're interested in processing the piano, but the main feature of the library is its detailed and beautiful piano sound. On that score, Galaxy Steinway delivers.

Overall EM Rating (1 through 5): 3
Best Service/EastWest (distributor)
tel.: (800) 833-8339 or (310) 271-6969
email: info@eastwestsounds.com
Web: www.bestservice.de