Live Grand
designed for realistic practice
and performance preparation
Build a top-class piano yourself for less than €2000 from studio equipment in just a few minutes.
You get a simulation that allows you to practice realistically and prepare for a concert on a grand piano, such as the Steinway D or Yamaha CFX. The sound, playing technique, and interpretations feel almost identical to the acoustic original.
The MAS grand piano was priced at around €10k on completion. However, this tutorial shows you how you can build the same instrument from the most important components at a reasonable price.
One of the biggest problems when building the grand piano was finding the right software for sound generation, although there are countless products on the market.
After testing over 50 products that did not produce the desired result and numerous consultations with the manufacturers, it was clear that the only way forward was to develop our own product.
The reason is that these products were mainly created for music production on the computer and not for live playing on a master keyboard.
We prioritized a realistic sound from the player's perspective, latency-free playing, and precise calibration of touch sensitivity to the software. here
You can upgrade an existing digital piano—as shown in the photo—or save a significant amount of money when buying new by purchasing just a MIDI keyboard controller without built-in sound generation.
The Kawai VPC1, for example, is one such unit, featuring one of the best keybeds on the market. Its retail price is generally under €1,300.
The key factor is that velocity responses are precisely calibrated to the software, just as they are on a digital piano. We have therefore compiled a list of units we have personally measured. This is a key area where Live Grand differs significantly from other software products; studio software typically does not prioritize precise calibration.
For existing digital pianos with built-in sound generation, we offer a measurement file that allows you to perform this calibration yourself for free via our website, should your specific model not appear on our list. here
Since almost all software products on the market are designed for studio production, we offer manufacturers the option of creating a "Live" version of their products. A prerequisite is that the various recordings can be mixed to produce a realistic sound from the player's perspective.
The recordings run on the "Live Grand" engine. Developed for NI Kontakt, this engine serves as the foundation and provides all key features; additional features can be ordered individually in packages. We offer these either for a set fee or perform the remastering at no cost—in exchange for a percentage of the sales revenue.
This is likely to be of particular interest for older products with high-quality recordings, as they often no longer run on modern computers. here