One product that I wanted very badly for quite some time now was the Native Instruments Akoustik Piano. Now if you have not heard of this product, let me give you a quick synopsis of it from the Native Instrument website.

"AKOUSTIK PIANO fuses the sampled sound, expressiveness and playability of three of the most reputable grand pianos – the Steinway D™, Bechstein D 280™ and Boesendorfer 290 Imperial™ – as well as the charismatic Steingraeber 130™ vintage upright piano into one application. AKOUSTIK PIANO covers the entire range of piano sounds and styles, transfusing the sonic characteristics and subtle tonal nuances of all four into your computer – the perfect complement for studios, rehearsal rooms, schools, stages and clubs."

Sounds pretty cool right? I listened to the sound samples from the Native Instruments site and after some time looking on ebay, I found a good deal and bought the software. It is a sample based instrument which means it uses actual audio samples in either 16 or 24 bit which are then feed through an included sampler and wallah .. you have a piano emulation. You need up to 15 GB of hard disk space to do a complete install so if you have a small hard drive you may want to pop another one in your studio computer.

I quickly began installing the product once I received it in the mail but I have to be honest, installing it was a nightmare! I am not sure if it is because I am running vista with Sonar 6 but it took quite a while to figure out what folders to use to make it work. The worst thing is that Native instrument replaced their old software registration tool with a new one and I found that it took quite awhile to get everything registered properly.... (I can only imagine the amount of customer service calls they receive with this registration system), anyhow I got it installed and it works great. I am running a quad core raid system which runs samplers very well, but just a side note, if you inherited your grandmas Pentium 2 you may want to think hard about implementing sampled software instruments.

First impressions of the Akoustik Piano was that the User Interface was very easy to use, it is all laid out in a nice way and their is no need to read the instructions to get going with it. On the left it has the 4 pianos and on the right it has 4 different acoustic spaces, and then it is just a matter of clicking on the piano you like and then clicking on the acoustic space you want concert hall, cathedral, jazz club or recording studio. On the bottom you can adjust the input, piano details (like if you want the lid open or shut ect.) equalizer, reverb, and position (stereo settings). It also includes a few factory presets and of course you can also set your own presets.

The sound is great, their is a nice realism to the timbers of the strings that you don't hear in most keyboard piano sounds. I find that the stereo image of the pianos may be a bit artificial, but when recorded with other instruments I think it will help define it in the mix. The great thing is you can also easily adjust the stereo width with a turn of a dial. Also, the factory settings tend to come off a little tinny but by either closing the lid a little or adjusting the eq you are able to get some great natural sounds out of the pianos. Each of the four pianos have their own distinction which make it impossible to compare against each other which is perfect because they all have their place in certain music.

Overall I think the Akoustic Piano from Native Instruments is a great software based piano especially if you can find a deal!