Virtual Grand Piano.

Virtual Grand Piano, by Art Vista Productions. www.artvista.net.

Virtual Grand Piano puts the sounds of a Steinway concert grand piano into the hands of someone with a computer and MIDI keyboard.

Typically, playback of MIDI files on most computers results in a flake synthetic sound. However, Virtual Grand Piano takes MIDI data and has it trigger sampled sounds recorded from an actual concert grand piano. If a pianist wants to make a professional-style audio MIDI file recording, Virtual Grand Piano can be used as a plug-in, in conjunction with an audio production program, to burn it to an audio CD without the need for microphones.

One may be skeptical with the notion that a software program can emulate the experience of playing on a concert grand piano, but the makers of Virtual Grand Piano have gone to great lengths to allow this. There are seven basic presets that change subtleties in timbre according to the style of music that you want to play, whether classic piano, jazz piano or rock piano.

Even though the programmers were so meticulous in getting the best possible sound, there were many technical drawbacks. The press release for the program boasts that it can be used on "any computer," but this is hardly the case. The minimum and recommended computer system requirements are set significantly higher than what the average music teacher would have on ...