Review: Cinematic Grand from Antisample

Hey what’s good fam!

Today I wanted to share a library from a smaller company I was introduced to about a year or so ago.

The company is Antisample and I’m taking a look at their Cinematic Grand piano library for Kontakt.

Let’s check it out!

So what is Cinematic Grand?

It’s a Kontakt library based off of a Yamaha concert grand piano.

The idea is to provide a good sounding piano that’s deeply sampled yet fast loading and instantly controllable.

Many times when you’re dealing with piano libraries, they take up huge amounts of ram and hard drive space, and if they don’t…then it doesn’t sound very good.

Well this library not only has a small memory footprint, it also has a good sound.

As I mentioned, you can also quickly tweak and customize the sound to your liking directly in custom interface.

Quick Specs

• content: 350mb (compressed from 1gb+)
• format: Kontakt 4, Kontakt 5
• price: $49
• product page: http://antisample.com/cinematic-grand/

How does it sound?

It has a really nice, usable sound to my ears. With 5 velocity layers it’s got enough dynamic range for many users, especially if you’re not a piano virtuoso and you’re just looking for a nice usable instrument.

I also dig the fact that you can quickly tweak the sound, from adjusting reverb and delay to eq and even the level of the release samples.

There’s also the option to quickly change the velocity curve directly in the interface so you can fit the instrument to how you play, which of course, also has an impact on the sound.

I would have liked to see the option to edit the delay settings a little bit, maybe even the reverb, but then again, the idea of this library is to keep things simple and usable…so I get it.

Overall the sound is nice, considering it doesn’t take up much space this is definitely a feature I enjoy about the library overall.

At the end of the day it sounds good, and that’s what is most important really.

So what’s the bottom line?

While it’s not the most highly detailed sample based piano available, the quality of sampling and programming make it a very usable alternative to those that don’t need everything found in a larger library.

I give Cinematic Grand 4 out of 5 subs, it’s easy to use, doesn’t take up much space, and has a good sound quality. 

Another thing I dig about this library is the price, you won’t have to break your budget to gain access to the library, at $49 bucks I’d say it’s well worth it considering the sound and tweakability of the library.

You know I’m all about workflow, so anything that can load very fast and still sound good is also a plus in my book, waiting for sounds to load really kills the moment for me and it’s one reason I turn to hardware devices often…I’m impatient, I don’t like waiting.

Go on over and check it out at their website http://antisample.com/cinematic-grand/

I’m interested to see what else they decide to do in the future as well.

Leave a comment below and let me know what you think