The Grand 3 - The Ultimate Virtual Piano Suite
A first-rate collection of virtual pianos makes up the third version of The Grand, consisting foremost of three recorded models based on highly acclaimed grand pianos: the Yamaha C7, the Bösendorfer 290 Imperial and the Steinway D. Alongside two additional virtual pianos with the distinctive character of the vintage Yamaha CP80 Electric Grand and the upright by Nordiska Pianofabriken. As a result, The Grand 3 boasts a variety of piano sounds for different music styles, at a sound quality that is simply phenomenal. Exceeding current standards in virtual piano modeling, The Grand 3 by Steinberg gives musical inspiration a new name.

New Features

Back with a Masterpiece
The Grand 3 boasts completely different piano models to its two predecessors, merely building on the prestige that its name has managed to attain over the past years. This means that versions 2 and 3, both old and new, equally deserve to be held in high esteem for their respective quality piano models. But always keep in mind: for The Grand 3, Steinberg has not only come up with several different piano models but uses intelligent sample architecture and latest recording technology to achieve an even more authentic sonic image and realistic feel.

Three grand masters
The Grand 3 prides itself on three outstanding virtual grand pianos with a rich and realistic sound based on the most widely acclaimed grand pianos. The Yamaha C7 grand piano is the artist’s choice — its sound providing a true concert grand experience, while the expressive tone of the Bösendorfer 290 Imperial provides an extended musical range not found in other pianos. What’s more: the incredible sound, responsiveness and superb playing behavior of the Steinway D have also been added to perfectly complement the collection of virtual pianos featured in The Grand 3.

More pianos, more choices
The classic Yamaha CP80 Electric Grand has a timbral character that makes it genuinely recognizable. The Nordiska Pianofabriken upright piano has been recorded and designed for the not so grandeur of musical genres — its sound is ideal for pop and jazz music.

Superb reverberation
The Grand 3 comes with a convolution reverb based on the same technology used by REVerence, the world’s first VST3-based convolution reverb processor already featured in Cubase 5 which benefits from every single aspect the VST3 standard has to offer. It boasts sumptuously realistic natural space simulation, emulating any acoustic environment — from the smallest live music venue to the most impressive cathedrals. This reverb includes a vast number of impulse responses that put the characteristic sound of some of the world’s most distinctive settings immediately in one’s hands — both in stereo and surround.

An algorithmic reverb is also included to increase the amount of reverbs. With more than 60 reverb presets, this leaves the artist with ample scope to spatially enhance the piano sound!

Flexible equalization
This powerful and versatile equalizer offers full four-band parametric control that works as a sum over all output channels with variable response curves and shelving modes, as well as analog-style peak filters.

All tuned up
The enhanced tuning editor provides customizable scales and a wealth of presets for tempered and concert tuning. Each tuning situation may be stored and retrieved as preset whenever required.

The Grand 3 standalone
The standalone version allows The Grand 3 to be used without a host application — a great choice for performing live and delivering the best sounding, most playable virtual piano software ever experienced!

The Grand 3 standalone version comes with two additional features:

• For the record: The quick-idea scratch pad in The Grand 3 standalone version guarantees that all flashes of inspiration are recorded. Simply hit the button and The Grand 3 records everything played — now there’s no excuse for missing that one tune! With the scratch pad allows the recorded sequence to be played back for rehearsal purposes or exported as a standard MIDI file. It is also possible to load MIDI files and play them back as well.
• Never miss a beat: The metronome integrated into The Grand 3 standalone version is a useful tool, providing a range of preset speed styles (Adagio, Moderato, etc.) and helping musicians keep a constant tempo while practicing the most difficult of piano pieces.
   

Details

The Grand 3 Advantage
The Grand 3 covers everything an artist is looking for in a virtual piano suite. Of course, it features five premium piano models with an overwhelming sound quality, but it also focuses on the intricacies: flexibility through different microphone positions, compatibility through multiple format support, and usability due to the range of included tools.

Most sought-after virtual grand pianos
The unparalleled tone of a Yamaha C7 Grand was recorded in its whole beauty and musical range. Its incredible sound, resulting from the tonal projection and long sustain, and response with super realistic playing behavior delivers the musical equivalent of perfection. This virtual piano is truly in a class of its own and conveys the expressiveness of the player.

The wider register of the Bösendorfer 290 Imperial Grand adds to the piano’s timbre which has intricately been sampled to give the artist the required control when playing the softest pianissimo through crescendos to the reserves of power needed for the loudest fortissimo. This virtual piano model shines in every musical aspect, providing the exuberant sound quality and assertiveness of its corresponding real piano pendant.

The enchanting depth of tone and ultra-responsive touch of the Steinway D grand piano is reflected in the Model D found in The Grand 3. Its warm and vibrantly rich sound and its overall performance simply make playing this virtual piano as enjoyable as possible.

Playing more virtual pianos
The Yamaha CP80 Electric Grand is one of the most favorable classic electric grand pianos around and comes with built-in effects, such as tremolo, phaser, flanger and chorus. Here Steinberg has acquired the samples directly from the source: the content experts at Yamaha.

The upright by Nordiska Pianofabriken definitely has personality of the right sort! And its characteristic tone has been captured in the virtual upright piano model, designed to get the job done when looking for that little extra edge to any song. It might be rock, blues, jazz, gospel or any other style that simply needs some attitude — when the tone requires a less “grand” sound this model is definitely the artist’s first choice.

Intelligent sample architecture
Unlike digital pianos and samplers, The Grand 3 features an intelligent sample architecture that meticulously responds to the individual playing behavior of each user, delivering natural full-length sustain and decay for truly unique tonal character not powered merely by looped samples. This amazing technology also adds the distinctive pedal and hammer noises, key thumps as well as fully note-on, note-off and resonance samples to thoroughly recreate the sound of acoustic pianos as they are originally intended to be heard.

Latest recording technology
Using latest recording technology, the three concert grand piano models and the vintage upright available in The Grand 3 have been sampled and edited with painstaking effort by a top sound-engineering team. The only exception being the sound of the Yamaha CP80 Electric Grand, the samples of which were recorded by Yamaha in Japan.

Equipped with high-grade Neumann microphones, customized high-end preamps and converters specially tuned for pianos in a large acoustic space specifically designed and built for this particular use, engineers generated the source material to highest standards.

No additional electronic equipment was used during the recordings to capture the natural sound of the acoustic pianos. Plus, two different microphone positions (close and player) available in The Grand 3 result from a 12-microphone setup used for the recordings, giving the musician the ultimate freedom to dictate the piano’s immanent sound.

Authentic sound quality
The Grand 3 delivers ultra dynamic response and hammer action with up to 20 different velocity samples for each key, faithfully capturing the full extent of every note’s envelope. Sustain and sostenuto pedal support, subtle mechanical noises and true resonance make The Grand 3 the most ambitious and innovative piece of software engineering in our day, resulting in the grandest collection of virtual pianos.

Eco-efficiency
The ECO Mode already featured in The Grand 2 is now also available for all pianos in The Grand 3. Using ECO Mode, The Grand 3 reduces RAM consumption and enhances CPU performance by freeing up power for other processing tasks, such as disk streaming.

RAMSave
Already wowed in The Grand 2, the RAMSave technology makes highly efficient use of the host computer’s memory. When active, RAMSave discards superfluous samples from the main memory in order to provide space for other tasks, automatically scanning the MIDI notes allocated to The Grand and dumping all unassigned samples from the RAM.

Support of all major formats
The Grand 3 supports all major formats, such as VST and AU. And by supporting ReWire, The Grand 3 runs with any audio workstation, while the standalone version can even be used without any host application at all.

Minimum System Requirements
The minimum system requirements state the minimal specification your computer must have to be able to use the software. A more powerful system may be required for certain tasks or larger projects.

* The included The Grand 3 64-bit version natively supports 64-bit versions of Vista and Windows 7. For more information on compatibility with Windows 32-bit and 64-bit versions, read this Knowledge Base article.

** The USB-eLicenser/Steinberg Key (copy protection device) required to run this product is not included. Customers who do not own a USB-eLicenser/Steinberg Key must purchase one separately. The same USB-eLicenser/Steinberg Key copy protection device is then used for all Steinberg products that require it.

Manual

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