Hi - I was listening to demos of Cinesamples Piano in Blue, and decided to check out the price, hey $99, not bad at all!
Then I see it needs “Kontakt 4.2.4 or higher - full version, not the free Player”. NI is now selling Kontakt 5, and that costs $399, of course it’s the player and 43GB of samples.
I guess that means if I were to buy Piano in Blue it would cost me about $500?
Yikes! Or are there other options where I don’t have to pay for all those other samples I don’t want?
I must first admit that I don’t know anything about the Blue Piano…
But… It seems funny to me that they appear to be marketing their product in a way that almost prevents selling it. By the time someone buys Kontakt and Blue, they could have Komplete, which comes with several high quality (IMO) pianos!
One thing you could check on, however, is that it is possible the Blue will play in the Kontakt Player but you just have limited EDITING possibilities. It is called “demo mode” on some other libraries.
Bottom line is that, if it were me, I would speak with my wallet and probably be looking at other options.
I have Piano in Blue. I’ve never used it in any recording, but as a pianist I bought it for its “historical” value. This is the piano that used to be at Columbia Records in NYC. Miles Davis used it in the mythical “Kind of Blue” (hence the library name…), Glenn Gould used it to record his landmark 1956 Goldberg Variations and many other famous pianists (classical and jazz) used it in famous recordings in the 1950’s and 60’s. It’s eery how easy it is to re-create the same exact legendary Glenn Gould sound just by playing the Goldbergs with this library. Or play the first bars of “Blue in Green” and sound exactly like a young Bill Evans…
Practical use? Not really, but lots and lots of sentimental value… And it’s only a hundred bucks.
Somewhat related: Komplete 10 has a number of pianos that weren’t in Komplete 9. The upgrade is only $199 plus you get a bunch of other stuff that wasn’t in 9. I’m half tempted to buy it.
