Jan 23, 2009 2:52 PM

At Winter NAMM 2009 in Anaheim, Calif., Garritan announced the release of its Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand Piano, Basic Edition ($99.99), a sample-based software piano instrument developed in collaboration with piano manufacturer Steinway & Sons and available as a download.

The virtual instrument promises "the warmth and brilliance of the venerable Steinway Model D grand—overwhelmingly the piano of choice for the world’s greatest performers." The Steinway concert grand piano chosen for the sample set was hand-picked by Steinway & Sons.

The Basic version offers a single under-the-lid perspective and is powered by the ARIA Player, Garritan's new 64-bit sampler/synthesis engine, developed in collaboration with Plogue Art et Technologie Inc. The Garritan Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand runs on Mac OS X Version 10.4 and higher and Windows XP/Vista (both 32- and 64-bit). It runs as a stand-alone or a plug-in in VST, Audio Units and RTAS formats, and works with supported notation programs.

Features include pedaling support; sustain and sympathetic resonance using convolution-based DSP modules; adjustable mechanical noises, velocity curves and polyphony; historical tunings with Scala file import; built-in MIDI playback; stand-alone audio recording; ambience reverb; 3-band EQ; Graceful Copy Protection (requiring no dongles or challenge responses); and more. Advanced programming is said to make it a “playable” and responsive library.

The Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand Basic Version is available for download from www.garritan.com.

For information about Steinway & Sons, visit www.steinway.com.

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