Q&A with the creators of Noire, Claire, and the new Claire: Avant piano

Hey MLARS,
thanks for your feedback.

Regarding the Midi CC support:
We assume you are referring to the right click -> ‘Learn Midi’ functionality when you ask about Midi support. At this time, this workflow is no longer supported for technical reasons, as CLAIRE and CLAIRE: Avant have been developed on the basis of a completely new and improved UI framework called Komplete UI.
Alternatively you could try this workflow:

1. switch to ‘Classic View’ (F10)
2. navigate to ‘Automation’ -> ‘Midi Automation’
3. click on ‘Learn’
4. move midi controller
5. move instrument knob

Regarding updates for the existing pianos:
There are no plans for updating the UI and features for NOIRE, UNA CORDA and the Definitive Pianos, yet. Updating the engine and graphics is quite a huge effort, but we'll keep that in mind and look into it.

Regarding the 'Model D':
Our 'Model D' is called THE GRANDEUR and was released as part of the Definitive Piano Collection. Obviously, your comment regarding an updated UI and engine also applies here, but soundwise we know of many producers who love THE GRANDEUR and use this as their go-to grand piano.

Hey Serhii,

here is our take on this:

PIANO COLORS vs. CLAIRE: Avant: As you stated, the most obvious difference are the instruments and the recording studios for each project.
For PIANO COLORS, we did a lot of creative articulations and collaborated with musicians specialized in prepared piano techniques (namely Philip Zoubek, Reinhold Friedl & Stefan Schultze). Also, the instrument is based on different grand pianos as we needed to have a specific instrument, where we could mess with the strings in more detail and maybe even break things;) Doing the "typical" John Cage preparations (like screws between the strings) is usually not possible with most of the instruments we find in studios or we could rent.Then there is the layer system (noises and two layers for the articulations) and the specialized arpeggiator, which interacts with a single layer or all of those. This allowed us to create a vast variety of snapshots and even if you can't really play the piano well, you can easily come up with new ideas for your music. However, while the option of playing a single layer like a "normal" piano with extended techniques is possible in PIANO COLORS, this is not the main focus and might therefore seem a bit "hidden" within everything else.
CLAIRE: Avant was recorded with the beautiful Fazioli F308 at Galaxy Studios in Belgium, just like the "regular" pure version of CLAIRE. We recorded nine articulations, but we were limited in terms of preparations with this instrument. However, sounds like the "Damped Una Corda" (dampening the 2nd and 3rd strings with felt) are unique to CLAIRE: Avant and can't be found in any other library (as far as I know). CLAIRE: Avant focusses more on the traditional way of playing a grand piano (with extended techniques), while still sporting the Particles Engine and the new "Patterns"-tool in Kontakt 8, which help as performance tools. Opposed to PIANO COLORS, CLAIRE: Avant has the option to add the Galaxy Hall's room mics in mid or far position, thereby offering more control over the recording perspective and sound itself.

Does this clarify the differences with enough detail or do you have additonal questions about the two instruments?

Improve MIDI CC on Claire and Avant
I build composer templates in Cubase where I always assign certain MIDI CC commands on Kontakt instruments to control tone, envelopes, filters, mix channels etc. I know how to use the very aged MIDI backend GUI on Kontakt to achieve this.

I am not talking about "Learn Midi" on front end, I have tried the backend view Midi CC assign, many parameters cannot be assigned MIDI CC because many have not been mapped properly by the GI developer (I still think you can fix this). You can control more parameters in Noire than on the Claire at the moment. Someone just did not take time to map this properly. Fix this in an update, fully map Claire and Avant for Midi CC, please.

Midi CC on Kontakt instruments is a basic control layer NI and partners cannot fully abandon. I use NKS when I can, but I also use MIDI CC with fader controls and other third party devices. It is important the instruments are mapped for MIDI CC.

Life cycle management

I suggest NI and partner developers like Galaxy Instruments try to plan long term how to keep the instruments up to date in your roadmaps and how to make the process of updating less painful. Noire has not aged gracefully and is due for a bigger mid cycle refresh - hope the customer feedback here will make you revisit this.

Would be amazing to see Una Corda in a sequel spinoff - and the old series either updated with new samples (like the Grandeur Model D) or at least a Kontakt 8 GUI refresh release.

Yes, the Grandeur is regarded a top tier piano product today - but it still needs a clever life cycle managed roadmap. You can both update the current Grandeur as a classic SKU with a new refreshed highres GUI and also release a new Model D version, a new SKU, with new samples, engine and features. Think Massive and Massive X.

Overall I hope to see a new product strategy from NI and partners how to improve instrument life cycle management roadmaps so the products not only are up to date on the backend but also feel and look up to date on the frontend.

Hope I have convinced you.

Sam's review on YouTube says, if you have Noire, you don't really need Claire. Is this generally a fair assessment? Is the basic grand as good, or close to Noire? My go-to pianos are CFX, Noire and Woodchester. Is there really enough of a difference in Claire to add to that list? A week trial version would be the best answer. Many times the instrument does not meet expectations once in your own environment. I had this happen with Heavyocity's Ascend. Wasted $$. I have yet to use it in any of my 12 albums, but one of the walk thru videos tricked me. Would it be that hard to offer a limited time trial?

Hey dickiefunk,

thanks for your questions and remarks.

Regarding the releases: As you know an updated version of CLAIRE addressed the ‚release sample issue‘. Actually the sample start of some release samples was too early thus making the release phase appear too long und unnatural. We adressed this with the update, but maybe our approach was to "natural" based on the findings we made and some users still seem to have the impression of release samples being too long, creating an unnatural playing feel. We’re going to have another look at it with a possible update. Actually the Fazioli F308 did have quite a strong release phase which depends on the strength and the adjustment of the dampers, but of course it has to feel natural within CLAIRE and also in comparison to other pianos. Please give us some time to address this and we're sorry for the inconvenience we've caused.

Regarding the sub bass of the lower octave: This is simply the sub bass of the instrument, which again is quite strong on this Fazioli. We did not push the subbass artificially. With this, we’ll take another look as well, but we still want to stay close to the original recording and do not tamper too much with the character of the instrument.

Regarding a NOIRE update: This topic needs to be addressed between NI and us. While implementing new features would be great, we have to keep the backwards compatibility in mind. For example, adding another EQ band might need a different/additional Kontakt insert, which results in a different sound overall. "Richness" needs additional samples as well as mic blend and the reason for the higher number of Particles source presets is simply due to the larger amount of articulations within the Particles engine of CLAIRE compared to NOIRE.
Other features like an updated velocity editor or a modeled software pedal could be possible to integrate. Please let us check on those ideas.

Hey overlord25,

thank you for bringing up this issue. We had a look at the NKS implementation and found out the following: In CLAIRE and CLAIRE: Avant, the source menus are mapped on NKS, but they do not return the value that's being selected. That is obviously a problem, which we will address and are able to fix. Please give us some time to do it. As for PIANO COLORS and VOCAL COLORS, the source selection is browser-based and there are too many parameters and not enough space on the NKS pages to implement those in a clear way. We'll talk to NI about this and try to find a solution, but it is more difficult than with CLAIRE and CLAIRE: Avant.