Thanks Frank. I was beginning to get concerned because NI still doesn't have any MP3 demos online of Bandstand. I'd like to hear it play something, anything.

I am also still a little curious as to how playable the stand-alone piano sound is in Bandstand (GM Patch #1)? Also, have you had a chance to notice how CPU-intensive Bandstand is? I noticed that it includes convolution reverb which often takes a lot of processor power to run.

FYI: Keyboard magazine has done a review of NI Akoustic Piano in the newest edition (Dec. 2005). Here's an interesting quote:

"There's no question Akoustic sonically surpasses hardware stage pianos, for example, the S90 ES used as a test controller, whose "Natural S" patch is certainly no slouch...".

We have been saying that you could get a better piano from softsynths than hardware and Keyboard has officially vindicated this. Keyboard further goes on to compare Akoustic with Ivory, basically saying that Akoustic is more in-your-face while Ivory is more intimate, and that Ivory seems to be less CPU-intensive... Akoustic's convolution reverb and 10-layer samples suck the juice out of a computer apparently and the reviewer said there aren't enough "lite" options to make Akoustic less hungry, which is why it did not get a Key Buy award apparently. They did not definitively say whether Ivory or Akoustic was better (of course) but the review for Akoustic was glowing except for the CPU aspects.