Could be. It never fails to demonstrate the flaws a sample set has, though... you listen to it on the better sets (Ivory, TruePianos Diamond come to mind) and it sounds convincing. Others (in fact I am appalled by how many!), not so good...

And, I'm sorry, but for all their vaunted advantages with having unlooped, no pitch-stretched, high count velocity switched, multiple mic position sets, it amazing to me how few stack up to to or three of my favorite ROM pianos... (can't wait to hear the V-Piano play this file, too!)

Listen to the Nord Stage Yamaha, Kurzweil PC3X New Triple Strike, and of course, my favorite, the FantomX Ultimate Grand Piano, and you realize how careful sampling and obsessive attention to getting the dynamics just right can make quite small pianos (RAM-wise, that is ) still very effective.

What did you think of those K-Sounds Kurzweil demos, BTW? Did you see how it could be warm AND bright, depending on the program (EQ and dynamics, etc.)?

Anyway, I still don't think you can call the file heavy handed. It hits 127 only ONCE in the entire piece, seldom exceeds 116, and goes to a low of 28. Just eyeballing it, it looks like the average sits about 90-100.

I simply think that it shows how low down some of the pianos put their higher velocity (real force) samples. It doesn't matter if it is three, or ten layers, it is whether there is sufficient at the top end of the range to NOT make you sound like you are simply pounding the piano when you go much over 100. There should still be a fair amount of nuance in that upper range, IMO. What velocity points do your samples cross over at?

One of these days, someone is going to use a weight to play the samples, dropped from different heights, so there is force consistency across the action, then use weights on a target MIDI piano so that they match up... Then finally we might have some really accurate dynamics

Anyway, keep up the good work... it's a pleasure hearing about this...