And Ash’s Harmonium 
Another beautiful vst piano for free (398MB on disk)
1: Check out “Tails” - this will be your biggest helper for making the piano act like one.
It will stack your piano into polyphonic channels when new notes are played while the last one still plays out. This way you can hold a note indefinite and play triplets at an interval all while a generative sequence adds some random hits in-between.
EDIT: I remembered it wrong… it sends poly vOct from mono vOct. So you need multiple instances of ESSEFF and split the vOct… might skip Tails depending on Scenario.
2. Try MLs Triggered Switch to set up coherent Variations of Modulation (Velocity, Envelopes, Damping, Vibrato)… just to add some dynamics.
For generative Piano Sequences I highly recommend working with Seeds of Chance and The Gardener. Using 4 Instances of Monophonic Modules and Probably Note Quantiser with its Chord extension (and a copy without extension… maybe switch?) you can get a shitload of movement. Use all the channels of your Seeds of Chance and maybe even expand on the CV outs… then its 1 source doing all modulations in a restricted, related frame of randomness. 8 Face on gardener is a good idea - just put 8 movements together and watch it run for ever with neither repetition nor crass deviation.
To return to Triggered Switch: this is one way to simply bind key modulations to a specific trigger. Using Grayscales dedicated outputs for example, to make sure that a certain order is kept intact (Step 1, 5 and 7 get probability on sustain, 1&5 with high velo, 678 with lower velo, each deviating from the other. 2 gets a chance to be delayed some steps and a hard attack etc. pp.)
So VELO, ADSRH, DELAY - your actual step sequences run into the CLOCK input of grayscale for example (SoC triggers maybe… ? A seldom Repelzen Burst for triplets and other kinds of quick movements. through Bogs RGate or Subm. PG or for its Delay Bogs DGate) Getting a Mute between Trigger and VCO that can be triggered from time to time adds natural breaks.
I admit, its some work to play a Piano in Rack.
Here’s an example that does NOT take the extra mile and only modulates Velocity. Its all Kontakt. But there’s no automations internally. So that is all SoC and Probably Note.
Playing Chopins Winter Wind via MIDI File - not much modulation either
Here most of the Modulations described above are applied (just sent to the VST as it has all those functions built in… but its nothing much different from envelope stages, dynamics, transients, vibrato, sustain, gate length and velocity.
That said its nothing special happening here. Just random variations.
Triggering and processing a monophonic Plaits into a great many Harp strums coming from all sides with properties that I think would fit a Piano quite well when replacing Hair-Pick with more tamable Delays (Chronoblob and Tap Dancer).
Another good address might be Portland Weather - for its individual Step sampling can change everything you need to make 1 Piano Note into 4…6…8…16 - and even stack steps to chords. Just occasionally sending a Note into it will benefit at least the Ambient Patcher. But it won’t sound like the real thing.
Using Prism s SMR clone Rainbow as a Sequencer and modulator is frankly very musical and gives easily accessible sweetspots in a single module.
- Clouds is a great way to Delay single Notes and give them a slight drag or pitch it up/down.
I sometimes use a technique where I record monophonic sequences into a polyphonic cable to a Sample and Hold. (lol) - thats 16 Voltages per S&H and I just use the N1 switch to read the S&Hs output randomly or in order. You can save these S&H Sequences in STRIP I think.
Entrian Timeline would also suffice, but is linear and time-consuming to customize for probability/random.
And the Polyphonic Hack is… just kinda fun to use 
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The Chamber music piece is brilliant. The interplay of all the instruments and different articulations is well done.
We are getting a little far afield here, aren’t we? Original post was “is there a good piano in VCV”. Yes, there are plenty of good pianos it you use Host to run a VST sampler and load a piano library. But I don’t that that’s that the poster wanted to do.
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Yes, but what if these replies answered the topic? We already have great pianos in VCV and they can be triggered to sound like the real thing (was gonna add one of my “tricks” to it), so what would a dedicated VCV module possibly do better? And why?
Host isn’t free. Kontakt isn’t free? Host incurs some extra latency compared to a native VCV solution? I don’t know if those are all true, but those are the kind of things I think of.
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Squinky: Agreed. My reply was geared towards using EssEff. What I didn’t say was: yes there iare good reasons to port classical/traditional Instruments to VCV. And I have tried EssEff after posting here to see how much work it’d be to give it a similar feel to a professional Kontakt Library. What I noticed in the odd 15 minutes of trying is: it is not a Piano module, but a simple soundfont player. The Piano is cool to have and frankly the only of its kind… but at this point I think a Module with Samples that its optimised for… could easily do a better job.
The Samples could have some room, body, color, timbre… geared towards playability. I’d give a definitive yes on that. VSTs are good to have… if you have 'em. Kontakt is frigging expensive and so are its libraries… and neither are a sound reason to dismiss Module solutions.
Ideally the module would feature some shaping options. If possible an internal Envelope that is set up for the samples… and controlled by A and D knobs. Like all envelopes below 9°° have the same short attack time, but shorten the decay, from 9 to 12 this could repear but impact sustain. From 12 on go for “Felt” options… with softer curves and reduced voltages…
If Polyphony is an option on a sample based player, that’d be nice. No idea how much CPU that’d eat and if its feasible at all. So far I haven’t noticed a polyphonic Sample based Player in VCV yet. Could have a reason.
Little extras, like a vibrato that sets in if a note is held for X samples (or just triggered by sustain)? And maybe a slow, slight drift that applies additionally to volume or pitch. Since holding a note is likely looping a short sample applying these or other impurities could hide that a bit.
I know that this is more than you offered to do. Check out the EssEff and if this hits close to home of what you’d planned… nevermind me. I can’t say if there is much point to a dedicated module that is not in some way adding shape to the sound then. There’s been some +1s.
Best regards!
haha, yes, I completely agree with most of this. full disclosure - I have a polyphonic SFZ Player coming out soon. There are many very good piano SFZ instruments for free 
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Yes! That most likely solves OPs question. I’m looking forward to it! Bcos after spending the money on Kontakt and Instruments - you get something that’s worth your money, right? $$$ = good library = CPU load. If I had a 50$ Piano, it’d neatly fit between Patch and Strings. Mne just won’t. -_-’’
- not a week goes by where I wouldn’t have use for a good, simple Piano. Especially when it spares me from another Host instance! [ You’ll be filling another crater-sized hole in VCV. <3
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I just posted an announcement for my “SFZ Player”. There are a ton of good free piano samples available in SFZ format. SFZ player is polyphonic.
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