Many users asked us for a lighter version of our EASTWEST/QUANTUM LEAP PIANOS that will allow them to run the most critically acclaimed pianos collection (see reviews) on slower computers. EW/QL Pianos Gold gives you that option, with only the player-perspective mic position included. When you do have the hardware you need for the full version, the upgrade costs only the difference in price.

“Quantum Leap Pianos is the best piano software available today. The recording quality and playablity is fantastic and these are the only digital piano sounds they faithfully reproduce the resonances of a well tuned piano. Quantum Leap Pianos captures all the soft nuance and the thunder of the real thing. The Bosendorfer is a good example of this. I think East West made the right move when they saved Western Recorders from the wrecking ball.”
— David Newman
“Having new sounds at my fingertips is always an inspiration and these new PLAY plug-ins have plenty of great sounds to choose from.”
— James Newton Howard
“Whether I'm working on an action film like Transformers or a comedy like Desperate Housewives, I use piano in just about every score I write. Quantum Leap Pianos is the most detailed and best sounding collection of virtual pianos I have ever used. The "feel" of each piano is shockingly close to the real thing. And the PLAY interface gives me a ton of control and flexibility, but it's also really easy to use which allows me to experiment and get the sound I want quickly.”
— Steve Jablonsky
“The entire line of Quantum Leap instruments are an essential part of my composing rig. The sounds are impeccable and naturalistically captured while the ease of use and the power of the new PLAY engine makes the instruments top of their field.”
— Brian Tyler
In summation, these are without question the most gorgeous sounding sampled pianos I've ever heard. The greatest accomplishment, in my view, is the way the room sound was captured. Even when using only the Player position I found it almost unneccessary to invoke the built-in convolution reverb, which is amazing in and of itself.
If you're looking for the most authentic sounding sampled grand pianos available at this time, and have a system that can handle it, Quantum Leap Pianos is a must-consider. Just make sure you have the latest vesion - and a computer that is ready for it!
Piano sound being such a personal thing, it‘s hard to predict which way players might jump if asked to choose between QL Pianos’ instruments. Whatever your preference, it’s clear that all four are very good sampled pianos, and since they’re sold as a bundle, buyers will be spoiled for choice!
Editing the 68,000 samples in this library took four people eight months, and I bet pianist John Sawoski‘s fingers are still aching!
The ultimate test of whether all the effort was worth it comes when a musician sits down to play the instruments, and this musician spent many happy hours playing the ‘fab four’ (to coin a phrase) pianos included in this world-beating collection.
This collection of four superb instruments raises the bar for sampled grand piano playability without hiking the price too high.
The new meaning of heavyweight. Players agreed that EastWest/Quantum Leap has by far the most detailed and biggest-sounding pianos of the bunch. "The dead center of the Bosendorfer's dynamic range sings out for a long time," noted Fortner, "exactly like the real thing, and the nine extra notes below bottom A [a famous feature of the real thing] are just thunderous." Richard Leiter said, "This sounds like a good recording of a good piano. It makes me want to play late 19th Century classical - if I could!" Aikin added, "This'd be loverly for Chopin, but not the patch you'd load for Bach ... or Little Richard." Trying the Steinway, Aikin said, "I'd sit down and play this for pleasure over the Bosendorfer. It's very lively, with just the right combination of depth and brilliance." He was even happier with the Bechstein: "This makes me want to play Mozart. There's a nice singing quality and melodic projection over chords. I have a sense of comfort here, even more than with the Steinway." The Bechstein was also Fortner's favorite for his R&B-derived playing style: "Lean into it, and it doesn't go quite as far as the Yamaha, but the bell-like harmonics you want for pop come forward. Lean back, and it's brooding and mellow. Gorgeous." EastWest/Quantum Leap Pianos stands out because it's the biggest most ambitious sampled piano project ever, with the sound quality to prove it. You'll need a bad-ass computer to play the full-size presets with abandon, but if you have one - wow!
- The most detailed piano recordings - EVER!
- Load any piano or mic position individually (each piano is between 10GB and 17GB)
- 10-18 velocities per note of sustain and sustain with pedal
- 8-12 velocities per note of repetitions and repetitions with pedal
- 5-8 velocities of soft pedal and soft pedal with sustain pedal
- 16 velocity staccato on every piano
- Repetition samples taken from 180 BPM performances for a TRUE repetition sound and not simply an alternate take.
- Software detects true repetitions
- Resonance - pedal resonance recorded for every note at multiple velocities, as well as with the soft pedal down
- Proprietary resonance captured on the Bösendorfer
- Release samples with software envelope follower
- Articulations on each piano include
- a. sustain
- b. sustain with pedal
- c. repetitions
- d. repetitions with pedal
- e. soft pedal
- f. soft pedal with sustain pedal
- g. staccato
- h. release trails
- Recorded in a proper piano environment with vintage Neumann microphones, Meitner AD converters and a vintage 8078 Neve console
- Stereo swap possible in software
- Lid position simulation
- Articulation matrix for quick and straightforward loading
- Most powerful streaming engine available with highest polyphony counts
- PLAY interface includes impulses from the same hall the producers used to record Symphonic Orchestra and Symphonic Choirs so the pianos can blend with those collections.
(Bechstein — 11.3GB, Bösendorfer — 17.9GB, Steinway — 10.4GB, Yamaha — 10GB)
If you do not own an iLok Security Key you can purchase one at your local authorized EASTWEST retailers, or here. More details about the new iLok copy protection for our PLAY SYSTEM powered products is available here
- G5 1.6GHz, 2GB of free RAM, Mac OS 10.4 or newer
- Mac Pro Quad-Core Xeon 2.5GHz, 4GB RAM
- Pentium 4 3.0GHz, 2GB of free RAM, Windows XP SP2 or Vista, sound card with ASIO drivers
- Intel or AMD Quad Core 2.0GHz, 8GB RAM, 64-bit OS and host
- iLok required (not included), internet connection required for one-time product activation
*This feature will be available after release as a free download for all registered users.
**MAC 64-bit support will be announced after the release of MAC OS X (10.5 Leopard)
| Steinway D Concert Grand Piano | |||
| John Sawoski | Scherzo (Chopin) | wav | mp3 |
| Steffen Fahl | Alborada (Ravel) | wav | mp3 |
| Katsuhiro Oguri | Arabesque (Debussy) | wav | mp3 |
| Steffen Fahl | Paganini Etude No. 6 (Liszt) | wav | mp3 |
| Joseph Felice | Liebesfreud (Rachmaninoff) | wav | mp3 |
| Joseph Felice | Witches Dance Opus 17 (MacDowell) | wav | mp3 |
| Steffen Fahl | Paganini Etude No. 6 (Liszt) (Hall mics) | wav | mp3 |
| Bösendorfer 290 Concert Grand Piano | |||
| Joseph Felice | Hammerklavier Sonata (Beethoven) | wav | mp3 |
| Jie Chen | Poem for Piano (Babajanian) | wav | mp3 |
| Joseph Felice | Rhapsody in Blue (Gershwin) | wav | mp3 |
| Steffen Fahl | Etude No. 4 Fanfares (Ligeti) | wav | mp3 |
| Steffen Fahl | Barcarole (Faure) | wav | mp3 |
| Katsuhiro Oguri | Reverie (Debussy) | wav | mp3 |
| Bechstein D-280 Concert Grand Piano | |||
| Jordan Rudess | Scherzo (Chopin) | wav | mp3 |
| Steffen Fahl | Toccata (Casella) | wav | mp3 |
| Jerome Vonhogen | Romanze (Rosenthal) | wav | mp3 |
| Katsuhiro Oguri | Sonata (Mozart) | wav | mp3 |
| Steffen Fahl | Prelude (Bach) | wav | mp3 |
Most demos were created using the player position mics only. Some demos use a mixture of the player position mics and the room mics.
To download each .wav file option-click on the file name on a Mac, or right-click or control-click on the file name on a PC.
| Steinway D Concert Grand Piano | |||
| David Goldblatt | Chi-Town Stride | wav | mp3 |
| Nick Phoenix | Final Corridor | wav | mp3 |
| Nick Phoenix | Infinite Legends | wav | mp3 |
| Nick Phoenix | Legions of Faith (excerpt) | wav | mp3 |
| Chuck Olette | A Somber Way | wav | mp3 |
| David Goldblatt | Myriad Nights of the City | wav | mp3 |
| David Goldblatt | Finger Painting | wav | mp3 |
| Angela Kassett | Something in Red | wav | mp3 |
| Bösendorfer 290 Concert Grand Piano | |||
| Michael Whittaker | Tribute to Oscar | wav | mp3 |
| Nick Phoenix | Fill My Heart | wav | mp3 |
| Nick Phoenix | Photos in Darkness | wav | mp3 |
| Nick Phoenix | Smoke | wav | mp3 |
| Nick Phoenix | Split Personality | wav | mp3 |
| Nick Phoenix | Behind the Curtain | wav | mp3 |
| Bechstein D-280 Concert Grand Piano | |||
| Joseph Felice | Rialto Ripples (Gershwin) | wav | mp3 |
| David Goldblatt | It's Like This | wav | mp3 |
| David Goldblatt | Rockem Wilma | wav | mp3 |
| Kyle Robertson | Freedom | wav | mp3 |
| Yamaha C7 Grand Piano | |||
| Michael Whittaker | Old Willow | wav | mp3 |
| Michael Whittaker | Sunday Morning | wav | mp3 |
| Steinway D Concert Grand Piano | |||
| Steffen Fahl | Scherzo (Litolff) | wav | mp3 |
| Bösendorfer 290 Concert Grand Piano | |||
| Steffen Fahl | Piano Concerto in A Minor (Grieg) | wav | mp3 |
| Bechstein D-280 Concert Grand Piano | |||
| Steffen Fahl | Piano Concerto in G Major (Benda) | wav | mp3 |
| Yamaha C7 Grand Piano | |||
| Steffen Fahl | Piano Concerto (Prokofiev) | wav | mp3 |
| EastWest/Quantum Leap Pianos Steinway | mp3 |
| EastWest/Quantum Leap Pianos Bösendorfer | mp3 |
| EastWest/Quantum Leap Pianos Bechstein | mp3 |
| EastWest/Quantum Leap Pianos Yamaha | mp3 |
| Synthogy Ivory Steinway | mp3 |
| Synthogy Ivory Bösendorfer | mp3 |
| Synthogy Ivory Yamaha | mp3 |
| Native Instruments Akoustik Steinway | mp3 |
| Native Instruments Akoustik Bösendorfer | mp3 |
| Native Instruments Akoustik Bechstein | mp3 |
| Pianoteq | mp3 |
| EastWest/Quantum Leap Pianos | wav | mp3 |
| Synthogy Ivory | wav | mp3 |
| Native Instruments Akoustik Pianos | wav | mp3 |
| EastWest/Quantum Leap Pianos | wav | mp3 |
| Synthogy Ivory | wav | mp3 |
| Native Instruments Akoustik Pianos | wav | mp3 |
| VSL Bösendorfer | wav | mp3 |
- 32-bit standalone and plug-in versions included.
- 64-bit PC VST (host must support 64-bit VST plugins) and standalone versions included.
- Check the following compatibility chart for availability of other 64-bit versions and updates.
| Supported Host |
Mac OS X (Intel) |
Windows XP (32-bit) |
Windows XP (64-bit) |
Windows 7 / Vista (32-bit) |
Windows 7 / Vista (64-bit) |
Required Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standalone | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | |
| Ableton Live | YES | YES | YES | 6.07 or higher | ||
| Cubase/Nuendo | YES | YES | YES1 | YES | YES1 | 4 or higher |
| FL Studio | n/a | YES | YES | YES | YES | 7 or higher |
| GarageBand | YES | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | 3 or higher |
| Logic | YES2 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | 7.2 or higher |
| Performer | YES2 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | 6.02 or higher |
| Pro Tools3 | YES | YES | n/a | YES | n/a | 7.4 or higher |
| Sibelius | YES4 | YES | YES | 6.0 or higher | ||
| Sonar | n/a | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6.2 or higher |
| Vienna Ensemble Pro | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 4.0.5436 or higher |
- PC: VST™, ASIO™, RTAS™
- Mac: VST™, Audio Units™, Core Audio™, RTAS™


