Some of us need to reacquaint ourselves with a REAL piano. And a good one, at that..!
While bright pianos can help you cut through a mix, unless you are talking say a Yamaha CIIIF or the like (and even that is nice and warm at medium touch), you'll find that, until you really pound it, a real piano IS nice and warm and darker than you think. So, if you go for the exposed piano as the solo instrument, you really do need to darken it down somewhat, especially Yamaha arrangers, where the piano's come extremely bright and tinkly.
One of the reasons I like my G70's main piano is that it comes OOTB pretty much like a real piano. A lot of people have commented that it seems not bright enough, but I disagree. It sounds like a piano! Not a piano with a boatload of high EQ, low rolloff, and hardened hammers...
I think squeak's tweaks have done a great job of returning believability to the Yamaha's piano sound.
SPOT ON DIKI! I guess it kinda goes along with one of DNJ's posts where he said "I'm not a piano player". Some players stick to keyboards and units with synth action keys (and that's it). So some of these over bright, tinky tonk sounding pianos in a few keyboards are acceptable to their ears.
You're absolutely right in that a real pianos tone is FAR from what you hear on say a Yamaha arranger. It's MUCH MUCH warmer, and "muddied up" in a good way depending on how you have the lid set. Plus I think many seem to forget that a piano is like other stringed instruments in that they sound better with age. You get an amazing warm, deep, and dark sound from a 30+ year old grand that has been taken care of.
I have a couple user pianos that I edited on my S-700 to simulate various positions of the lid and room size. A few are very warm, and some very dark simulating a completely closed lid.., AND they still get brighter as I spank the keys a little harder.
Sqk
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