Westwood Instruments – Alt Grand (Review)

INTRODUCTION

Following the release of their acclaimed Alt Piano, Westwood Instruments now returns with a new chapter: Alt Grand. At the heart of it is a beautiful vintage grand piano, sampled with and without felts. Alt Grand promises a blend of unique character and great versatility. This is no ordinary piano – it was designed as a deeply expressive storytelling tool tailored for modern media production. Let’s find out more.

OVERVIEW

Alt Grand follows Westwood Instrument’s philosophy which is focused on instruments that feel both alive and emotionally authentic. Much like Alt Piano, this library was not designed to sound overly perfect and sterile. Instead, the developers spent time choosing the right piano and eventually settled for a beautiful 1930s grand piano.

Alt Grand comes with natural and felt samples. For the felt option, Westwood Instrument’s engineers placed a layer of felt between the hammers and strings to soften the tone, creating a more intimate sound, ideal for emotional tracks. On top of that, several post-processing options and a wide variety of cinematic textures are also available to complete the offer.

The piano was sampled at the Nave Studios in England, Westwood’s usual recording spot. Alt Grand offers 3 ready mixes and 5 microphone positions.

Alt Grand was created for Kontakt and Kontakt Player version 6.7.1 (or higher) and is NKS-compatible. As with previous releases, the library can be downloaded using the free Pulse downloader tool and is registered through Native Access. All in all, Alt Grand requires 26 GB of hard drive space.

INTERFACE

Users of Westwood Instruments’ libraries will feel at home as Alt Grand’s interface follows the same layout used in their recent releases like Rotor or Novella Blackwater. The interface is clear despite being quite dark, stylistically. As usual, Westwood continues to rely on a clean and intuitive layout and uses creative graphical cues to make navigating the interface easy. As a result, the homepage includes the most commonly used controls.

The left part of the GUI contains the navigation menu, the top features the technique selector, and the lower part has the dynamics, felt amount, pianist noises, and mix settings. The felt slider is key, allowing composers to shape the piano’s timbre between bright and intimate.

Advanced settings can be accessed by clicking the top-right icon of any articulation. This opens a menu where dynamic control, round robins, and tightness can be tweaked. It is also possible to see specific round robins that are being played in real-time (and to select or exclude particular ones). Snapshots and presets can be accessed as well through Kontakt’s top menu.

The second page contains a variety of master effects along with more sound settings. These settings include mechanical noises, lid positions and tuning. Common effects such as reverb, delay, stereo width are also included. A transpitch setting is also present. When engaged, it pitch-shifts the samples down and then transposes them back up by the same amount. This gives the piano samples a darker, heavier tone.

A couple of unique settings are “piano lid” and “untune”. The piano lid setting essentially controls the natural harmonics, whereas the untune setting will detune all the keys in various directions.

Finally, a tape machine post-processing effect is present and allows composers to run the signal through a virtual tape machine. This gives users even more possibilities in shaping the sound, from adding analog warmth and subtle saturation to going full Lo-Fi.

THE SOUND OF ALT GRAND

Alt Grand features a warm, rich, and cinematic sound. The vintage grand piano has been sampled fairly deeply, including 7 Dynamic Layers and 3 round robins. These come with and without felt strips and in two lid positions. This makes it one of the most deeply sampled pianos Westwood Instruments has produced so far and results in a a beautifully nuanced piano tone, full of character and imperfections in all the right ways. The dynamic layers are well-edited and feel consistent across the piano range as well. The sonic signature is rich and full-bodied. Alt Grand naturally features a rich array of piano and pianist noises for enhanced authenticity, but these can be dialed down to taste to fit user requirements.

Another strength of the library is the possibility of blending natural and felted piano samples. While the natural and felted samples shine individually, the inclusion of this option adds a lot of versatility. The true magic lies in blending both tones gradually, allowing character modulation mid-performance.

Alt Grand also excels in warmth, subtle detunings, and resonances that enhance its expressiveness. On that front, the new “untune” setting can be really useful to give the piano even more character. Used in higher amounts, it will even fit tension/horror tracks perfectly!

Another highlight is the inclusion of 23 cinematic textures, each one carefully crafted to complement the piano’s tone and mood. These are layered sound design elements built from the piano samples that were sent through analog effect chains. From that, the developers designed textures such as reverse granular pads, ambient washes, and lo-fi tape loops. With the help of the texture fader, composers can dial in the tone and balance of these textural sounds precisely. It is possible to layer several of these textures or to layer them with the natural piano sounds, effectively transforming Alt Grand into a hybrid-acoustic scoring instrument. The textures of Alt Grand are nicely varied and organized accordingly: some act as ambient drones, some use tape hiss and analog warmth, and others feel more ethereal, providing contrast and depth. This makes the library even more useful and expands the range from a usual solo piano library to a full-fledged hybrid tool.

CONCLUSION

Alt Grand is truly another great achievement for Westwood Instruments. The library’s evocative tone, sample depth, and sound design options make it an inspiring tool for any media composer seeking authenticity and expressiveness. In typical Westwood Instruments fashion, this is a piano full of character, recorded in a resonant and authentic studio space.

While its predecessor Alt Piano offered intimacy and a more direct sound, Alt Grand provides more range, sonic depth, and versatility. It convincingly delivers a credible performance in many styles, from intimate, soft notes to wide-screen hybrid soundscapes, all while retaining Westwood Instruments’ signature recording chain and emotional warmth.

With the additional discount for users of Alt Piano, the purchase becomes an easy decision. The inclusion of textures, sound design, and dual articulations gives the library far more depth than a typical piano VST in this price segment.

RECOMMENDED 10/10

Alt Grand is available through the Westwood Instruments online shop at a discounted intro price of $71 (regular price: $89). Owners of Alt Piano get a 30% loyalty discount off the regular price.

ALT GRAND – VIDEO WALKTHROUGH