The quest to produce the ultimate realistic virtual grand piano took a big leap today with “Ivory,” announced by Synthogy and distributor ILIO at Winter NAMM 2004 in Anaheim.

The secret: Synthogy’s proprietary 32-bit sample-playback and digital signal processing (DSP) engine, which was specifically built from the ground up to bring out the resonance, response and character of three of the world’s finest concert grands: the German Steinway D 9′ Concert Grand, Bösendorfer 290 Imperial Grand, and Yamaha C7 Grand, with 20 Gigabytes (3,500 samples) digitally recorded in the finest studios and concert halls. All 88 keys of each piano were individually sampled in up to 8 dynamic levels, including the extended low octave on the Bösendorfer.

The sessions were produced by Joe Ierardi, an accomplished pianist, award-winning sound designer, and producer of piano modules for Kurzweil Music Systems. George Taylor, a principal architect of Kurzweil’s popular KSP8 multi-effects system, created the Synthogy engine and DSP.

“Synthogy’s technology is the most comprehensive virtual piano that I am aware of, with full non-looping samples for multiple intensity levels for every note,” said Ray Kurzweil, who developed the first computer-based instrument that could realistically recreate the musical response of the grand piano and other orchestral instruments in 1984 (the legendary Kurzweil 250). “It even covers the sympathetic string response associated with the damper pedal. Knowing Joe Ierardi’s extremely high quality work from having worked with him at Kurzweil Music Systems, this is an important step forward.”

Ivory will be available for AU, VST and RTAS, for PC and Mac OS X, in Q1, 2004, for $349.