Originals Felt Piano vs Cinematic Soft Piano

The fundamental difference between Originals Felt Piano and Cinematic Soft Piano lies in their scope and pricing model. While both offer sampled upright pianos with a felted sound, Originals Felt Piano is a budget-tier, dedicated VST with multiple mic positions, whereas Cinematic Soft Piano is a free instrument from Spitfire's Labs series, featuring a single, albeit professionally recorded, instrument.

Sonically, Originals Felt Piano provides more detailed control over its sound with three distinct microphone signals, allowing for greater customization of its warm, intimate, dark, and atmospheric character. Cinematic Soft Piano, meanwhile, focuses on providing a natural, warm, and intimate sound derived from a Yamaha U3 upright, recorded in the reverberant acoustics of AIR Studios, resulting in a slightly smaller library size of 1.8 GB compared to Originals' 3 GB.

Choose Originals Felt Piano if you require more granular control over your sound, including mic blending options, and are willing to invest in a budget-friendly dedicated plugin for film scoring, ambient, or songwriting applications. Opt for Cinematic Soft Piano if you need a high-quality, felted upright piano sound with a natural, intimate character at no cost, primarily for similar musical contexts.

Products Compared

Insights from Real-World Use

Originals Felt Piano

  • For me, the felt was a bit disappointing. It sounds nice at a low gain level but I found myself always irritated by too many frequencies and having to eq the heck out of it. The Intimate grand is like
  • Criticizes the lack of velocity sensitivity, a significant missing feature impacting playability.
  • This is my favorite Originals Felt Piano among all felt pianos.
  • Jangle Box is versatile with its tack layer and beautiful mellow piano sound.
  • got this with the student sale you mentioned maybe two or so years ago. it’s a nice plug-in to play around with, but the lack of velocity and dynamics to the sampling has made this plug-in pretty much

Cinematic Soft Piano

  • This is my most beloved Spitfire piano for its complex sound nuances.
  • This is my favorite Spitfire piano among their three offerings.
  • It sounds and feels gorgeous, and is great for felted piano music.
  • The Afterglow preset has a very strong and pleasing felt sound.
  • Felted piano sounds, like those in Cinematic Soft Piano, are popular in modern music.

Explore PianoVST