Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH is pleased to announce that its much-anticipated major update to The Grand is now shipping to resellers worldwide. The Grand 3 offers the sound of three legendary concert grands, as well as leading electric and upright pianos, all recorded in outstanding quality with two microphone positions in up to 20 velocity layers. Additional features include onboard equalization tools, a full tuning editor, and a range of technologies to enhance computer resource efficiency as well as a stand-alone mode. The Grand 3 supports VST3, VST2, AU and ReWire and runs on Mac OS X, Windows XP and both Windows Vista 32- and 64-bit versions. MSRP for The Grand 3 is $449.99. For more information including demo songs and performances, please see www.steinberg.net.

“Excellent sound content of the highest standard paired with a brand-new VST3 engine optimized to recreate the feel of playing some of the most famous pianos ever: that was the challenge to our developers,” comments Nadine Roos, Steinberg’s Product Marketing Manager for The Grand. “And they’ve absolutely come through. Close your eyes while playing The Grand 3 on a high quality controller keyboard and we think you’ll be very, very impressed with the level of authenticity attained. And thanks to a lossless compression technology, the 88GB of included samples require only around 32GB of free hard drive space, keeping the resource footprint remarkably low for a virtual instrument of its quality.  Simply put, we believe that The Grand 3 represents the apex of virtual piano software,” adds Roos.