Ravel™
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The most expressive and realistic software piano ever made.
Universal Audio's first acoustic instrument model, Ravel, is a breathtaking emulation of a Steinway Model B grand piano.* Building upon UA's industry-leading physical modeling techniques, Ravel goes far beyond other piano plug-ins and sample libraries with its unprecedented realism and resonant dynamics.
Exclusively for LUNA Recording System, Ravel gives you an immaculately captured, iconic studio grand piano recorded at United Recording Studios (formerly Ocean Way Studios) by famed engineer Allen Sides with his vast collection of vintage mics. Purpose-built for modern music productions from pop to rock, R&B to hip-hop, and more, Ravel gives you album-ready sonics and inspiring playability.Now You Can:
Play and record the most organic, responsive, and expressive software piano ever made
Harness UltraResonance™ technology for unparalleled realism, dynamic sensitivity, and timbral characters
Easily mix between close and room mics, expertly placed by Allen Sides at United Recording
Animate your tracks with unique reversed-piano sounds that can add thrilling textures and haunting atmospheres
The Ultimate Model of a Model B
The 6' 11" Steinway Model B is the most recorded studio piano for a reason, delivering the ideal, mixable studio grand sound as heard on countless modern hits, across every genre. Its rich tones blend perfectly with drums, bass, electric guitar, and other surrounding instruments — never muddying up mixes and instead giving you a balanced, mix-ready piano track every time.
Introducing UltraResonance™ Technology
Sympathetic string resonance — or the phenomenon of undamped strings and the soundboard vibrating in response to other strings being played — is often the Achilles’ heel of virtual pianos. Using proprietary modeling and sampling techniques, UA's exclusive UltraResonance technology exactingly recreates these complex interactions, giving you the airy, evolving palette of harmonics that allows notes to melt into each other. From soft muted notes to languid, pillowy nuances, UltraResonance™ sets a new benchmark in resonance and realism.
Simple Control of Perfectly Placed Mics
Designed to give you a professional, record-ready sound right out of the gate, Ravel's easy-to-use interface lets you sculpt your piano sounds with three pairs of hand-chosen vintage mics from famed engineer Allen Sides' mic locker. Featuring only the controls you need, Ravel ensures you'll never get lost in confusing menus. Easily tweak Ravel's Volume, Tone, and a microphone Close/Room slider, letting you go from intimate tones to a lush room sound, and everywhere in between.
More Modern Textures
Looking to add drama, suspense, or other left-of-center timbres? Ravel's Reverse feature lets you easily add unique atmospheric piano sounds. Use the Mix control to add in subtle reverse textures to your normal piano playing, or go completely "backwards" for all kinds of fun. You can even “play the control” for surprising real-time performance changes.
*All trademarks are property of their respective owners, and used only to represent the instruments modeled as part of LUNA software.Watch The Reviews
“Switching DAWs is a big undertaking, but I can definitely see LUNA finding a place in people’s workflows. I love Ravel, Moog Minimoog, and Neve Summing — plus it works seamlessly with Apollo.”
– RAC
“LUNA's integration with my Apollos lets me forget that I'm using a computer to make music. The crazy-low latency workflow of LUNA has further blurred the line between production and mixing for me — with LUNA, I can just make records.”
– Fab Dupont (Jennifer Lopez, David Crosby, Shakira)Customer Reviews
P. Leisten
May 28, 2021
Fits great into the mix
I am confused about the mixed reviews. To me, the ravel fits nicely into the mix. Yes, its a darker kind of piano, but it has a noticeable distinctive sound that separates it from...
Read MoreM. Griffo
March 1, 2021
Truly Incredible
As a professional grand piano player, and an owner of a Korg Kronos, this is one of the best sounding virtual instruments I have ever heard. I was blown away when I heard it. Truly...
Read MoreN. Mateichenko
January 1, 2021
Ravel
I thought for a long time whether to buy ravel, when uad offered a discount, I bought it did not even try the demo version. I was a little upset because...
Read MoreD. Dyer
December 30, 2020
Fixed
The mechanical noise issue was addressed! now I can say this is the best VI Piano I've ever had.
Read More -
Key Features:
Exacting model of the legendary studio grand piano, the Steinway Model B
All-new UltraResonance™ technology captures all of the complexity, overtones, and sonic beauty of true "damper pedal down" and "soft pedal" behaviors
Recorded at United Recording Studio by multi-Grammy winning engineer Allen Sides using his personal collection of mics and preamps
Flexibly adjust between close mics sound and a beautiful room sound
Reverse feature for easily adding atmospheric backwards piano sounds to your creative palette
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Customer Reviews
Ravel
J. Dudley
Sounds good...on the notes that are in tune
A beautiful sounding piano...that is slightly out of tune from F#3 to A3 (at least to my ears) which renders it completely useless.
It would be nice to have a bit more mic options too. I've just purchased the Ravenscroft 275 on sale for about $100. Sounds great and has lovely room mics similar to the ones found here as well as close, player, and side mics. Oh, and did I mention it works in most all DAWs.P. Leisten
Fits great into the mix
I am confused about the mixed reviews. To me, the ravel fits nicely into the mix. Yes, its a darker kind of piano, but it has a noticeable distinctive sound that separates it from "already heard" pianos. Very happy I bought it!
J. Cartwright
Sounds Incredible
Amazing work.
B. Alvizures
Not impressed!
Absolutely overpriced. The free Grand piano plugin that comes with pro tools sounds almost as good.
M. Griffo
Truly Incredible
As a professional grand piano player, and an owner of a Korg Kronos, this is one of the best sounding virtual instruments I have ever heard.
I was blown away when I heard it. Truly amazing.A. Mingolo
Alain S 14 fevrier 2021
ca ne marche pas chew moi
M. Pardalos
Good but overpriced
This is a nice piano, but it is not worth $299.
N. Mateichenko
Ravel
I thought for a long time whether to buy ravel, when uad offered a discount, I bought it did not even try the demo version. I was a little upset because of the midrange sounding, there is no fullness in the lower register. there are still bugs when pressing chords, clicks and sound dropouts. Arturia with her duties in underwear is head and shoulders but the middle and high plastic ones. I hope the developers improve Ravel
D. Dyer
Fixed
The mechanical noise issue was addressed!
now I can say this is the best VI Piano I've ever had.G. Claggett
Very nice sounds--Very resource intensive
The sounds of the piano are on par with my Nord piano sounds so I am very happy with that aspect of Ravel. When I load the plugin into a mix it runs the Render meter into the red and sounds cut out. So, I have to export the piano track to audio and pull that back into the mix and disable the Ravel plugin to avoid the piano sound cutting out. Hopefully, UA will find a way to make the plugin a little more efficient to make it more functional.
Á. Gústafsson
Truly Amazing
I´m blown away by this emulation!
Á. Gústafsson
WHY UA
I would have given it 5......! The sound is great, and I´ve been looking for an emulation like this, but I am so disappointed that you make this available ONLY to Luna and Mac. I built my PC around the Apollo X series, you know how much it is to do that?! And I can't even use all your products? It´s so disappointing! You owe it to your customers who pay premium prices, that your products available to them!
I. Pauker
Love it!
Just purchased this baby.
Playing it through my Clavinova and I’m telling you - I don't think I can go back to the Clavinova native sound anymore.
The sound and feel of this Steinberg GP emulation is amazing!S. Roth
Why does it not work as a plug-in
Why does it not work as a plug-in in logic X, I have already invested in the UAD platform since over a decade, and I don’t want to learn another daw .... Why do you not make it run outside of Luna with the UAD platform Hardware?
N. Wearne
Digging it
I held off buying Ravel until the damping pedal became adjustable. It did, and I took the plunge. I'm really glad I did; a great sounding piano that I quickly forget is midi when mixing. Lots of control over the sound and perfect for my small studio space that can't fit a piano.... I don't feel the need to replace parts when I hit the studio in the coming months. I'm even considering tracking with the band using Ravel. It sounds that good.
The latest update of Luna seems to be working well, no little glitchy things that I encountered on previous updates (jumpy midi notes, editing issues). It seems to be solid now. I feel like the investment I've made using Luna is really starting to pay off. Good job UAD during a tough year.N. Machado
8 out of 10 times I open Ravel, it causes my Luna session to glitch a lot
8 out of 10 times I open Ravel, it causes my session to glitch a lot. It sounds good when it works, but in my opinion not worth it the investment over other options on the market
J. Orr
How Freakin Disappointing!!!
I refuse to give Ravel more than one star no matter how it sounds (which is just okay). The piano notes cut out in the middle of playing chords and individual notes. I have purchased the full package for LUNA but I am discouraged to use LUNA when I run into problems such as this. It's like I paid for the problem! UAD please fix this immediately!!!
J. Dallarda
The best sounding and most playable
Ravel is in a category of its own and the best sounding, most playable virtual piano I've ever played, and I've played tons of 'em. The strings resonance modeling together with the sampling likely has a good bit to do with that. Sampling single notes and then playing chords etc with individual notes sampled in isolation from every other note only gets one so far. No one only plays one note at a time when they play a piano, which is a fundamental part of why a lot of sample based virtual pianos fall flat and are completely unnatural sounding and totally uninspiring to play. That's not the case with Ravel. Side note: yeah, sure I wouldn't mind using it in any DAW either but that is NOT a valid reason for giving it a low rating.
a. rosas
still buggy
sounds amazing in between notes and chords cutting out. i had to use a different midi piano to record with, then swapped with ravel, exported the audio, and then reimported the bounced track. it sounds amazing but it needs a major update still. such a hassle
H. Lundberg
Ok but too roomy
It's nice to have a grand piano running off UA DSP power but compared to Keyscape, for instance, the sound is wayyy too roomy for my taste. Even when the mic is set to "close" it still sounds too roomy and distant.
