Sound on Sound, November 2007, by Mark Wherry

"A brand new piano library developed ...that offers an unprecedented level of tonal control.

"Rather than sample yet another Steinway or Böesendorfer piano, Ernest and Dan have instead opted for a Blüthner Model One, and the Digital Model One is actually an officially licensed product of the Blüthner company. Although the Blüthner name is perhaps not so well known as Steinway or Böesendorfer these days, the company was founded in Leipzig, Germany in 1853 (the same year that Steinway & Sons was founded in New York) and its pianos have a attracted a long list of high-profile admirers, including Arthur Rubinstein, The Beatles, Rachmaninov, and Queen Victoria.

"... despite all of the amazing possibilities and features of the Digital Model One, what makes it successful in my opinion is that Dan and Ernest got the two most important and basic qualities an instrument should possess absolutely perfect: the sound is fabulous and the Digital Model One is a complete joy to play."

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Keyboard (USA), November 2007, by Richard Leiter

"This is a brilliant piano rendition that I predict will reside on the hard disks of many composers and producers.

"In 2005, sample mavens Dan Dean and Ernest Cholakis spent a week at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch sampling the nine-foot Blüthner grand... under pristine conditions with some of the best recording gear and engineers in the world, they amassed a playable acoustic image of this to-die-for instrument, composed of 2,500 individual samples.

"A legendary old-world piano that was a favorite of composers such as Brahms, Bartok, Debussy, Liszt, and McCartney, the instrument sans room ambience, sans reverb, sans everything but what you’d hear if you stuck your head under the lid."

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Electronic Musician, November 2007, by Len Sasso

"The thing that most sets this piano apart from the competition is its heavy reliance on Kontakt 2's convolution engine. In addition to room ambience and reverb, convolution is used to enhance sustain resonance and, most importantly, to change the timbre of the piano completely. That last is accomplished by convolving the piano samples with impulse-response curves taken from other pianos, from piano recordings, and in one of the most interesting twists, from speech.

"A complete second set of instruments is included for use with a variable sustain pedal. A variable sustain pedal sends different values with increased pressure rather than simply acting as an on/off switch. It's a much more realistic piano-damper-pedal implementation."

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Virtual Instrument, January 2008, by Nick Batzdorf

"It would be an understatement to say that there’s a lot of technology and science behind PAV’s Blüthner Digital Model One. This piano library represents a pretty extraordinary effort, and the outcome is one of the very best sampled grands on the market. Or maybe even the best, depending on your priorities.

"BDMO is the work of Ernest Cholakis and Dan Dean, who teamed up for the Dan Dean Solo Strings Advanced library reviewed elsewhere in this issue. They recorded a 9’ Blüthner grand at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch studio, under license from the manufacturer, at 12 pedalup and 12 pedal-down velocities.

"Starting with a really great piano was the first thing these guys did right, but as we’ll see it doesn’t stop there."

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