PianoFlex vs Hans Zimmer Piano

Hans Zimmer Piano is the in-house concert grand of Lyndhurst Hall at AIR Studios in London, the piano Hans Zimmer sits down at between scoring sessions. Spitfire Audio recorded it with 60 microphones, in the same hall as its orchestral libraries, so it sits naturally among them. PianoFlex is a modeled piano for Windows: no recordings, a small program, and many pianos and rooms to choose from and shape.

What they have in common

• Made for film and ambient music as well as playing: Hans Zimmer Piano for scores, PianoFlex with its Film & Ambient group of presets.
• Where you hear it from. Hans Zimmer Piano has 16 microphone positions across the hall. PianoFlex's microphones go inside the piano, at the player's head, at the side or across the room.
• Room to work in: Lyndhurst Hall on one side, and on the other a Space list running from a dry studio to a concert hall or a cathedral.
• Windows, as a program and a plugin.

Where Hans Zimmer Piano stands out

• Hans Zimmer's choice: the in-house piano of Lyndhurst Hall at AIR Studios.
• Made to sit with Spitfire's orchestra. It was recorded in the same space as Spitfire's symphonic and chamber libraries.
• Sixteen microphone signals, from close spots to the Tree, the room and the gallery, drawn from 60 microphones.
• More than notes. Additional techniques and effects played by first-call players: super-soft playing, finger plucks on the strings, timpani-stick hits and more.
• Mac as well as Windows.

Where PianoFlex stands out

• Size. A 16.6 MB download. Hans Zimmer Piano is a 211 GB download, and needs 422 GB free while it installs.
• Memory. PianoFlex asks for 4 cores or more, 4 GB of memory and 100 MB of disk. Spitfire asks for a quad-core processor and 8 GB of memory at least, and recommends 16 GB.
• Nothing else to install. Hans Zimmer Piano plays in Kontakt Player, installed through the Spitfire Audio app.
• Many pianos, shaped by you: 34 presets in eight groups, every part of the piano open to change, and four slots to layer pianos.
• The Character generator. Generate gives the piano a new character, drawn from nearly a billion, and its Strength runs from a subtly different instrument to one unlike any real piano, suitable for film and cinematic music. Variation makes close relatives of one you like, and a preset keeps it.
• Song videos of your MIDI files.
• A free demo that never expires.
• $79, where Hans Zimmer Piano is $399.

Which to pick

• For scoring with Spitfire's orchestral libraries: Hans Zimmer Piano, recorded in the same hall.
• For a large choice of microphone positions and extra techniques: Hans Zimmer Piano.
• On a Mac: Hans Zimmer Piano.
• With limited disk space: PianoFlex.
• For many pianos and rooms you can shape, without Kontakt: PianoFlex.

Owning both

One is a large studio library for the final score; the other has no library at all. Some composers sketch on one piano and finish on another. PianoFlex's demo is here, and Spitfire has audio demos on its site. This page doesn't compare how they sound. That's for your ears.

The facts side by side

Every fact about Hans Zimmer Piano is from Spitfire Audio's own pages, checked on 4 November 2026. Prices are list prices in US dollars; sales come and go.

More: virtual pianos compared, a table of 28 pianos, and all about PianoFlex.

If something here is out of date, write to [email protected] and we'll correct it.

Sources

• https://www.spitfireaudio.com/hans-zimmer-piano
• https://support.spitfireaudio.com/en/articles/11816061-what-is-the-difference-between-the-piano-libraries
• https://support.spitfireaudio.com/en/articles/11815511-compatibility-chart-for-all-spitfire-products