The story
This is our family piano in the highlands of Scotland.
A few years back, during the writing of our latest Smith & Mudd album Gorthleck, my longtime collaborator Paul and I locked ourselves in the house for 10 days during the darkest, longest chills of winter.
We recorded straight to tape (HD) with one Rode NT2 -it sounded wonderful.
This summer (2019) I took two Rode mics up in a “wheelie suitcase studio”, along with Christian’s long from round robin template.
I fashioned a suspension bar out of timber, which I covered in key places with bits of an old camping bed roll then attached each mic using mic clamps.
I sadly don’t have a pair of Rode mics, so you cans in the pics I used an NT1000 and an NT2.
Not ideal I know but you got to work with what you got (so I tell me kids regularly).
224 samples later and it’s time to share.
I have played with the felt/celeste/practice pedal down since I was wee, as I love the warmth it gives, so naturally I recorded the following with the “felt on”.
NB: all RAW files without NR
Soft layer x3 per note
Loud layer x3 per note
Release Triggers x3 per note
Pedal on x8
Pedal off x8
Wild Track
The EXS instrument is assembled best as I can, following Christian’s guide and my intuition.
A few things to note:
1. round robins are all set for the soft and loud layers although playing a arpeggio only rotates only plays the first sample on each key
2. Pedal on and off samples won’t respond to the sustain pedal and won’t round robin
3. RTs only play first file and I can’t get the decay right – so when you hold a note manually and lift off, the RT is super loud.
As a result of these issues, the Pedal samples have their Volumes to -96 within the EXS edit mode, so you can’t hear them, and RT files are reduced in volume to -3 and velocity range 91-127.
Got to sort out those bits then its should all be lovely
I am going to continue my EXS adventure but in all likelihood – I may have to learn to use Kontakt.
Over to you.
Thoughts welcome.
Ben
Reviews for Blüthner – Leipzig
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Beautiful Wistful sound
Im really enjoying the tone and playability of piano. It has all that warmth and character from the felt but it still kind of cuts through and is pretty bright also. Its an awesome and clear/close recording. The high end has that beautiful transient hit. It is a tiny bit noisy but nothing crazy, theres way worse offenders on pianobook. There also seems to be a decent amount of dynamics and round robins which is really awesome and just helps with the realism. I dont really have any issues with this instrument, its not perfect but its super playable and beautiful
Very warm and kind
This is a lovely piano that is programmed well and plays really nice, but there is some white noise that can hold it back. It's not too obvious though, unless you go hard on it while trying to sustain a lot of notes. It's a pretty piano that worths your attention nonetheless!
Beautiful cozy sound
This piano has a nice, unique character and a fantastic sound to it. The clicky attack sound the notes C3-D#3 have can be annoying sometimes. It's still a very much usable. Perfect for softer playing
A very inspiring piano
Thanks for this set, I really like the character of this instrument - out of the Pianobook library it's probably the one I load most often. Even as a mellow felt-piano, it has solid presence and some living "breath". A couple of minimal fixes: I play it with the Decent Sampler version and I had to adjust a bit the default release setting. Also I ran the samples of note D#3 through a declicker to attenuate the mechanical noise.
The friendly piano
So much is going right in this sample library! It's a lovely instrument, and it's really well recorded. There are some ambient foley noises in the recordings, but they added to the realism for me. C3 to D#3 has a rather unusual attack sound in the upper dynamic layer that's not pleasant. Even so, this library has a warm, friendly, almost muted sound to it. The tone is lovely and rounded, and it's fun to play.
