The story
Hello Everyone! Very excited to have found Piano Book and the many artists and audio folks contributing to this great effort! It’s always fun to see how creative people can get when money isn’t an obstacle! So my story with this piano begins in 2017 with some very talented friends renting a church to record in. There are many empty churches in the states and they make for a beautiful and challenging space for recording! Sid Lindner was the song writer (Hotel Alexis) and Mike Yorgenson had the genius idea to find a lovely church in Sunapee NH. I was hired as a player and to help Mike engineer and ultimately mix/master. If it had been up to me I would have shown up with a few mikes and a laptop, but Mike brought his entire (nearly!) studio from home… (timpani drums! Haha!!) And his lovely wife to decorate and cook amazing meals… they did such a wonderful job creating an atmosphere that pours from each track. In setting up for the session Mike found this Gulbransen full upright piano on the local CraigsList.net in the “free” section and delivered it to the church himself. The piano became a centerpiece for a few of the tracks on the record. When tracking was done we sadly left the piano behind. So when it turned out the church had sold a year later, it was decided that I would give the piano a home temporarily. While I had it I did these recordings and a few others. Since then Mike has moved it to his studio in CT. I always wanted to try a thumb muted & a guitar picked piano sample. I never thought I would Share it so didn’t take a whole lot of time doing it, and there are some lovey warts imho. I did tuning in the EXS24, but the samples haven’t been tuned.To me, the thumb mute is so beautiful, I’m always surprised how not useful it is in a song! Here’s a link to the record that was made: https://burstandbloom.bandcamp.com/album/summer-ghosts-nightfalls Sid Lindners: https://hotelalexis.bandcamp.com/ Mike Yorgenson: https://communityrecordingservices.org/ Chris Decato: https://chrisdecato.bandcamp.com/ Thanks so much for reading and I hope that you enjoy my contribution to PianoBook! Chris,
Reviews for Gulbransen Thump Upright
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A different sounding piano
This is an interesting take on how a piano can sound. It's a little on the noisy side, but you probably won't notice it. The two different velocities sound kind of different, and I can safely say that I prefer the lower velocity more, since the higher one is harsher than I would personally like. I feel that this kind of a piano sound goes well with shimmery reverb effects and prolonged delays, but that's just how I like it.
If you liked this one, you may like the Picked version as well, available in Chris' profile. It's almost like a dulcimer and a harpsichord combination.
More usable for me than the picked upright
I feel more or less the same about this one as i do about the picked upright but in many aspects i prefer this one. First off i would recommend completely extending the release inside of logic sampler for more natural playability. While i felt the picked upright was too bright and synthetic, this one is much warmer and rounder by comparison. It also kind of resembles a mandolin or banjo just like the picked upright but i much prefer the tone of this one. I still dont think i would find a place for this in my music but both the picked and thump upright are really creative ideas and i cant wait to see what else you come up with.
Less usable for me than the picked upright
:D Which just goes to show as with everything in life YMMV. For me this is just a very short piano sound with no sustain or release. That said - as September says definitely increase the release in EXS24 first. I tried using it with an Arpeggiator and it made quite a nice "acoustically modeled synth" sequence sound, so that could be a good use, or as Alex says good with delays or large reverbs. Just less inspiring for me than the picked version... Oh and there is some "variation" in this one between notes - some strings weren't muted as well as others so ring on for a while - but then that never did the CS80 any harm. Anyway - tomato, tomato, potato, potato - lets call the whole thing off...
