The story
This is our living room piano, made by Mickleburgh Limited in Stokes Croft, Bristol. It’s pretty clunky, but I’ve learnt to love that about it, and I think it’s most beautiful when played softly, with all the mechanics exposed.
To get a consistent, quiet velocity, I dropped my fingers slowly on to the keys from a few inches above. Not how you might play in the real world, but I noticed there was quite a lot of “good noise” happening before the hammer hit the strings; sort of a “putt-twang”, and I wanted to capture that. This makes it pretty laggy to play, a bit like playing with a huge buffer size; I almost called it the Latency Piano. I appreciate that this may not be to everyones taste, so I added a sample start offset dial (setting at 120 is a good fix). I also pulled the mechanism away from the strings and captured the hammer release so there’s quite a bit of control over the “clunk”. There’s a “tuned” and staccato patch also.
AND THEN!!!…. there’s the Impulse page! On inserts there’s some Road Bridges, A New Star that seems to go on forever and his brother bip4 which is instant Dura-swell batteries Ad’s from the 80’s….and of course a Spanglewangler. And on sends there’s the Splisherizer, the Splasher, and Sploshington on Sea ( my favourite resort in my shoegazey past ). Mix and match, or shove ‘em all on…and make a right cacophonous mess!!! Keep one hand on the master volume though.
I have included an EXS 24 patch as that is where the sampling started out, however, with time on my hands in these strange (A.K.A.annoying!) times, I decided it was time to get under the hood of Kontakt; so this is my first attempt at scripting. It’s a bit clunky, in keeping with the real thing I suppose. Much of the fine tuning was done in the Kontakt 5 version, so the EXS is a little more basic ( + the bug where release key round robins don’t cycle, + couldn’t figure a Scripter to do the pedal noise…it is there though, mapped to c-2 ). Play on!, Ashley
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P.S. I found a script for Scripter in Logic that plays note 0 with the sustain pedal. I’ve included the .pst setting but unfortunately it kills the sustain. However, you can open the piano on one instance of EXS and the pedal only patch on another with the Scripter attached then record enable both you get the pedal noise and sustain.
Stick the .pst in ~/Users//Music/Audio Music Apps/Plug-In Settings/Scripter
I’m sure there’s an easy script tweak to maintain the sustain, but my minds still spinning from trying to get to grips with KSP this last month. My “scripting” prior to this ended when our Apple II Europlus got crushed by our chimney in that freak storm of ’87; …..so I’ve still got a bit of catching up to do ;^)
Peace and love!
Ash
Reviews for Mickleburgh Piano
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Absolutely Inspiring!
I have to give this one all 5 stars, not because it is the best all around piano, but because it nails the vibe that this piano is best suited for. There is a huge amount of authentic character to this slightly tangy upright. The level of controls you added for customizing the mechanical sounds like key press and pedal, really adds a layer of complexity that makes each persons version of the piano a bit special. Likely, the most important thing about this piano is that the sound resonates with my composing style just right. I sat down and immediately wrote a super moody/melancholic piano piece. An excellent piano to for a boost of inspiration and moody composing.
Hauntingly beautiful!
Oh my God, it's so beautiful with so much character. I love the Pedal Only feature. Great job! Thank you!
Awesome Lofi Vibe
I really love the sound of this piano and all the Mechanical stuff going on, Theres a unique kind of brushy sound to the mechanics that i haven't heard in other libraries and the sample start delay along with the mechanics makes it feel really real. Its really warm, clunky and has a smokey jazz bar room vibe. I haven't actually used it yet because i most of what i make calls for a felt piano and this one has more of a jazzy sound to me but its probably my favorite piano on the site and i love playing with it. I cant wait for a situation to arise where i feel like it works with the track. Its so characterful, playable and dynamic
I love it, but settings are reset to default everytime I open it.
To Ashley: I am in love with this library, but there seems to be a script error that resets the settings everytime I open it. If you can please contact me at kisnouofficialatgmail.com
A wonderful piano, warm, detailed and very versatile. I wish this bug would get fixed because otherwise it would be just perfect.
Characterful Soft Piano
I really like the tone of this piano. It sounds soft and warm and very realistic. I especially enjoy all of the mechanical details in the sound. To capture all of that nuance before the hammers hit the strings the sample start time was purposefully kept pretty long, which results in a bit of latency while playing. It's not a problem for slow pieces and there is also a nice offset control for that if you need it. You also get a lot of control over the hammer, key and pedal noises, which is great. Finally there is a second page in the GUI with 5 different impulses. These can be used to add various ambient effects and sound really nice. Overall a superb piano.
