The story
A number of years ago, my father-in-law, recently widowed, bought an apartment in Stockholm. In it was a Baumgardt upright piano, a fairly obscure Swedish make, but an incredibly rich and resonant instrument. While he was out I sampled the piano, just using a Zoom recorder to capture each key.
I was so glad that I recorded the piano because about a year later the flat was largely destroyed due to flood damage. Amazingly the piano seems to have survived, but I felt relieved I had a ‘backup’ of it just in case.
Reviews for Old Swedish Upright Piano
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Really beautiful tone but not dynamic
As ive said before, personally, If a piano library doesn't have at least 3 dynamic layers, it could be the most beautifully sampled piano in the world but wont find much use for it. I just need these dynamics for my tracks except in rare cases. The sound of this instrument is beautiful. Its mellow yet bright and has that old fashioned chorus sound. If this was more dynamic it might be one if my non felt go to pianos. Apart from that the noise is super loud. I dont mind a bit of noise but this is really over bearing. Theres alot of potential with this instrument so i hope improvements can be made in the future.
A good first attempt
This is a good first attempt at sampling a piano. There are a couple of things that for my personal taste could be done differently to make the instrument more playable and usable. First, the samples need to be recorded at a louder volume so that the dynamic range of the ADCs is leveraged to maximum advantage. Second, some sort of noise reduction probably needs to take place after the editing process. Third, The space at the start of each sample is too long for my taste. This is a personal preference, of course, but I prefer tighter start times as it affects the timing of the piano part within a composition. Increasing the amount velocity modulates volume can also make the instrument more expressive and playable too. So, overall, this is a very solid first attempt at sampling a piano. I hope e get to hear another recording of this eloquent instrument in the future!
Very noisy right from the beginning
The samples on this one need a lot of work because with just one press of a key you will immediately hear a lot of noise, so you might as well put it in the heavy lo-fi category. There lack of dynamics make it very flat so you will have to keep that in mind as well. The GUI is alright, and the included reverb sounds good. If you are not into the lo-fi noise, perhaps it would be wise to introduce some noise reduction software or plugins. As a personal preference, when it comes to lo-fi noise, I always prefer it as a separate feature in order to make it more consistent and controlable.
