The story
Christian’s film exploring Dave, the Neumann KU 100, left me with more questions than it answered. In a good way.
In the midst of the strangest week of the year, that between Christmas and the new year, I was experimenting with some new mic positions on my family piano – attempting to create a ‘pseudo binaural’ recording, if you like. I ran off a quick ‘MVP’ style sample set when a notion hit me.
Making pads from pianos is no new idea – taking a sample, stretching it, reversing it and putting in a big crossfade to create a ‘ping-pong’ style loop – but what if we simply reversed all of the samples?
With a little magic from the cheapest bit of tech I own (a 5 quid eBay-find guitar pedal) this is the result. I’m not really sure what to call it – it’s not really a pad nor a piano – so I’ve gone for ‘Reverse Piano’!
Reviews for Reverse Piano
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Super cool effect...
These warped and revered piano effects are always really cool to play with. The instrument is well built and all the samples sound good. Might be nice to have some more of the raw recordings as an option for those who want to do their own processing, but that's not at all a necessity. Still a great instrument that I'll be holding onto!
The Secret Sauce behind a 'forward' piano sound
I wasn't quite sure what to make of this library at first. As someone who loves reversing sounds, using backwards reverb --we all know how to reverse IR's in Space Designer by now, right? -- I figured this would be an instant favorite for me, but it wasn't. I couldn't put my finger on the exact reason, but I coming back to it, thinking I'd figure out what I needed to do differently. The inspiration came from Christian Henson's "Meris Verbs for LABS Soft Piano" library. What if I used this library as an effect for a different piano library, albeit a mismatched one? That was the eureka moment for me. Laying this with a forward piano is -- THE BOMB! Give it a try. you won't regret it!!!
A great idea, that adds real colour to your music!
Anything below F3 has a noticeable overtone to it. Which makes the low end of this piano great for atonal clusters. The Top end is full of magic and wonder. I recommend sending the instrument through a randomised pattern delay to create a lush swirly ambience that doesn't feel repetitive. All in all, this is a surprisingly versatile library that's been recorded very well!
Unique sound with one main issue for me
This is a really awesome sound for ambient effects and textures. I love reversing stuff, guitars being my favorite but pianos are awesome too. I think this instrument would blend really well with ambient guitar or anything cinematic really. My one issue is that the samples speed up the higher you go up the keyboard so the high notes happen super fast. I dont know that much about sample programming but id assume theres a way to do it where they all last the same or similar lengths. With that said i still think this is a really useful and charaterful instrument.
An idea that I LOVE
This is something that I really want in my library, and this has serious potential to be perfect. The sound is super nice and warm, and the reversed "snap" sounds amazing, especially with some reverb on. I find the best place to play is the mid-high one. It really sounds magnificent. I can listen to this sound all day!
With that said, here's a small issue for me: The "reverse" is bound to a fixed duration, bound to the stretching of the sample. This means the low notes take forever to complete, and the very high ones become way too fast. I'd really love a swarm, randomized effect instead. The sampels also kind of sound slightly more panned to the right, but that's not reeeally a big issue
Maybe it can be fixed in the Stereo update which would definitely be nice!
