The story
This is my first attempt at sampling something, so it’s VERY simple. One velocity layer and as many good samples as possible spread across the keyboard. No FX, buttons or design to speak of. I wanted to contribute though, as I have downloaded so many great instruments from this amazing site. This is an old bentley that my wife and I bought after leaving Auckland for Dunedin NZ. I was leaving the band/touring scene and getting more into composition and soundtracks, so I decided I needed to have a piano in the house. I experimented with ‘prepared piano’, putting gaffer tape across the keys and recording with a stereo pair of condenser mics. I did this months ago but thought it was not good enough to share, given the amazing sampling work on this site. I’m a musician, not a sampler. Anyway, here it is. It sounds kinda harp-like in the upper octave and has a nice synth bass quality to the bottom. Works well with a nice reverb/delay on it.
*This pack was upated 09/05/22
My first attempt at packaging these samples was not great. I stuck some gaffer tape across the strings and really liked the sound. I have spent some time cleaning up the original files and learning a little about Kontakt scripting etc. This instrument is still very basic (one velocity layer, no round robins, not many samples) but it is a step up from the original, and I have used it as a learning curve. I have de-noised the samples and used only the very best ones. The UI actually exists now and you can even control some reverb and delay (time, feedback, saturation) right out of the box! OMG! The convolution reverb is from a marble hall somewhere in Suffolk, England; the delay is just a Replika preset that I liked. The more fx, the better. If you had any fondness for my original attempt, you may well enjoy this one. Thanks.
Tape Piano
Reviews for Taped Piano
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Unique plucky sound - like a harp...
Nice work on this tape piano. I've added a little reverb to the mix and I like the way it sounds.
Lots to like here!
This is a really fun piano. I personally have an old junker of a piano I keep in the studio for experiments just such as this, and I use these sorts of preparations frequently. Your sample library will fit nicely with the other things I'm doing in the studio! There is some noise in this sample, and it's mapped to the wrong octave, but neither of these is a deal-breaker for me. I'd love to hear this library expanded with velocity layers and round robins. that would be amazing!
Nostalgic!
I really liked this sound! It has a really interesting quality where it sits somewhere between sounding like a piano and sounding like a synth. It's quite fun once you put it through big reverbs and delays. The only thing I had to do was adjust the attack time of the sample to get rid of the little click, but after that it was all good fun.
So Honoured To Have Your Sampling Debut Here...
Chamwad thanks for sharing this first exploration on your sampling journey. I think it is very bold to ask for feedback first time out of the gate and I hope this community remains a nurturing one that doesn't put you off. I have to give you kudos for being imaginative and creative. Without exploration we stand still. I too tried taping my piano and found my samples less impressive in sample form than when playing it which I found quite beguiling. I don't know if you found this but when playing a piece there was all sorts of harmonic interplay that wasn't reproduced when sampling it. So great first effort! Be a shame to remove as we will have a timeline of how you improve. Go to the forum for advice on noise reduction and what I do is re-gain-stage every dynamic layer to lower the noise floor. Whats going in the piano next???
An actual taped piano, but with lots of noise...
As of Oct 2021, there are two instruments named Tape Piano here. This one is an actual piano with taped strings. The sound produced is very interesting, and it's really snappy. In case you are a fan of it, you might be needing to do some noise treatment with special software.
