Friday, September 20, 2019

Freeware - Westwood Instruments Upright Felt Piano Kontakt Instrument

https://westwoodinstruments.com/instruments/upright-felt-piano/


We sampled the piano in the crypt of a church. It’s lived there for the past 10 years since a band we know have recorded all their albums in this unlikely place. The space is hard rock walls and vaulted ceilings, providing some interesting acoustics; really dry up close, but with a nice amount of liveliness as you record further away. We wanted to tame the bright sound of the piano, so we custom felted the strings to take out the top end but not lose any of its unique character. What we were left with is a beautiful warm and intimate sound. We used an absolutely world-class pristine signal path recording everything at 96kHz through legendary Neve 1073 pre-amps and Burr Brown AD convertors. The signal started with a matched pair of Coles 4038’s as close as we dare put them to the hammers, to capture a really detailed sound. A stereo pair of AKG 414’s made an excellent job of capturing a more open room sound. We also used a single SE-2 close to the rear soundboard. This mic position provides a really boxy vintage sound. All of these microphones can be mixed independently through the Kontakt interface so you can dial in exactly the sound you want.