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Everybody keeps on sampling the best and cleanest piano ever! here is a completely different approach. We sampled an old Pleyel Grand Piano (F-71240 model from 1928) with vintage gear like a studer console and tube microphones, it has the rich and warm sound of the old jazz/blues or even classical music recordings.
The demo songs are performed by Jean-Michel Bernard (former composer for Ray Charles, film music composer) and Romain Collin, a very talented jazz French piano player based in NYC.
Preferences
The OldBlackGrand is now in V3 and inludes many new features to make it one of the most complete pianos on the market.
Each feature is detailed below and of course it still contains the features of the previous versions like the release volume, pedal noise and key noise.
Each feature is detailed below and of course it still contains the features of the previous versions like the release volume, pedal noise and key noise.
The release Volume: the sound produced when you release a key if a note was going on.
The Key Noises: the sound produced when you release a key and no corresponding sustain was played.
The Pedal Noise: the sound produced when you press or release the pedal, it adds a lot to the realism.
The Tone: a simple way to make the piano sound brighter or darker.
The sostenuto CC, also called the middle pedal. You can sustain selected notes, while other notes remain unaffected.
The polyphony. If you lower the buffer or simply want to be light on CPU, then increase or lower this value.
The Reverb. We use a convolution reverb and you can adjust the dry and wet parts separately as well as choose from a large selection of high quality Impulse Responses.
Round Robin. We added a software round robin feature for the users that need to play repetitive pieces.
The Key Noises: the sound produced when you release a key and no corresponding sustain was played.
The Pedal Noise: the sound produced when you press or release the pedal, it adds a lot to the realism.
The Tone: a simple way to make the piano sound brighter or darker.
The sostenuto CC, also called the middle pedal. You can sustain selected notes, while other notes remain unaffected.
The polyphony. If you lower the buffer or simply want to be light on CPU, then increase or lower this value.
The Reverb. We use a convolution reverb and you can adjust the dry and wet parts separately as well as choose from a large selection of high quality Impulse Responses.
Round Robin. We added a software round robin feature for the users that need to play repetitive pieces.
Three microphone positions
We recorded the OldBlackGrand with two microphone positions:
The Close position with a pair of microphones close to the strings inside the piano to provide deep bass and rich resonances.
The Rim position with a pair of microphones at the side of the piano to give more of a soloist playing with a piano perspective.
The Rim position with a pair of microphones at the side of the piano to give more of a soloist playing with a piano perspective.
You can enable / disable, load / unload and mix each microphone position separately to get exactly the sound you want.
Each microphone has three different controls:
Gain.
On / Off: You can easily enable or disable each microphone position.
Load: You can load / unload the samples of each microphone position. This saves Ram usage if you only use one position. Of course the controls are greyed out when the samples are unloaded.
On / Off: You can easily enable or disable each microphone position.
Load: You can load / unload the samples of each microphone position. This saves Ram usage if you only use one position. Of course the controls are greyed out when the samples are unloaded.
Resonances
The resonances on a piano give some kind of a reverb effect when all of the strings start resonating.
There are two kinds of resonances that are important to model on a piano, the pedal down resonances and the sympathetic resonances between the held notes. Both these effects are present in the OldBlackGrand, you can even change the amount of each of them.
There are two kinds of resonances that are important to model on a piano, the pedal down resonances and the sympathetic resonances between the held notes. Both these effects are present in the OldBlackGrand, you can even change the amount of each of them.
The True Pedal Action enables the progressive resonance on pedal down when you press a chord and press the pedal afterwards.
Sympathetic Resonance controls the volume of the sympathetic resonance effect. If you want a piano that sings the harmonics, you can add a little more of that effect.
Symp Poly controls how many voices you want to allow for the sympathetic resonance effect.
Sympathetic Resonance controls the volume of the sympathetic resonance effect. If you want a piano that sings the harmonics, you can add a little more of that effect.
Symp Poly controls how many voices you want to allow for the sympathetic resonance effect.
Repedaling / Half pedaling
On a real piano, the pedal is not a simple on and off and in classical music, people often use the repedaling and half pedaling.
Repedaling allows you to "restart" a chord that has been released with the pedal if the decay is not ended yet. this is especially used when you want to blend chords together.
Helf Pedaling is as its name implies what happens when you play with the pedal half pressed. the decay is much longer and as the strings are not completely dampened, you hear some resonances.
Helf Pedaling is as its name implies what happens when you play with the pedal half pressed. the decay is much longer and as the strings are not completely dampened, you hear some resonances.
MIDI controls
We added a few midi controls to the older version. The sostenuto and sustain CC can be changed in case you want for example use an expression pedal instead of a regular on off pedal. You can also change the Midi curve, the dynamics and the velocity response to really adjust the library to your liking, keyboard and playing style.
The velocity Sensitivity controls the volume curve, so how easily you get to a high volume, but the lowest and highest volumes stays the same.
The velocity amount controls the dynamics, so the minimum volume associated with the lowest velocity.
The MIDI remapper controls the mapping, so which velocity layer corrsponds to which velocity imput.
The Min and Max Velocity are simply the minimum and maximum velocity that you will have to play to hear the piano.
The Sustain CC is by default at 64 but can be changed to any other controller if you need to.
The Sostenuto CC is by default at 66 but can be changed to any other controller if you need to.
The velocity amount controls the dynamics, so the minimum volume associated with the lowest velocity.
The MIDI remapper controls the mapping, so which velocity layer corrsponds to which velocity imput.
The Min and Max Velocity are simply the minimum and maximum velocity that you will have to play to hear the piano.
The Sustain CC is by default at 64 but can be changed to any other controller if you need to.
The Sostenuto CC is by default at 66 but can be changed to any other controller if you need to.
Sample player
OldBlackGrand comes with its own sample player, the UVI Workstation 2(requires v2.5.2 or later).
We provide it for free with every library that you buy, you don't need to buy an expensive sampler to use our products. It works on Mac (10.6 or later) and PC (windows XP SP2 or later), in standalone or as a plugin (VST / AU / AAX / RTAS / MAS) and in 32 and 64 bits. You can find more info about it here. If you want to use our products in osx 10.5, please contact us, you will need UVI Workstation v2.1.8 and earlier versions of the UFS files.
As it is based on the same engine (UVI engine XT), you can also use our products in MOTU MachFive 3 (requires v3.2.1 or later).
Technical description
12.89Gb, 2956 samples.
2 microphone positions that you can mix from the interface (close and rim).
9 Velocity layers for the sustain.
9 Velocities for the release.
Pedal down resonance and true pedal action.
Key noises samples.
Sustain pedal noises (up and down), triggered automatically.
Sostenuto (middle pedal).
Advanced midi controls.
Advanced UVI scripting giving you access to a simple yet powerfull interface and advanced features.
iLok or computer based
Registration
You can register your library to your computer or to an iLok key. All of our libraries are protected with the iLok system, and you can use our libraries with or without an iLok usb key. Both V1 and V2 iLok usb keys are working with our products. To authorize your library, you will need to download the iLok authorization manager from here: https://www.ilok.com/ilm.html and simply authorize your iLok key or your computer to use the library.
Once your order is complete, you will be provided with a serial number.
You will then be able to register it to your iLok account from our website on this page (you need to be logged in to access this page). The whole process is described in the FAQ (instructions + screencast).
You will then be able to register it to your iLok account from our website on this page (you need to be logged in to access this page). The whole process is described in the FAQ (instructions + screencast).
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