The Requested PIano

So, one of the things most asked of me (from an admittedly small sample) is a decent additional piano to go with the usual go-to orchestras options of NotePerformer, Sibelius 7 Sounds or BBC SO.

Native Instruments' Kontakt library "Grandeur" fits the bill nicely: it's included with all versions of Komplete, which many people have bought in hope and then maybe not used very much. I've used Komplete quite a lot, but there are so many of them! 

"The Grandeur" only has one patch: "The Grandeur". So you'd think my Sound Set would only have one patch as well. But like most sample libraries, there's a ton of options under the hood to tweak. The problem, as I see it, is that tweaking requires a lot more knowledge of how the tweaks you can make affect the creative use of the sound. This is something I've seen a lot: they deliver the power, and then just dump you in it expecting you to swim.

I see it as my job to be a bit of a guide, and to do the hard work so you don't have to: it takes me a lot more time when I could just do a lazy job: but creatively it's a lot more useful.

So, I've prepared patches for it, divided into "Live" (generally a solo piano, complete with tweaks and noises), "Studio" (designed to fit around other sounds) and "FX" for more luxurious use. 

For instance, here's the FX patches:

The Modwheel distance patch is very interesting - the modwheel is attached to pretty much everything that makes the sound harder, more resonant and further away. When in Sibelius I attach the attack of that patch to the modwheel, it should be very interesting!

The "live" patches are all designed for the piano to stand out:

And the studio ones are designed to better fit into busy mixes and have no pedal/string/damper noise.

So there you go. Almost there, but I have to refine my delivery code for patch subfolders!