Mini-review: Les Productions Zvon Baby Piano

There aren’t many companies that would take the time and effort to sample a busted up toy piano like the one Les Productions Zvon used for the Baby Piano sample library.

This poor toy piano has clearly seen better days…

Daniel writes:

I found it at a flea market and it obviously has seen better days. There are 2 keys missing, its casing is worn out and there are loose parts in it. The sound is not even from one key to another partly because the mechanism of some keys is damaged and it’s also not in tune.

It’s nonetheless lovely and its sound begged to be sampled. I did not stop there and I also created 15 unique resynthesized sounds from the original samples. These can be used as electric pianos, keys and/ or bells.

Baby Piano includes a total of 18 programs and 12 sounds (349 samples). A free Baby Piano set is available to download from the Les Productions Zvon website. This freebie includes 6 programs and 5 sounds from the complete set.

Here are some audio demos.

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So what do I think?

Baby Piano sounds exactly like you would expect: a broken, fragile sounding toy piano. It’s a perfect example of how something one might consider to be trash can still be used to create some lovely instruments.

The synthesized instruments are nice — perhaps even more useful — but I enjoyed the acoustic sounds the most. The typical toy piano sound may not have that many applications, but I find it inspiring.

Baby Piano can be had for as cheap as $2 USD, which I think is a steal. With donations of $10 USD or more you get an additional set called Baby Bells, good for another 4 resynthesized sounds in 9 programs (101 samples).

Make sure to download the free Baby Piano set and see how you like it.

More information: Les Productions Zvon / Baby Piano