On March 29th, Christian Henson of Spitfire Audio celebrated piano day and the third anniversary of Pianobook with the release of three new piano instrument libraries.
The Experience by Dore Mark is a Mason & Hamlin Model A recorded binaurally from 3 player perspectives, while Alex Raynaud’s Midnight Upright piano was recorded with a blanket between the strings and the hammers for a very gentle sound.
Aiming to topple the LABS series Soft Piano as “most intimate piano ever”, Christian himself created the Claustrophobic Piano.
It’s taken many goes over these last 14 years and my trusty Schimmel has to have become one of the most sampled pianos in sampling history but…. I settled on a pair of Neumann M149s and a KU100 binaural “dummy head” mic, all jammed right into the sound box of the piano THEN… A duvet over the back of them to keep them in the piano and not feel like you were in the room at all.
Then I summed them through one of the ugliest bits of tech I have ever lay my eyes on. Find out more in the youtube video I made about it.
Available in Kontakt and DecentSampler formats, the Claustrophobic Piano is a free download at Pianobook, where you’ll also find the other two pianos and many more free sample libraries.