Toy Grand Piano

Raw, imperfect inspiration from a Toy Grand Piano

Byericbelvin

The story

A few years ago my kids were gifted a toy piano for Christmas, and at this point I’ve probably spent more time playing it than they have. I enjoy the way it rings out and the mechanical sounds of pressing each key.

I recently became interested in learning to script in Kontakt, and I thought this was a good project to start with. I wanted to capture the raw, imperfect quality of the instrument while also providing a way to quickly manipulate the sound. I created six modules where you can control release samples, pitch shift, filters, chorus, delay, and reverb. For instance, pitching the notes an octave down, adding some low pass filtering, chorus and reverb quickly creates a cinematic feel.

I recorded three round robins in three dynamic levels, and three round robins for the releases in two dynamic levels.

Reviews

  • The ultimate toy piano!

    As the owner of a toy piano, I know what this samplist was talking about when they mentioned that they'd probably spent more time playing it than their kids had! This library perfectly captures all of the weird quirks of toy pianos, and provides a pretty much perfect palette of tools to shape those sounds, including high and low pass filters, tempo synced delay, reverb, chorus, easy control over release samples, and even an octave pitch shifter. I couldn't have created a better toy piano library if I'd tried. Bravo!

    โ€” Sam EcoffCreator on 30 October 2021
  • One of the best toy pianos!

    The sampling is trully well done, the GUI is one of the best I've seen in the entire Pianobook, and the sound is actually pretty cute, and not too creepy. There are only 2,5 octaves though, and the lower one is not that well defined, since you hear a lot of the higher resonances.

    In the amazing GUI though you can find some awesome options that can turn this thing into an SFX machine.

    You really need to test it by yourself in order to understand it. Highly recommended!

    โ€” Alex Raptakis on 01 December 2021
  • Awesome Characterful Instrument

    This is a really nice toy piano. The sound is childish and characterful and has alot of mechanical noise and other noise that gives it alot of character. The range is fairly limited but thats just because of how the instrument is made. The GUI is also really well done and gives you a-lot of different ways to alter the sound with effects. This is a fun sound to mess around with and feels very realistic. great job

    โ€” septemberwalk on 04 November 2021
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