The Emperor & King

A Bechstein upright from the late 1800s recorded with a Sontronics Apollo 2 stereo ribbon mic.

ByChris Cook

The story

“The Emperor and King

C. Bechstein Upright – Hof-Lieferant Sr.Maj.des Kaisers u.Königs (supplier of the Emperor and King).

Our Bechstein dates back to the late 1800s, is in wonderful condition and has an incredibly warm tone. Having had the piano for around six months I decided to sample it for the PianoBook as it has given me a new creative pallet.

The mics have helped to capture a depth to the piano and consist of a pair of Sontronics Orpheus in a spaced close mic position as well as a Sontronics Apollo 2 stereo ribbon mic using the Gary ‘Barlow’ technique, positioned just above my head; thanks Christian and Gary! The signals go through a UA Apollo 8p interface without any processing applied.

The felt is attached to an old curtain rail using double sided tape. A small corner of felt is also tagged to each end of the rail to reduce any vibrations from the piano.

I would love to know if some of you can make use of it as I’m considering re-sampling with more velocity layers, with and without felt.”

Reviews

  • takes me back

    This reminds me of where I grew up, Asheville NC...absolutely Beautiful ..:)

    ule on 06 April 2023
  • top

    I only know the chords and just noodle about with tracks to give the impression I can play piano. This is lovely

    Steve on 09 November 2022
  • Perfectly Awesome!

    As a pianist, samplist, and as someone with a tiny little bit of knowledge about piano maintenance, thing, and repair, I'm pretty picky about piano samples -- as my other reviews will attest. I can find almost nothing which could be changed or improved about this library, however. It's immaculately recorded, it sounds beautiful, and it's so very playable. I will admit that there are some very tiny inconsistencies in the trimming of the starts of the samples. I love this library so much that I went through and edited them to be all consistently tight because I love this library so much. This is probably my all-time favorite felted piano on the entire site.

    Sam EcoffCreator on 09 November 2021
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