Church Steinway
Steinway Model D recorded in a church in Glasgow.
The story
I’m a Glasgow based producer/composer called Richard Luke and was scoring a short animated film using this great Steinway Model D Concert Grand, located in a nearby church in Glasgow. I decided to have a crack at sampling it which is my first foray into piano sampling (thanks pianobook) It’s delicate and glassy and you can really sense the acoustic of the space it was recorded in.
Reviews
An Underrated Beauty with a Stunning Natural Ambience
This piano is a truly underrated gem, and I absolutely love it. I’ve downloaded almost every piano on Pianobook, and this one easily belongs in my top three favorites.
It’s especially well suited for pieces like Peace Piece by Bill Evans, coming surprisingly close to that intimate, expressive sound. The natural reverb of the church is the real highlight, because it adds a depth and warmth that simply can’t be replicated with digital reverb.
The playability feels very natural and inspiring. The soft dynamics could be slightly improved, but the piano’s beautiful character and the rich room ambience more than make up for it. I keep coming back to this piano, which makes it an easy 5 out of 5 for me.
A solid sweet piano
This is a sweet little piano that can win many hearts. I love the soothing character it has while not being a felt piano. It is also dynamic and very responsive. If you push it too much you might start getting some white noise, so in that regard it can surely be improved. I find the default release way too short, but luckily it was easily adjustable via the correlated knob. It's also always a welcome addition to have release triggers separated and fully controllable. Nice! If you are using SFZ, you will need to either download the EXS or the DecentSampler package, since that's where the samples are.
Underappreciated; Beautiful
Okay, it's simple.
Fine, there's no GUI.
And yet I still consider this to be one of the most usable pianos on Pianobook.It's full of character and the room ambience in the samples is just right.
I don't think I'd ever use this as a solo-piece instrument, but when you only need a piano that sits well among other instruments, this always--and I mean always--works.