FAQ

Email [email protected] Christian can only answer Pianobook related topics on this email.

There are a wide range of tools available for noise reduction. Christian currently uses iZotope RX (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U884fIki_jY). The community have also recommended Brusfri by Klevgrand, NS1 by Waves, NR in Audacity, Audition in Adobe Creative Cloud and FL Studio also has noise reduction capabilities (the community recommended this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1CyFNoAWZc).

Ableton’s Sampler can import ESX and (non-encrypted) Kontakt files. If you choose to use Ableton Sampler then please provide the raw samples so that others can build Kontakt and ESX24 version.

Yes! You can download it here: bit.ly/2BDgYxX

Alway provide a clean, as recorded, sample. If possible provide noise reduced samples (with the same names as the clean so they can be “sample swapped” with the original should we need to do something post production).

Please use a different directory for “original” and “NR” (noise reduced) samples. Name each sample with the note being played, ensuring you use only sharp “#” symbols rather than flat “b” symbols (as many tools only automatically recognise the sharp symbol when importing).

Pianobook will be a collection of acoustic or electro acoustic piano – anything that fits this classification is worth sampling!

Before sampling a piano please get permission from the owner. Sampling of a piano in a public place is likely to be very difficult due to likely background noise. That said – if you can get permission to record at a quiet time then why not try and see how the results come out?

Raw samples are fine, however it’s very hard to know if the samples themselves will be useable until they have been constructed into a virtual instrument. Have a go loading your samples into a sampler and submit the instrument with the samples. If you don’t have access to a sampler, reach out to the community […]

The playing style should be relatively standard, however you may wish to try preparing the piano, adding felt or other materials to alter the characteristics.

For consistency please sample the piano in a cycle of 5ths in two dynamic layers, no round robins, with release triggers and with the sustain pedal engaged. You can download a template to help with the sampling here: bit.ly/2BDgYxX Watch Christian’s video where he uses the template here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nUa8Rkxkk4

For consistency of this project please use 48kHz, 24 bit, WAV

Yes! Pianos in the library may be submitted in particular formats (e.g. ESX24, Kontakt) and so one way to contribute might be to create versions of the samples in different formats. You may also be able to offer up support recording the piano of other member’s of the community who lack the equipment to do […]

Most recordings of pianos make use of one or more stereo pairs of condenser microphones – anything from a pair of large diaphragm Neumanns, through to Aston Spirit microphones, to a simple pair of small diaphragm condensers. Whilst Condenser microphones are typically used, you could get great results from something like a Shure SM58. Microphone […]

A pair of microphones (or a stereo mic), an audio interface or digital recorder and some form of audio editing tool (e.g. Pro Tools, Logic Pro X, Cubase, Ableton, FL Studio, Digital Performer or any other DAW).

A key aspect of Pianobook is to encourage people to get into sampling. Christian’s tutorials aim to provide everyone with the information needed to successfully sample their own piano. This said, Christian would like to come sample some of the community’s pianos and hear more about their stories. The best way to make this happen […]

Yes! Check out our new forum here.

There are NO restrictions on their use (except selling them on as your own samples) and YES you can use them in commercial projects. Let us know when you do!

This is because you’re using Native Instruments Kontakt PLAYER library. This is freeware licensed by 3rd party sample manufacturers to host their sample libraries. In order to run free samples made here you need the FULL version of Kontakt, HOWEVER, if you already own the player you can get a crossgrade HERE.

Most of our samples are available either as Kontakt (a Native Instruments application and the most popular sampling platform on the planet today) or EXS24 (the easy to use native sampler inside Apple’s Logic Pro) but the community is expanding this range to include emerging free applications.

The aim of Pianobook is to build a really inspiring set of piano-inspired tools. I hope to have a really big selection of pianos but balance this so the library isn’t oppressively huge. I would like to treat the library like a detailed string library with different articulations mapped to different patches. With many different […]

Pianobook is in two parts: very light, unprocessed pianos and then these piano processed through all sorts of effects and modular synthesis. Over the coming weeks we, as a community, will try to establish what will be an acceptable minimum viable product (MVP) for Pianobook.