This upright piano belongs to my mother who wanted to learn the piano when she was a kid but gave up really quickly.
It has been at my parent’s house for almost 30 years and has never been tuned since.
2 years ago, I started to develop sample libraries and always wanted to record this unstable beauty one day.
3 weeks ago, I gave it a shot and here is result.

I used a pair of Neumann KM184 and put a blanket between the strings and the hammers for a very gentle sound. 3 dynamics layers have been recorded as well as release triggers and pedal noises.
Play C#-2 and you’ll see there’s also a silent room recording for an extra realism when mixing.

To add interest to the sound, I also decided to create 2 more layers for blending with the piano one.
The first one is the piano recording processed in Logic and played back thru a Tascam Portastudio 414 MKII and driven thru a Boss KM60 mixer.
The second one holds a special place in my heart because it is the first instrument I bought when I decided to create my company. It is a cheap Chord Organ from Lorenzo. It is very noisy when powered on but is so beautiful when used as a pad with lots of reverb.

I hope you will like this instrument as much as I like creating it
Alex Raynaud