The story
Over 10 years ago, Christian sampled a felted piano for “Secret of the Moonacre” and subsequently made it available through Spitfire Labs as “Soft Piano”. In 2019, the team a Spitfire Audio tracked down the same piano, a Yamaha U3, and sampled it at the hall in Air studios as part of an upcoming Spitfire library. The piano was recorded with massive range of microphones (Neumann M49s, Soyuz 017, Coles 4038s, Schoeps MK4s, Sontronics Apollo 2, AEA 44s, Neuman M50s and Schoeps Boundary Layer Micropones “Stingrays”).
This special Pianobook version was sampled in a cycle of fifths in two dynamic layers and a range of microphones can be selected, along with special mixes by Jake Jackson.
Check out the video of the recording session at Air Studios below, and a video about the challenges I had making an alpha Kontakt version…
Reviews for Air Piano
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Simple and warm, another beautiful textured piano!
Beautiful piano! I am still new to the DS interface, but you will have many choices of microphone - you can have the sound of your choice. As always sound is amazing and it will add a great addition to the piano library selection.
Mic'd out of your mind.
Splendid playable piano purposefully recorded through a microphone wonderland.
If you like options, this is the piano for you!
If you're someone who likes playing with lots of mic signals and balancing them just right to craft your own mix, this is definitely the first piano you should check out on the PB website. It ranks amongst the best recorded instruments on the site. It's a great instrument recorded in a phenomenal hall with perfectly positioned mics that would make anyone jealous. If you start getting really particular, you'll notice that there is some unevenness from zone to zone. In particular, the transition from G2 to G#2 in the close mics isn't very smooth, but once you blend in other mics, it's far less obvious. Overall, this is a really great instrument, and definitely worth checking out!
Really excellent recordings from tonnes of mics
Beautiful piano to start with, coupled with exceptional recording leaves us with these incredible sampled instruments of which there are 10 options to choose from! Hard to fault this one.
Be sure to check out the extras!
This piano has a lovely little sound, although it may seem that it lacks clarity a little. The key noise is very prominent and you can't do anything about it. Although Christian has created much more intimate sounding instruments, this may sit better for you. Apparently this works wonders with the "Layers for Air Piano", but be sure to replace some files with the "clean" ones.
