Mom’s 1974 Baby Grand
My mother's 1974 Wm. Knabe & Co. baby grand piano, captured to be enjoyed forever.


ByThe Imperfect Drummer
The story
THANK YOU for 7000 downloads!
My mother owns a 1974 Wm. Knabe & Co. baby grand piano that she bought new back in 1974. I grew up with this piano so for me it’s my baseline. Every other piano gets judged by this one. Knowing she’d eventually give it away or give it to my Brother who isn’t an easy day’s drive from me to be able to play, I wanted to get it sampled and see if I could reproduce it in a way that I can enjoy without having the real thing. I’m also looking forward to mom (who is nearly 80) getting a digital piano to replace the Knabe so I can hook her up with a copy of the instrument on her laptop and she can continue to enjoy the sound of “her” piano.
So, I packed up my Soundcraft Signature 12 MTK mixer/interface and a bunch of mics and headed to Ohio to get this thing sampled. I set the lid to its highest open position and used 8 mics: a borrowed AKG 414 set to omni mid-way back in the center, 2 cheap Behringer pencil mics with omni capsules mid way back in an x/y pattern (which were surprisingly quiet!), 2 sE 8 Cardioid mics pointed at the hammers in an X/Y pattern, an sE v7x pointed into one of the sound holes, an sE vKick up under the sound board closer to the lower notes and a Studio Projects C1 up on the stair landing behind the piano to get ambiance. In the end, the sE 8s just sounded the best (and clearly I had no idea what I was doing lol!). I may eventually add more mic layers you can mix in, but for now I just wanted to get this released. I also plan on releasing it in all the various sample player formats.
Over the years, age has worn on the piano. More recently my mom paid to have it reconditioned and the felts sanded down. The result is that it’s not an old, dead piano. To me, it’s got a beautiful tone and when you punch the hard layer, it really comes through. I may have processed and cleaned the samples too much, but so far, it sounds great in my tests. Certainly not a pro level, commercial sample, but very usable. When I compare it to some commercial pianos, I think it just feels more personal and real.
So now, you get to enjoy my childhood piano along with me. I hope you enjoy it!
Update: EXS24 velocity layers have been fixed in v 1.1
May 2023 update: NEW! Run Mom’s 1974 Baby Grand in Logic for iPad. Download the “Other” file (even though it’s a Logic project). You can now download a Consolidated Logic Pro project with Mom’s 1974 Baby Grand saved inside of it. This means you can use it natively inside Logic on the iPad without having to run Decent Sampler. Note that Logic for iPad does NOT support release triggers, so they simply don’t work.
July 2025 Update: I’ve updated the Decent Sampler version with a new interface and the addition of reverb controls. It’s also now packaged as a .dslibrary file so you can use it on an iPad easily.
I plan to update the Kontakt UI soon and to see if I can add reverb settings to that also.
I’ve also removed the extra DS files that Martin Russ, aka Synthesizerwriter had created for me. I may eventually put them back in the package, but for now they’re not there. I AM still leaving him as a contributor since he helped me so much-and as a way to keep the memory of him alive. His assistance in the DS version of this piano was invaluable and it helped me feel welcome in this community as a newbie at the time. He will be missed.
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Mom's 1974 Baby Grand Demo
Creating Mom's 1974 Baby Grand
Interface

Reviews
Simple, honest, and lovely
I just keep coming back to this piano, because it sounds like the ones I used to find in school hallways, grandma's living room, etc. It just has such good character as the creator says: "Age has worn the piano"
I'd say it is a unique piano with a great old-timey feel to it (putting it through a radio / tape / vinyl filter really is a wonderful combo).Superb
This is sublime, not least because it's a first-shot at making a Pianobook instrument.
So much effort was put into making this just the way he wanted. Immortalising such a personal instrument for your own use is one thing, but to then give that work away freely for everyone to enjoy is magical - just the way Pianobook is supposed to be.
Bravo.
(Editing my review just to add - this is 100% my go-to piano when I want to occupy myself. Chuck a bit of reverb on and I get totally lost in it. Thank you Brian!!!)
The sound is just delicious.
I absolutely love the sound of this piano. It has the imperfections and nuances similar to my own 60 year old living room piano and means I can have that feel of playing in the comfort of my home when I'm out of town with nothing but my laptop and midi keyboard. Thanks for the effort in posting this for all to share and enjoy.