The Gaffer
What did my piano ever do to deserve this???...
The story
The gaffer is my trusty (and ever so slightly abused) Schimmel upright with gaffer tape (aka duct tapes) all over the strings. The result “beguiling”. Recorded using the monolith system with pair of Neumann m149s a Binaural Head to give you a signal that makes you feel you’re there sitting on my lap and finally a processed signal which…. Well it’s interesting. Check out the film I made about it below.
Reviews
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Very characteristic instrument!
So interesting!!! Each sound has a little distorted and dissonant sound mixed, which adds an interesting effect to the music. Not easily mixed with other libraries, so I think I would like to use it solo :
Beauty lies in the imperfections...
The Gaffer isn't my favourite piano from Christian, and for me the end result doesn't sound much like I imagined, nor how it seemed to sound when he first tested it out in his video. However there's lots to like here, particularly with the binaural head. The subtle imperfections of some of the keys highlight the character of the instrument.
Lots of Character!
This piano has a lot of character! With a little bit of tweaking you can get this instrument to sound pretty great. The natural sounds of the performance and pedal sounds are a solid inclusion, giving this instrument more realism as if you were in the room yourself. This may not be for everyone, but it is possibly be something you were missing and never realised.
A Piano with Real Character
A perfectly imperfect sound, wow. I love the binaural mics you used to record this piano and the sense of ambience created by the pedal and hammer noise, the hammer release is just so subtly beautiful. The inconsistencies between each note really play to the instruments favour and make it perfect for live playing as opposed to prewritten midi. The piano almost has a synth plucky feel but which such character. The GUI is great and gives you control over 3 mic signals as well as pedal volume and some other effects. Do beware of the buzzy sound which is present between the Bb2 and C3 keys.
Quirky Little Fella
Very quirky vibe! The pitch warble def is what makes it. It reminds me of the waiting lobby of a Mario game and I mean that in the BEST possible way. Super fun.
Unique sound but not for me
I personally couldn't fit the sound of this instrument into my style but i think there would get some nice use out of it. It has like a honky resonant character I'm just not that into. I think it could work though drenched in reverb as kind of a drone type thing
Embrace your gut instinct
At first I thought of it as a little joke, but after playing with it a little bit, I started seeing, or rather, hearing its potential. Personally, I haven't heard of such a piano before. Well, maybe we shouldn't see it as a piano in the first place. This is possibly the result of a deep emotion that Christian was holding for a long time. And while I am a big hater of piano abuse, I am glad that he took that feeling and did something creative with it. That's what we all need to do after all. That's the definition of an artist. Now, regarding the instrument, I can see this fitting in deeply dramatic sequences and in some horror soundtracks for sure. The GUI fits Christians typical style, which just works. There are 3 microphone options, reverb and effect knobs, and some other stuff. You can even completely disable the notes themselves to only get the noise. I have no other words for this. Thank you Christian.
Imperfect As It Should Be
This is, Shocker, A character piano. A lot of fun for a slightly imperfect feeling, especially when given a little filtering and saturation or made to feel like an old recording. It is a great example of what you can do by changing something simple. The articulation in some of the mid high notes especially has my adoration. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting something that captures a mood or feeling.
Not pretending to be pretty
This is not one of those pianos where you play a beautiful chord, note by note, and listen as the sound waves slowly glide over your eardrums. No. This is the one that couldn't care less if you ate pancakes in the morning or spilled coffee on the console. It's up to you to figure out a way to make her work. If you manage to do that, you will be greeted with sounds that pack a different kind of emotion, one that you could never get from the "pretty".
One of my favorite samples
When I saw the video and heard the sound I immediately wanted to write music with it. I really liked the sound of the felt. I love the sound of Dave, not so much the sound of the M149, and the top three notes have a weird sound that happens when you play them. Other than that it's one of my favorite instruments on pianobook.
Binaural is Best, maybe?
Ok, so I love the sound of this, I love the character it has, however a few caveats do remain. Bb2-C3 have a very buzzy quality that I'm not particularly a fan of, and the instrument doesn't play very well with pre-written MIDI, it definitely responds better to being played live. However, it is extremely unique, and everything in the GUI responds how you expect it should. I'm not certain that I would use this in my personal music, but it is a fantastically made instrument.
