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 for The Gaffer
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Gaffer "fixes" everything
I'm not normally one for "prepared piano" - apart from maybe a little felt - but this is stonking. At 'p' you can tell it's a piano but it sounds "palm muted", rise to "mf" and it almost sounds like a percussion or string blend and at "f" everything from guitar to slap to "fret noise" depending where you play. A great, percussive instrument and the icing on the cake is the GUI. Dial in just the right about of "pitched" extras, balance the mics and some splosh and finally, finally we have control over those release samples and pedal noise. YES!
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.
I get it now
Had to come back to this one a few times before really appreciating it. I really like it now and cant wait to use it in something. It has an amazing character all of its own.
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.
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.
