What's new

Embertone Releases: Walker 1955 Steinway 'D'

Embertone

Senior Member
Happy Thursday VIC Friends!

When we embarked on this sampling journey about 12 million years ago, we thought sampling a piano would be "easy". What a relief that we don't have to worry about LEGATO for once!



We were so, so, wrong. Down the rabbit hole we went! ...capturing this unique and beautiful instrument in as much detail as possible. And nearly 150,000 samples later, we have our flagship piano: https://www.embertone.com/instruments/steinwayD.php (Walker 1955 Steinway 'D'). A massive, gorgeous 9-foot beauty. Here are some features:

- 36 velocities per note
- All Pedal combinations sampled
- 10,000 discrete and authentic adaptive release samples
- Dedicated set of real and highly addictive staccato samples
- 6 mic positions, available 'a la carte' for $15/each

Default
Mics: AKG C414 XLS, ORTF Stereo
Position: 2 ft off the side lip at the curve of the piano.
Qualities: Balanced piano/room tone with a beautiful twinkly high register and tamed low end. Vibrant and hearty with enough air space to breathe.

Close
Mics: Neumann U87, A/B Stereo (Omni)
Position: 6 in off the strings
Qualities: Extremely intimate and warm with very little room ambience. Rich with string reverberance while capturing all the subtle mechanical sounds.

Hammer
Mics: Superlux S241/U3, X/Y Stereo
Position: 1 ft above pointed directly at the hammers.
Qualities: Punchy and percussive dynamics, great for pop/rock music.

Room
Mics: Schoeps CMC 6, A/B Stereo (Cardioid)
Position: 6 ft away 8ft high, pointing towards the inside of the lid from the audience perspective.
Qualities: More room ambience and reverb coloration while allowing the piano to fully resonate into the room. Great for achieving a traditional/classical sound in a concert hall or recital setting.

Wide Perspective
Mics: Modified Oktava Mk012, A/B Stereo (Omni)
Position: 1 ft from the piano at the player’s perspective, spaced at the full width of the keyboard.
Qualities: An experimental mic pair capturing an ultra-wide stereo image with a unique and enveloping character.

Binaural Perspective
Mics: Stereo binaural dummy head (affectionately named Bruce)
Position: 2ft from the the keyboard at the player’s perspective.
Qualities: Realistic spatialization, especially when listened through headphones.

https://www.embertone.com/instruments/steinwayD.php (<script class="js-extraPhrases" type="application/json"> { "lightbox_close": "Close", "lightbox_next": "Next", "lightbox_previous": "Previous", "lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.", "lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow", "lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow", "lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen", "lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails", "lightbox_download": "Download", "lightbox_share": "Share", "lightbox_zoom": "Zoom", "lightbox_new_window": "New window", "lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar" } </script> <div class="bbImageWrapper js-lbImage" title="stacks-image-a83486b.png" data-src="https://www.embertone.com/index_files/stacks-image-a83486b.png" data-lb-sidebar-href="" data-lb-caption-extra-html="" data-single-image="1"> <img src="https://www.embertone.com/index_files/stacks-image-a83486b.png" data-url="https://www.embertone.com/index_files/stacks-image-a83486b.png" class="bbImage" data-zoom-target="1" style="" alt="stacks-image-a83486b.png" title="" width="" height="" /> </div>)
1955 Steinway D offers great depth of user control as well. We know that some people do not need 36 velocities per note, whether it’s because of the style of music or RAM limitations, so our instrument allows for full sample sets and specific velocities to be disabled and purged from memory. We also offer a number of customized effects such as EQ, Compression, Dynamic + Velocity Control, and some custom mastering coloration should you chose to use it. This allows you ultimate control over your sound!

... and it's available with early bird pricing for a limited time. Learn more at our website and have a great day!

<3

Alex and Jonathan
 
Out of the Blue...and it sounds nice! Also appreciate the a-la carte pricing...

Would like some demos of the different mic positions though...and some video demos please...
 
Last edited:
And here I was, doing so well with not coveting any new library!!

Rach Prelude's Eb Major's last chord's sustain begs for more demos of that type. Long sustained chords allowing the soundboard's work to be revealed. Grateful for the pricing, too, and those added mics.

Well done! Let us know when you have more demos (not of the classical type, although if this is your niche I understand).
 
This looks crazy good. I cannot imagine how much work this involved. Well, I can. It's mind-boggling. I hope no-one has developed RSI at Embertone. 150,000 samples, 10,000 release samples, 36 velocities per note...! Jeepers creepers! Love Embertone!
 
Am intrigued! Have a few questions:
- How long is the early bird pricing period?
- Which mics were used in each of the demo tracks?
- Will there be more demo tracks and a walkthrough during the early bird period?

Thanks for these questions. Yes!

- The early bird period will be about 2 weeks.
- All demos so far use only the AKG/Main mic. I am working on another demo that will be rendered separately for all the mic positions so that everyone can hear the difference.
- We are editing the walkthrough video now... and more demos to come. Thanks!

-Alex
 
There has been some confusion about mic positions — especially concerning how much disk space. I’ll clarify here and will be updating the website with better info!

- Mic positions are “a la carte” and available only for the full (not lite) product

- each mic position takes up roughly 30GB- about 24,000 samples per mic position

- we will update the site shortly with better audio demos to showcase and describe each mic position.

Thanks!
 
Hmm. I bought the full version, but Connect only downloads the AKG_Sus_6 and part of AKG_Sus_5 before it just... goes away? It doesn't say anything about crashing, the app just disappears and downloading stops with it. This is with v3.2.4. Haven't seen that before. Is there a way to manually download? It's crashed 5 or 6 times in a row. This is on Win 10 pro 64bit.

Edit* In case anyone experiences anything similar, I changed a setting in Connect to just "Download" instead of "Download and Install" and things are downloading without incident. I've not had Connect try to Download and Install at the same time before. It used to download everything and then install, this was trying to unpack and install at the same time the download was still going.
 
Last edited:
Hmm. I bought the full version, but Connect only downloads the AKG_Sus_6 and part of AKG_Sus_5 before it just... goes away? It doesn't say anything about crashing, the app just disappears and downloading stops with it. This is with v3.2.4. Haven't seen that before. Is there a way to manually download? It's crashed 5 or 6 times in a row. This is on Win 10 pro 64bit.

Not sure. I’ll check in with Stu about this. In the meantime please email us your request if you haven’t already

support @ Embertone dot com
 
Top Bottom