Midiwood Bluthner Style 6 v1.3 Lite Edition Kontakt [FREE]

SAMPLED IN SHIMMERING DETAIL

The old family piano. It comes to me now after the passing of my mother on March 16th 2020. She was diagnosed with ASL 6 months earlier. On that night she is in her bed, unable to speak, struggling for air. A ventilator, pressing oxygen to her failing lungs, hisses and puffs. Its soft timely heaving, devastatingly peaceful. The Piano is right next to her and I want to play something for her but somehow I just can’t.

Later I wish I had given myself to that.

This 1913 piano is also showing its age. It has a cracked frame but still holds it’s tuning. In the months after her passing the idea of sampling this piano begins to obsess in me. I want to remember its sound long after it is gone. It is only later that I realise, this is my catharsis.

I have samples every note in five velocity layers, pedal up and pedal down and all of it again with the soft pedal engaged. There are two mic positions utilising three mics each.

Outside (far left on the mic dial) was recorded with two PDA 4001’s for wide stereo and an SE3300 for mono fill placed just above the keyboard almost inside the hammers with the keyboard lid removed. This is an attempt to try capture the sound of the piano as I remember it.

Inside (far right on the mic dial) was receded with two AKG C414’s in XY with a The TUL F47 is modelled on the Neumann U47 FET built by Tully McCullagh in Cape Town as mono fill. The inside mics have a much closer stereo field but a beautiful clear attack which compliments the outside array.

The Blüthner Style 6 GUI is simply elegant
Three main knobs control key and pedal noise, mic position and dynamics respectively.

The reverb and delay master knobs control the amount of reverb and delay in your mix.

The Soft Pedal button switches between Soft Pedal on or off. The Soft pedal or Una Corda (One string) gives a muted felt tone to the notes and is hauntingly quiet.