Sonic Atoms has released Novel Piano, an upright piano sound library for the free HALion Sonic SE plugin by Steinberg.
Novel Piano is an impressively good sounding upright piano sample library powered by the freeware HALion Sonic SE plugin. The library is the first virtual instrument released by Sonic Atoms. The creators sampled a modern upright piano in a relatively small studio space, resulting in an intimate-sounding virtual piano. The instrument was recorded both with and without the mute pedal.
See also: 99Sounds Releases FREE Upright Piano VST/AU PluginThe recording engineers paid special attention to capture the subtle nuances of the sampled piano. The instrument was recorded with an array of seven microphones. The soundboard was recorded with a pair of closely positioned mics, while the low-end character was captured with another microphone positioned just above the ground. In addition, a pair of room microphones were used to capture the sound from the player’s perspective and another two microphones were placed five meters from the piano to record the room tone.
The samples were carefully edited and denoised. The multi-channel recordings were mixed to stereo in order to reduce the CPU and RAM usage when plating the instrument. The instrument is powered by Steinberg’s free HALion Sonic SE plugin. Register for a free Steinberg user account to download your free copy of the plugin.
I have to mention that Novel Piano’s interface is one of the most beautiful-looking GUI designs I’ve seen in a long while. The pastel color palette is calm and soothing, the moody background photo fits the vibe perfectly, and the subtle stained effect looks spot-on. Great job, whoever designed Novel Piano.
As for the functionality, the on-screen controls will let you adjust the release time, tonal balance, and the reverb mix. The instrument includes three different patches (Novel Piano, Scoring Piano, Fairy Tale Piano). Each preset is based on a different set of samples.
Novel Piano can be downloaded completely free of charge from the Sonic Atoms website. Find more instruments in our article about free piano VST plugins.
More info: Novel Piano (202 MB download size, ZIP archive, requires HALion Sonic SE)
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