Continuing the Blueprint series, Fracture Sounds’ latest free sound library is Toy Piano, compatible with Kontakt Player.
In previous articles, we covered Greenhead Chimes, Festive Bells, and Textural Violin libraries. All of these are free libraries for Kontakt Player.
Toy Piano is the 6th library of the series, and it features, as you may have guessed, the sampled sounds of a vintage toy piano.
Honestly, I’m a big fan of these pocket-sized Kontakt libraries, which offer great sounds with a small number of controls while still being light on disk space.
Toy Piano was created using close miking in a stereo configuration in a dry studio and has controls available in the Faulkner Dulcichord, an instrument that was part of a previous Fracture Sounds release called Trails by Alexander Parsons.
The interface is minimalist but effective. On the main page of the instrument, you’ll find fine knobs: Damping, Key Clicks, Broken Tuning, Reverb, and Atmosphere.
The Damping knob dampens the release of the sample being played. When turned all the way up, the sound fades immediately.
The Key Clicks knob controls the volume of the instrument’s key noise, which is part of its charm.
The Broken Tuning knob detunes the instrument’s keys independently to replicate the natural detuning that occurs as an instrument ages, resulting in an almost out-of-tune sound when fully turned.
This can be used to great effect if you are a fan of the LoFi aesthetic.
The Reverb parameter adds reverberation to the dry signal, and if you click on the gear icon, there are more controls to customize the effect.
You can choose between Hall and Room as the reverb type, and also adjust the Size, Damping and Mod parameters.
The Atmosphere control on the far right of the instrument window is a special one.
It’s a Fracture Sound feature that adds an atmospheric layer to the original toy piano sound.
By pressing the S button, you can solo this added layer.
Clicking on the cog icon to the left of Toy Piano brings up the settings page with controls for Tightness, Velocity Response and even an Extended Range switch.
The latter adds 7 semitones of playable range not available on the original sampled instrument, resulting in a 3-octave range.
Toy Piano also offers NKS support and is compatible with the free Kontakt Player engine.
Download: Toy Piano (FREE after subscribing to the Fracture Sounds newsletter)
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