CineSamples Abbey Road Classic Upright Pianos

The Abbey Road Classic Upright Pianos features the sound of two famous vintage pianos used by The Beatles:

• A Challen Studio Piano manufactured in the 1930’s by Piano Works in London, which sound is described as mellow. The team produced two patches, one with the standard piano sound and the other, called Tack, with the tack mechanism activated (brass tips are lowered between the hammers and the strings, which changes the sound of the instrument)
• Mrs Mills, a 1905 Steinway Vertegrand modified by the Abbey Road team in the late 50s to lacquer the hammer felts in order to harden them and create a brighter and more percussive sounds (as heard on Penny Lane or With a Little Help from my Friend). This piano is slightly detuned, as requested by Stuart Eltham.

The pianos were recorded in the Studio 2. The Kontakt GUI offers three mixes that can be used simultaneously: Modern with three pairs of condenser mics, Room with a Decca Tree mic setup and a pair of ambience mics, and Vintage that uses the same microphones as in The Beatles’ setup: AKG D19c cardioid dynamic microphone, Neumann U67 and AKG C12 cardioid condenser models and the original REDD.37 console.

It also features a velocity curve control, an effect section comprising EQ, stereo width, saturation and filters that you can adjust separately for each mix, and Sample Start, Release and Pedal Noise knobs.

Abbey Road Classic Upright Pianos will be available on April 9th, it will require Kontakt 5.3.1 and later. Information is already online at cinesamples.com.