#VIENNA SYMPHONIC LIBRARY PLAYING BIG BAND MUSIC FREE#
Bösendorfer (who, conveniently, are also based in Vienna) loaned it to VSL for two months, during which time it was intensively recorded in the Silent Stage, a location so free of background noise it's rumoured that if you hold your breath and concentrate hard you can actually hear your own hair growing.Ī significant difference between this concert grand and the one featured in VSL's Bösendorfer Imperial is that this piano was fitted with Bösendorfer's CEUS recording apparatus - the system uses optical sensors, microprocessors and electro‑magnetic controls to track and replicate hammer and pedal movements, enabling pianists' performances to be recorded and played back with great accuracy.
This particular instrument has a proud concert history and is in demand by pianists Paul Badura‑Skoda, Roland Batik, Paul Gulda and others. The piano chosen for this project was a nine‑foot, 97‑key Bösendorfer Imperial 290‑755. The Bösendorfer 290‑755 Imperial grand sits in splendid isolation at VSL's Silent Stage. The piano went down well with the company's fan base, but VSL weren't content to leave it at that: their new, somewhat confusingly‑named Vienna Imperial brings you the same make and model of piano sampled at - are you sitting down? - up to 100 dynamic levels, a staggering figure which represents a 500 percent technical improvement on other sound companies' best efforts to date.Ĭoming from a rock background where most musicians operate at only three dynamics (loud, ****ing loud and off), accurately distinguishing between 100 dynamic levels seems a tall order to me, but VSL managed to do it with a little bit of technological back‑up from the piano's makers, which I've explained below. Vienna Symphonic Library first entered the sampled piano fray in 2006 with Bösendorfer Imperial (reviewed in the May 2007 issue of SOS). More recently, Quantum Leap Pianos upped the ante by sampling four leading makes of piano at up to 18 dynamic levels from three mic positions, resulting in a massive 35‑DVD collection. Over the last five years, manufacturers such as Best Service, Post Musical Instruments and Synthogy (makers of 'Ivory') rose to the challenge of replicating the instrument by recording samples at between eight and 16 dynamic levels in both pedal‑up and pedal‑down versions. In musical terms, one of the chief beneficiaries has been the notoriously difficult‑to‑sample acoustic piano. Liberated by sample disk‑streaming, fast computers and capacious hard drives, sound companies today are free to sample instruments in unprecedented detail. Could this be the ultimate sampled grand? The new piano from VSL takes dynamic sampling to a new level.
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