Downtown Grand Piano is a grand piano instrument that captures the essence of the city’s ambience by processing urban recordings as convolution samples for the reverb.
About the Piano
The acoustic grand piano was sampled using a total of seven microphones placed in five distinct locations to capture the best of the piano. The microphone positions used are as follows:
- Bass: A condenser microphone placed near the bass strings.
- Hammers: Stereo condenser microphones positioned in front of the hammers.
- Main: Ribbon microphones arranged in stereo in front of the soundboard.
- Room: Condenser microphones positioned six feet away from the piano.
- Back: A condenser microphone placed behind the piano seat.
Each microphone position has its own volume knob in the plugin.
City Recordings
To capture the sounds of the city, ZAK Sound used a stereo recorder to capture various sounds such as airplanes, squares, public works, motorcycles, trains, etc.
From these recordings, they selected the best samples to be used as convolution reverb, ultimately creating a plugin that integrates the piano with the cityscape.
In total there are 44 city samples that you can use as convolution reverb.
Presets
Downtown Grand Piano comes with 39 presets divided into the categories: ambient, city-based, and piano. You can also create your own categories and presets within the panel.
The ambient presets were created by removing the dry piano signal and experimenting with the wet signal of the convolution reverb. The city-based presets were created by blending the piano and convolution reverb signals to generate a hybrid sound. And the piano presets were exclusively designed using the samples from the acoustic grand piano.
Features
- Recorded at 44.1 kHz / 24 bit with seven microphones
- 6 gradual velocity layers for the piano
- Control for the piano’s hammer release
- The grand piano is made with 1800 samples
- 44 city sounds for convolution reverb
- 39 presets divided into three categories
- Saturation, reverb, stereo width, limiter, and delay effects.
- Customizable velocity curve
- Multi-band EQ, XY filters, lowpass, and highpass
System Requirements
Windows
- Compatible with Windows 7 / 8 / 10 / 11 (64 bit only)
- VST3
- 4GB RAM minimum (8GB RAM recommended)
- 2.8GB of free space
macOS
- Compatible with macOS 10.11 or higher (native Apple Silicon support)
- VST3/AU
- 4GB RAM minimum (8GB RAM recommended)
- 2.8GB of free space
Any references to any brands on this site/page, including reference to brands and instruments, are provided for description purposes only. For example references to instrument brands are provided to describe the sound of the instrument and/or the instrument used in the sample. Plugin Boutique do not have (nor do they claim) any association with or endorsement by these brands. Any goodwill attached to those brands rest with the brand owner. Plugin Boutique or its Suppliers do not accept any liability in relation to the content of the product or the accuracy of the description. "RHODES" is a registered trademark of Joseph A Brandstetter.