Instant Gratification
Load the first 32 Meg, f/m/p velocity split piano listed in the disc's directory into your sampler. Find your favorite music CD, pop it in, bring it up and start jamming along. Notice how well this piano sits in almost any track and fills out the stereo field. Try a few different programs, then simply play and enjoy!

Anthony Harris
on Double Platinum Rock Piano

The black hole of recording with samples is acoustic rock piano. With most sampled pianos, you create a great rockin' track, add a few instruments and gradually the piano turns to mush before your ears. Over the years, I've been plagued by this problem. I've rented or purchased over 31 synths and sound modules looking for that stand-out acoustic piano, and though many are "acceptable" when soloed, they all tend to disappear in a mix unless they are tweaked, compressed, tortured and boosted beyond what sounds reasonably natural. Up until now, sampled pianos have been only a bit better, but since most are oriented toward concert or solo recording, they still tend to be dull sounding and hard to work with.

As an experiment, I multi-sampled each key of a piano to find out what the "issues" are that make great sounding sampled pianos so hard to come by. I analyzed the wave forms of the test piano against several commercially released samples and modules.

Among other things, I noticed no one seemed to be sampling a true studio rock piano. Over-sized concert grand pianos sound great on stage, but are far too dark for rock music. In addition, piano waveforms are so rich and complex, that even the slightest variation of microphone selection and placement produced dramatically different results. Sampling is indeed an art.

John Boylan and I analyzed my prototype piano to see how we could bring to bear some of the "magic" from our best-selling Double Platinum Drums sampling CDs and CD-ROMs to acoustic piano. We discussed the pianos in the many studios we've worked in, some being far better than others. But we agreed that this Steinway B was the one we wanted to use for this project. It's a finicky beast, but it has "the sound." Rebuilt in the early 70's and hosting a laundry list of great players, including Elton John, it sports cigarette burns, scuffs and scratches, two tops (one regular lid and a heavily insulated box-top that isolates the piano mics in a live rhythm date) and the brightest richest tone you've ever heard.

Master engineer Paul Grupp, known for his great piano sounds, was brought in to capture this wild animal. He measured and paced and adjusted the mics, recalling his years of experience of placing the piano in a musical context. Paul is a genius at capturing that full, even stereo spread that lets you follow the energy of a gliss from one speaker to the other while the ambience rings through both speakers. Try it with these sounds, you'll flip!

Edd Kolakowski, senior concert technician at Steinway Hall in L.A., prepped the piano, twisting a number of the less cooperative strings, and cozied the piano through the recording process. Throughout its rich history, this piano had been brightened, hardened, rebuilt, retuned and restrung so many times, with an eye toward studio recording, that at one point Edd said, "This isn't a piano, it's a rock 'n' roll instrument."

Michael Botts executed the velocities, his broad musical background and great ears enabling him to stroke each of the 88 notes for maximum effect in three velocities, a painstaking effort. Knowing the intent of the project, we focused largely on the finesse between the mf and ff samples in an effort to present both the piano's inherently extroverted character and its potential for two-fisted, earth-shredding sonic annihilation.

The results have surpassed all of our expectations. This piano will have no trouble speaking through anybody's mix.

John Boylan
on Double Platinum Rock Piano

It doesn't look like much - in fact, it's rather comical in appearance when you see it for the first time from across the room. You mumble to yourself, "There's no way that this beat-up, ratty-looking specimen is going to make it on to my record. I mean, after all, didn't I practice Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Floyd Cramer licks just so I could make it here to play a real piano on a real recording session? And now you're telling me I have to play on that?" The engineer is persuasive. "Go ahead, just try it," he says. You sit down, facing the nicks and scratches and innumerable cigarette burns that have ruined whatever finish this piano ever had. Still, there it is in front of you, flaking away but still discernible - the Steinway logo. At some point in years gone by, this was a genuine Steinway Model B, six feet eleven inches of potential genius, a triumph of the piano builder's art. You feel sorry for the craftsmen who made it and are thankful they never saw what had become of it. You put on your headphones and play a chord.

Wait a minute. Can't be. You play a quick arpeggio. The sound flies through your head like an arrow. This piano is bright! This piano is loud! You tell the engineer to roll tape and you start by playing a little blues figure. You run into the control room for a playback and you can't believe it. This piano sounds as good on tape as it did out in the studio.

As the session progresses, you become a total convert. With no apparent effort, the sound of this old Steinway is easily heard through a wall of electric guitars and drums, cutting through to take its rightful place in the band. By the time the three hours are over, you have four songs in the can and a new and profound respect for the little old piano that could. Unfortunately, you also have a problem - how can you ever put up with a dull sounding studio piano again?

That first session was quite a few years ago, but I guess it was the real beginning of the Double Platinum Rock Piano project. Once I got hooked on that great-sounding Steinway, I had to find a way to keep that piano sound even when I wasn't able to record at that studio. Well, now we have it. Just load this CD-ROM into your favorite 16-bit sampler and you can have that sound for yourself, cigarette burns and all.

Roland Users

This disc is compatible with all S700 series samplers. In order to use the 64 Mb version of the piano you must load the lower and upper splits separately, as memory allows. Remember to use the Mod Wheel when auditioning sounds.

Akai Users

To allow a maximum number of samples on this disc, each partition contains one volume which in turn contains several program and size variations. If you wish only to load a single 16 Mb or 8 Mb program, you must locate the desired program within a volume and set your machine to load "Cursor Programs and Samples Only." Program names with the "#" character are designed for S2000 or S3000 users, though they may also be used for S1000s or S1100s. Programs with a "2" or a "3" at the end are meant expressly for S1000s or S1100s.

Kurzweil Users

To allow the maximum number of samples on this disc, each file contains several programs accessing a common bank of samples. To load individual programs, press DISK and scroll to the desired file. Then select the [OPEN] soft button to locate and load a single program within that file, making sure to load dependent objects as well. In order to use the 64 Mb version of the piano on two 32 Mb units, you must load the lower and upper splits separately, as memory allows. Remember to use the Mod Wheel when auditioning programs.

From the day they opened their doors in 1994, ILIO has been committed to producing useful, timeless and inspiring sample libraries for musicians. Tapping years of experience in sound design and electronic composition, their knowledge of the quality demands of today's music scene is the driving force behind every title they release.