Absurdly Quiet Piano PRO

A piano recorded beyond the possibilities afforded in live performance on the very verge of silence. If you want a bright, bitey piano this ISN'T the one for you. This piano is mellow, soft and alluring without having it's resonance hindered by being a felt or celeste-pedal piano. There is a point at which you can depress a piano key that the hammer doesn't quite make it to the string and the key remains silent. We found that point and played each key just a hair louder so the hammer just kissed, or rather tickled the strings. How does this "pro" version differ from the R&D "Vaults" version we released? By introducing both pedal up and down resonance samples. Two dynamic layers (super-soft and almost-silent-soft), a brace of round robins, release triggers, damper samples and two distinctive mic positions to balance resonance with the mechanics of the instrument. All recorded at Castlesound studios with top-noptch microphones and super-quiet mic-pres (the original vaults recording was made at Christian Henson's home!). We achieved these impossible tones by playing the piano at an absurd level of quietness not possible in live performance. For every note producer Christian Henson found the exact point at which the key produced a tone. Every note and every round robin became a game of searching, finding and ushering out something beyond just a quiet thud. This however created a problem for us. The notes are whisper quiet meaning managing even the slightest movement in the room created a somewhat rigid, ache-and-pain inducing week in Edinburgh's sublime Castlesound studios. But also, even with the quietest microphones and pre-amplifiers the noise floor was always going to be a problem to eradicate. The post production that followed proved to be Christian Henson's personal Vietnam (as he describes it). The level of noise reduction required meant that the subtle bright harmonic characteristics of the piano were lost. The only way to cure this and create the piece of magic that we feel we have produced was to go into each and every one of the 2,0000 samples recorded and meticulously etch out every harmonic from the "shash" that surrounded it. The result? A staggeringly personal and intimate piano with all the warmth of a felt piano but also with a effervescent fizz of the hammers hitting the keys without being muted. The rest of the strings tickled and resonating with the down pedals and a mic selection that enables you to get into the piano like you would an upright to hear the inner workings, charm and character of all the moving parts without losing your music to a crudely supressed tonal range.