Saturday, September 26, 2015

Sonatina for Grace

One Small Clue has released Grace : Sampler for free. There are both 32 and 64 bit versions for Windows. One of its features is that it can easily import and convert SFZ format instruments.

I've converted the great Sonatina Orchestra from Mattias Westlund to Grace format. 


Licensing: SSO is a free library released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 license.

As a bonus from the University of Iowa, a Steinway. I went with a lighter version as it seems to take up a lot of memory.

Monday, September 7, 2015

All Keyboard Instruments

Rounding up all the Pianos, Electric Pianos and Organs in one post. A work in progress. 

The Grand Pianos 

The City Piano is a fully sampled Baldwin Baby Grand with 4 velocity layers and release samples. It is free and public domain. Do anything you like with it.
 


Original Versions
Kontakt 5
SFZ  -  by Music Mayor
Sampletank 2.5 - by Vic France. The ikmp file goes in presets. Use Child Instrument.
VSTi City Piano                Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
VSTi City Piano Lite         Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
The Samples - Wave files of every note

Improved Versions - All Kontakt 5
Vospi's Version  -  cleaner and crisper
City Piano - Tuned -  digitally tuned
Ultimate City Piano - 30 patches

Derivative Versions

The Whisper is an intimate experience. Think moonlit nights in Paris Cafes.

The Whisper      - Kontakt 5
Vospi's Whisper - Kontakt 5
Whisper VSTi      Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU

Shoot The Piano simulates the tinny sound of the classic barroom piano.


The Iowa Piano is a solid Steinway Model B in under 200 megs.
 

Iowa Piano - Kontakt 5
Iowa Piano Take 2 - Kontakt 5, a bit more consistent sound, newer shell.
Iowa Piano - SFZ created by Music Mayor.
Iowa Piano VSTi         Win 64   Win 32      Mac VST   Mac AU
Public Domain created from University of Iowa Musical Instrument Samples.

The Salamander Piano is a smooth sounding Yamaha C5.
 

Thorsten Meyer was kind enough to make a video of the Salamander Piano.

The Salamander Piano - Kontakt 5
Salamander Piano - SFZ hosted on Freepats.
Creative Commons Attribution License - Please Credit Alexander HolmFeel

The Summer Piano is Yamaha Disklavier Pro with real sustain samples.
Summer Piano Sound Cloud Demo

Summer Piano - Kontakt 5
Attribution Creative Commons - Please credit The OLPC Project

The Maestro Concert Grand is a classic Yamaha CF3.
Please credit Mats Helgesson who sampled this piano in 2003.

The Musyng Kite Acoustic Grand is a Fazioli

Creative Commons Attribution License - Please Credit Sarcyan

The Sonatina Grand Piano
Sonatina Grand Piano - Kontakt 5

Upright and Other Pianos

Skerratt London Upright Piano

Skerratt London Upright Piano - Kontakt 5
Skerratt London VSTi    Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
KungKrill sampled his parent's piano and placed them in Public Domain.

The Beskhu Upright is both played and plucked.
Beskhu 's samples fall under the Creative Commons License. You can do anything you like with them, but please give him credit.

MSLP Soft and Toy Pianos
MSLP Piano Grand Soft - Kontakt 5
MSLP Toy Baby Piano - Kontakt 5
Creative Commons. Please credit Erick Kvist

Uncle Dave's Piano is an upright with a crunchy feel.
Uncle Dave's Piano - Kontakt 5
Samples by Goup_1. Creative Commons, please credit Goup_1.

Poissonmort Toy Piano
Poissonmort Toy Piano - Kontakt 5
Fun little instrument based on Creative Commons samples by Poissonmort. Please credit him. 

A Prepared Piano
Kurt James Werner sampled a prepared piano on the CCRMA stage at Stanford. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. The piano may be used for commercial use as long as credit is given.

The Not Quite Right Piano is good for silent film accompaniment if those films involve pratfalls and pie in the face. Public Domain.
Not Quite Right Piano - Kontakt 5

Jobro Quick Piano for Kontakt
Jobro at Freesound.org sampled a good chuck of a piano using the hit it hard and release quick method of playing. It's missing the top two octaves, but you get about 6 octaves in staccato style in under 3 megs.
Creative Commons: Credit Jobro

Grandmither's Piano for Kontakt
Techsetsu sampled Grandmother's piano with some interesting results saying, "I didn't cut my nails the day I recorded these at my grandmother's house, so you can hear my nails scratch against it in most if not all notes. It is out of tune, which adds a haunted, dead feel to it."
Creative Commons: Credit Techsetsu


Electric Pianos

Thanks to the sampling of Greg Sullivan we have a number of great sounding electric pianos. Please credit Greg. A number have Script and Shell by Mickaël Ménager.


The Y Piano - Kontakt 5
The Y Piano is a personal favorite. Greg Sullivan sampled roughly every 4 notes and 4 velocity layers on this piano.

The H Planet S Piano - Kontakt 5
The H Planet S Piano has a unique sound thanks to its Sticky Reeds.

The W Piano - Kontakt 5
The W Piano is one of the legendary instruments in modern music history.

Bonus from  Sarcyan's Musyng Kite soundfont.
The Street Bumper Piano - Kontakt 5
Musyng Kite Merlittzer    Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
(K5 and VST are the same instrument, different names, long story!)
Please credit Sarcyan.
The Street Bumper Electric Piano from Script and Shell by Mickaël Ménager.

Organs

Burea Funeral Organ

Burea Funeral Organ - Kontakt 5
Note that when you start the organ there will be NO sound. You need to push the stops to choose sounds. The two bottom stops are for the green keys, these simulate the pedals. The stops on the left side are for the light blue keys and the stops on the right for the dark blue keys. You can use more than on stop at a time to create a layered sound.
Samples by Lars Palo of Lars Virtual Pipe Organs http://www.familjenpalo.se/vpo under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license.

St. Augustine's Organ



Nick Appleton sampled the organ of St. Augustine's Anglican Church, Neutral Bay. I've turned it into an instrument for Kontakt 5.
The license is St. Augustine's Neutral Bay, Hauptwerk Sample Set, (c) 2009 - Nicholas Appleton, http://www.appletonit.com.au/nickspage/
You can download the full license (also included in the instrument) here but the important bits are the organ can be used to perform works commercially and I can create Derivative Works and redistribute them non commercially.

Bureau Church Organ
Soundcloud Demo - Adeste Fidelis

Bureu Organ - Kontakt 5
There are two buttons / lights under the organ stops. The left one turns that stop on while the right one unloads that stop from memory, so if you are running low on memory you can easily unload samples you aren't using.
Scripting Adviser was Matt McKay.
This sampleset is created by Lars Palo and Graham Goode. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5. Please credit Lars Palo.

Goldenhelix was kind enough to fix some looping issues on some of the stops. You can drop his new nki file into your base directory for the organ for the fix.
Updated Bureu Organ nki

Prudhoe Organ
Here's a little organ for you from the Prudhoe Methodist Church sampled by Mark Beverley. He says the samples are free. Thank you Mark.
Soundcloud Demo
Prudhoe Organ - Kontakt 5
The Pedal is Bourdon 16' and is always on from C-1 to a bit past C1.
The Great Stops are too the left and the Swell Pipes are too the right. You have to turn at least one stop on to get any sound from C2 and up.

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