Cinesamples Piano in Blue v2.3b

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We were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to preserve an essential piece of musical history. The iconic Clinton Recording Studios in midtown Manhattan had closed its doors permanently, to be turned into a contemporary condominium complex.

This specific Steinway Model D Concert Grand, which used to reside in the Columbia Records 30th Street Studios, was one among the numerous gems stored inside. The CBS 30th Street Studio, dubbed “The Church,” was possibly the most important recording studio of the 1950s and 1960s, releasing scores of classic records in a variety of genres.

This piano played an important role in two albums that are now considered among the best recordings ever made. The first is Glenn Gould’s original “Goldberg Variations,” the most critically acclaimed classical CD of all time. Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” four years later permanently changed music.

Columbia closed its doors in 1981, and this piano was transferred to Clinton. Along with the grand, two genuine Columbia Nuemann U49 microphones made the trek. These were two of the five (or six) microphones used for the Kind of Blue session. We were able to sample this remarkable grand piano utilizing these two original mics.

Download the Version 2.0 Update

(For those who bought before August 16, 2012.) This upgrade is already included with new orders.)

We were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to preserve an essential piece of musical history. The iconic Clinton Recording Studios in midtown Manhattan had closed its doors permanently, to be turned into a contemporary condominium complex.

This specific Steinway Model D Concert Grand, which used to reside in the Columbia Records 30th Street Studios, was one among the numerous gems stored inside. The CBS 30th Street Studio, dubbed “The Church,” was possibly the most important recording studio of the 1950s and 1960s, releasing scores of classic records in a variety of genres.

This piano played an important role in two albums that are now considered among the best recordings ever made. The first is Glenn Gould’s original “Goldberg Variations,” the most critically acclaimed classical CD of all time. Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” four years later permanently changed music.

Columbia closed its doors in 1981, and this piano was transferred to Clinton. Along with the grand, two genuine Columbia Nuemann U49 microphones made the trek. These were two of the five (or six) microphones used for the Kind of Blue session. We were able to sample this remarkable grand piano utilizing these two original mics.

John Davis, a friend of ours, performed a scoring session at Clinton and informed us about the closing, since this day was to be the final date. As the debate shifted away from the depressing nature of enormous stages, we came to discuss why this particular stage was remarkable. Despite the fact that I had previously worked at this studio, I had no idea that the grand in the corner was the “one piano” used in so many of my favorite recordings. We were in Seattle at the time, recording some non-cinesamples. Mike and I crossed the street to get a copy of Ashley Kahn’s book Kind of Blue: The Making of a Miles Davis Masterpiece. This book drove us over the edge, and the vision for this session began to take shape.

As Patti returned home to finish the Seattle assignment, Barry took a red-eye flight to Manhattan that night. We had agreed to extend Clinton’s closing date by one day so that we might taste this remarkable instrument. Much of the equipment utilized was previously on Ebay. It was the last recorded session at Clinton.

Our engineer Tim Starnes (Drums of War, HollywoodWinds, Cinesnares, Cinetoms 2, CineCrash) set up three sets of microphones with a focus on the handful of historic images from the recording Kind of Blue. The first pair, the U49’s from old Columbia, were placed up in historical position (notice that the original was in mono), while the other two pairs were set back a little further from each other.

We recorded two signal chains for each mic, one clean signal that went through the Neve board and the other that went through a vintage tape machine and into Pro Tools. We recommend that you investigate the lovely colorization of the tape signal, but both are available for your convenience. Note that tape will affect the sound of medium to high gain velocity layers, and that engineers will frequently go to considerable efforts to generate this distortion.

The piano was sampled chromatically due to the pleasant variations in timbre with each key; this was the only way to achieve a faithful picture of the instrument. Barry was the pianist for the sample, and he used an unusual technique.

PIANO DETAILS:

Neve 8078 Console through 1949 Steinway D

Chromatic sampling of 8 velocity layers

9300 Tests

3 Microphone Placements

2x Neumann M49 at the lid, close/vintage

Mid – 2x B&K 4007 near the piano’s tail

In the hall, there are two Sennheiser MKH20′s.

2 Processing Routes (Tape; Direct in)

Analog Tape Machine Studer A800MKIII 24 Track

Sam Estes programmed the show; Greg Schlaepfer wrote the screenplay; and Tim Starnes recorded it.

As always, we distribute our profits to our talented team of programmers, engineers, editors, and musicians.

NEW Complete Piano in Blue v2 Update

Latency

We added a “Sample Start” knob next to the Direct/Tape switch that shortens the samples of the sustains by 20ms – this adjustment eliminates any hammer/finger sounds from the instrument. While we do not encourage utilizing this option, for individuals experiencing latency, it might be good to make the piano more “pop-like” – unfortunately, it will lose the piano’s “weighted” feel.

Tape Replacement

To eliminate the “crunch” on the upper velocities, we re-recorded all of the sample sets using an actual (not a plugin) Studer tape recorder with improved leveling. For the tape setting, ALL samples have been changed. We also manually re-denoised all of the samples, resulting in very minimal background tape noise. We strongly recommend reintroducing some tape noise to help blend the sounds together. Some of the examples include tape artifacts, although they are minor.

This is a normal result of utilizing tape.

Individual V1 Direct Sample De-noising

There were a few samples in the Direct patch that were either excessively loud or had low resolution.

Frequency bumps have been addressed and corrected.

F4, Velocity 101-110, Direct-Room Sample Fix

On this note, there was a modulated distortion noise that has been removed.

removed.

91-110 rapid release speeds

In this location, the shorter release samples were too quiet; this problem has been resolved.

Minor modifications to ADSR curves and loudness adjustments for individual samples.

CC11 (Expression) controversies were added.

WHAT HAS CHANGED?

– Corrections for distorted tape samples

– Image shift issues have been resolved.

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