100 Year Old Piano - Free Ableton Live Pack 175
About 15 years ago, I bought a 1913 Kranich & Bach upright piano from the local Salvation Army. It was clear that whoever owned it played it quite a bit. The finish on the keys is faded, the hammers are worn down, and some of the pedals don’t work quite right. It makes a lot of mechanic noises, but man does it have soul.
I often wonder who played it. It’s likely that it outlived a few different owners. It will probably outlive me. I think part of its charm is the spirit of those players living on through the strings. This piano has a gravity and weight to every note that makes it a joy to play.
And over the last 15 years or so, this piano has made it on to many of my own recordings. Here’s an example below, “It Always Starts the Same,” which I recorded using my OP-1.
While there are many pristinely recorded, technically-perfect pianos available in just about every DAW, they don’t have this piano. They don’t have these idiosyncrasies, these specific noises some of the hammers make, or the spirit of the players that left this piano behind. So I wanted to capture that and give it to you.
Please enjoy my 175th Free Ableton Live Pack: The 100 Year Old Piano. And because I don’t want to leave Logic Pro users out, I’ve also included a version of the piano for Logic’s EXS24 sampler instrument. Also, thanks to Cap10NRG, there is now a Reason version of this instrument too! Download below!
Listen to a little improvisation I made below, experimenting with creating atmospheres using extremely long reverb times.
Ableton Live Pack Archive
175 Ableton Live Packs, containing hundreds of instruments and effects of all kinds of styles and genres, in one convenient download. Guaranteed to keep you busy for days!