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Garritan announces the release of the Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand Piano, a sample-based software instrument developed in collaboration with Steinway & Sons, maker of the world's finest pianos.
The Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand piano accurately captures the distinctive sound of the hallmark Steinway & Sons concert grand piano - with unprecedented authenticity and musicality.
The library comes in three versions: Professional, Standard and Basic. The Standard version offers the under lid and classic perspectives.
The Steinway concert grand piano chosen for the sample set is among Steinway's finest Model D's — newly voiced, regulated, and meticulously tuned by a master Steinway technician. Recording was done in one of the finest venues in the world, The Troy Music Hall.
Features
Advanced programming also makes this a truly "playable" and responsive library. Among its many features:
- Created in partnership with Steinway & Sons
- The very finest concert grand piano—the Steinway Model D Concert Grand hand-picked by Steinway & Sons
- Overseen by Steinway & Sons' most accomplished master technician
- Sustain/Sostenuto/Soft pedal support
- Proportional sustain pedaling
- Multiple-stage tracking release triggers to provide the natural release of the hammer from the string
- Sustain resonance and sympathetic resonance using convolution-based DSP modules
- Adjustable mechanical noises
- Adjustable velocity curves
- Recorded soft pedal samples including releases
- Adjustable polyphony
- A variety of historical tunings and Scala file import
- Aria Sample Player by Plogue included
- MIDI playback and record in standalone
- Ambience reverb and 3 band EQ
- Graceful Copy Protection (no dongles or challenge response)
- Many more compelling features
About Steinway & Sons
Steinway & Sons, headquartered in New York, produces the world's finest pianos. Steinway pianos are sold by nearly 200 authorized dealers worldwide. Steinway Musical Instruments, Inc. is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LVB for Ludwig van Beethoven. Steinway & Sons was founded on March 5, 1853 by German immigrant Henry Engelhard Steinway and his sons in New York City, one of the major centers of the piano-making industry in North America at that time. Henry, a master piano-maker, built his first piano in the kitchen of his home in Germany. Over the next forty years, Henry and his sons developed the modern piano, patenting the most significant technologies in the piano industry.
Aria Player
Powered by the robust and reliable ARIA Player, the Garritan Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand runs on these platforms:
- MAC OS X 10.4 and higher
- Windows XP/Vista
- Linux version under development
- Standalone
- Plug-in (VST, Audio Units and RTAS), as well as supported notation programs.
The Authorized Steinway Difference
The legendary Steinway Piano is “the piano by which all others are judged”. With a warm, rich, beautiful tone forged across over 150 years of meticulous craftsmanship and brilliant innovation, it is among the greatest gifts to music. The distinctive Steinway tone, though, is perhaps the most acoustically complex of any instrument, with its voice comprised of numerous flawlessly interacting elements in an intricate sonic dance.
Developing the Authorized Steinway Virtual piano required exacting attention to these subtle nuances. In the Garritan Authorized Steinway Model D, Garritan has created not just another piano library, but one which faithfully reproduces the incredible detail inherent in a real Steinway’s sound.
Steinway & Sons has long recognized the need for a virtual Steinway piano that would best reflect the beauty and complexity of their legendary sound. Garritan is pleased and honored that Steinway & Sons chose Garritan for this technical and artistic challenge. Developed with the care, excellence and craftsmanship that are hallmarks of both companies, the Authorized Virtual Steinway is a standard, worthy of the Steinway and Garritan names.
The Distinctive Steinway Sound
When played, the Steinway comes to life with a sound that piano lovers describe as vibrantly warm, rich and beautiful. Steinway & Sons were integral participants in the development, ensuring that this library met their stringent expectations for a virtual Steinway concert grand piano sound. Steinway provided one of their very finest pianos, selected the piano concert hall and the technicians, and were directly involved in all aspects of the development of this library.
A Perfectly Tuned Instrument
Steinway & Sons believes that a properly tuned piano is a fundamental requirement for their sound. A well-tuned instrument brings out the finest tonal qualities in a piano. For the recording of the Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand, Steinway & Sons provided one of their finest pianos to sample. In addition, one of their very best technicians meticulously listened to each note for consistency, tuning and fidelity.
Notes were not tuned electronically after the fact; but were perfect from their inception. The same can be said of all aspects of regulation and adjustment of the piano used for these samples.
More Aspects of the Piano
A piano's sound depends on where you are listening to it. The Garritan Authorized Steinway Concert Grand Piano has more listening aspects than any other virtual piano. The Professional Edition includes:
- Close audience
- Classic
- Under the lid (suitable for jazz and pop)
- Stage Side and
- Player Perspective (from the bench)
The piano was recorded at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, regarded as one of the very finest piano concert halls.
Complete Resonance Package
Put simply, without resonance you do not have a true piano sound.
- Sustain Resonance excites the strings across the entire range of the instrument (as when the damper pedal is pressed).
- Sympathetic Resonance excites the strings of just the notes being played or held down.
The Authorized Steinway Concert Grand Piano is the only virtual concert grand piano to have both Sustain and Sympathetic Resonance. Advanced digital signal processing and convolution modeling make it happen. The stunning complexity in the richness of harmonics, its overtones, and its acoustical interactions all work together to give the virtual Steinway its distinctively real sound, presence, and richness.
Virtuosic Pedaling
Pedaling greatly influences the sound of the instrument. Faithfully emulating a real Steinway’s pedal functionality was a top priority. The library realistically emulates:
- The damper (or sustaining) pedal on the right
- The soft (or una corda) pedal on the left
- The sostenuto pedal in the middle
- “Repedaling” (pressing the sustain pedal after the key is played and the damper has fallen on the strings).
The Authorized Steinway also has true recorded soft pedal samples. Unlike most other libraries, they aren't simulated by muting or filtering.
Traditionally with other sample libraries, the pedals served merely as on/off switches. Real pianists use a wide variety of pedal positions, known as “half-pedaling” and “proportional pedaling” (various intermediate degrees, rather than just holding the pedal all the way up or down). The Garritan Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand supports “proportional pedaling” to fully reproduce the kinds of pedaling that real pianists do.
Natural Releases of Each Note
How a note sounds as it ends is equally as important as how it begins. The string vibrations of a piano will decay very fast at first and more slowly later. “Release triggers” are samples of the release of the hammer and the decay of the note. The Garritan Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand has unique “multi-stage” tracking release triggers that track the decay stages throughout the length of each note. The brightness and amplitude of the decay for each individual string is measured and then matched to the release triggers for a seamless, completely realistic decay.
Playability
The ARIA sample engine which powers the Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand is a rock-solid, stable, state-of-the-art player with low latency and stellar performance. It has an aesthetically pleasing interface designed for ease of use. With the recommended hardware, the touch responsiveness action is nimble and immediate. There are even adjustable velocity curves to tailor the responsiveness to your needs.
The ARIA Player is straightforward and user-friendly. The complexity is under the hood so you can focus on the music not the technology.
The Subtle Details…
There are many other factors that make the Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand a special instrument. In addition to the features above, it comes complete with:
- Beautiful and elegant packaging
- Adjustable mechanical sounds
- The full palette of temperaments and historic tunings
- Onboard MIDI playback
- Both online and offline audio recording in standalone
- Graceful and non-invasive registration
- You won't find this combination of features in any other piano library - at any price.
With the Garritan Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand you can truly express yourself like you can on a concert grand. All of this comes in a cogently designed and brilliantly engineered package that focuses on ultimate realism while retaining ease of use.
How the Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand was created
The concert grand piano is a unique and remarkable instrument. Its length of nine feet and weight of close to half a ton makes it physically the largest musical instrument commonly recorded. The concert grand piano’s expressiveness and dynamic range are unparalleled, from the gentlest pianissimo to thundering fortes—the greatest expressive range of any instrument. The instrument has an extremely broad pitch range, over seven octaves; and a stunning complexity in the richness of its harmonics, its overtones, and its acoustical interactions.
A magnificent instrument!
During the last two decades, many composers and arrangers turned to piano sample libraries to realize their musical goals; and a realistic Steinway piano library became an elusive Holy Grail of the sampling world. To that end, there have been dozens of Steinway piano libraries, but none has met Steinway’s standards of excellence—nor had their originators had the privilege, as Garritan had, of working together with Steinway & Sons to create them.
The Authorized Steinway Virtual Model D Concert Grand is the culmination of literally years of creative work. Planning for the library began in 2003, when Garritan’s team made the decision to develop the ultimate piano library.
“This was a very important project for Steinway & Sons,” states Gary Green, Steinway Vice President of Business Development and Customer Satisfaction. “We have long recognized the need for a Steinway sampled sound set that would best reflect the complex architectures of the Steinway sound. We also understand the importance of quality samples and their use by amateur music enthusiasts, as well as prominent producers, composers, recording studios and other venues. We were extremely lucky to have Gary Garritan work with us on this technically and musically complex project. Although both Steinway & Sons and Gary Garritan recognize that nothing can replace the actual Steinway piano, we are extremely delighted that there is now a sampling product that comes closest to capturing the distinctive Steinway sound that we are proud to endorse.”
The concert grand piano is a challenging instrument to capture sonically. Its complex harmonics and interacting resonances were too grand for the constraints of samplers. In the past, compromises had to be made because of technological limitations—due to processor speed, hard disk or RAM limitations, limited polyphony, inability to do complex DSP (digital signal processing) and various other reasons.
Garritan began by imagining what the ideal virtual concert grand piano would be like if there were no technological limitations, and proceeded to develop with that as their goal. Technologies were emerging so fast, they believed that the ability to do what they wanted would present itself. And it did. Computers became more powerful and software more efficient.
They analyzed existing libraries to discover what was available—and what was lacking. They consulted with Steinway artists, technicians and specialists to glean as much information as possible before the recording sessions. The more they sought the advice of these experts, the more prepared they felt. Two things are crucial for a sampling session—quality and consistency. Quality includes the type of piano, recording technique, tuning and environment; and absolutely must be maintained for the entire duration of each sample. The slightest little noise or imperfection, and the sample is ruined. This was particularly demanding in the natural acoustics of the concert hall.
The best quality samples start with the highest quality instrument. In the pursuit of the best piano samples, Garritan knew that they would need a very fine Steinway concert grand piano. Gary Green, Steinway Vice President, arranged for Garritan to obtain one of Steinway’s finest Model D concert grand models from its piano bank at Steinway Hall.
The next imperative was to locate the finest possible environment in which to record the piano. Steinway recommended the Troy Music Hall. Troy Music Hall is regarded as one of the most acoustically perfect concert halls in the world. To record there meant that the samples would have their genesis in ideal surroundings.
With a perfect piano and the ideal concert hall they were off to a great start. Steinway then arranged for the piano to be shipped from New York City to Troy, New York. Since the concert hall is on the third story of the Troy Savings Bank Building, Steinway & Sons arranged to have a crane lift the piano into the hall.
Having the right technician, a superb performing artist, a masterful engineer, and all the highest quality tools for the recording sessions was likewise vital. Garritan’s engineer was Brian Peters, a gifted engineer and classically trained musician who was intimately familiar with recording at Troy Music Hall. Mr. Peters has over twenty-five years of recording experience. He was chief audio engineer for the venerable audiophile label, Dorian Recordings, with hundreds of classical music recordings at the Troy Music Hall to his credit. While at Dorian, he mastered practically all of the final masters for every release of Dorian’s catalog of over 500 CD’s. His special knowledge of the intricacies of recording in the Troy Music Hall was invaluable. His assistant engineer was Dan Czernecki from the Classical Recording Service based in Waterford, New York.
Eric Schandall, one of Steinway’s consummate technical masters, was there every single day for the recording sessions. Mr. Schandall is one of Steinway’s top technicians, responsible for training other Steinway technicians. He meticulously listened to each note for consistency, tuning and fidelity. His incredible acuity could hear the slightest imperfection; and if a note sounded even minutely wrong to him, he would stop the recording—then tweak the offending note with his arsenal of specialized tools. He was constantly touching up, adroitly applying special techniques and tricks to assure the perfect sound. Mr. Schandall brought out the best in the piano; brilliant at his work, the instrument could not have been in more capable hands.
William J. Jones, Jr. was the Steinway artist selected by Steinway & Sons to perform the recording session. Mr. Jones, a student of Russian pianist Alexander Borovsky, provided just the right touch. He knew how to make the recording of each note a performance. Mr. Jones’ patience and stamina were amazing; imagine being a virtuoso player and having to play scales for most of the day! Mr. Jones needed to play each note as consistently as possible for each run. You can barely fathom the tedium. Nevertheless, this may have been one of the most technically demanding and exacting performances of his career.
When you’re sampling an exceptionally fine instrument, you must capture each note’s full spectrum and tonal characteristics or you’ll seriously compromise the samples. That meant using superior equipment and paying flawless attention to recording technique. The subtle details, overtones, unique nuances and resonances would all be diminished if one settled for anything less.
Garritan wanted to capture many different perspectives of the piano—what the piano would sound like if you were playing the piano; or if you were out in the audience, or close to the soundboard; as well as other flavors and colors. Fifteen microphones were used in the recording of the piano. Recording from many placements and positions would give them a wealth of alternatives from which to choose. Various microphone techniques were chosen for their uniqueness and capability to be merged or mixed with other techniques. Thus, a multitude of variations were created from the recordings—providing the end user wide and varied choices for the sound they want.
They utilized high-quality professional microphones of types preferred by audio professionals for capturing the full frequency spectrum of the Steinway piano. Two Schoeps MK4 cardioid microphones were placed inside the piano to balance the high and low string sections of the instrument. Two Microtech Gefell microphones were configured in an ORTF array for a close but balanced sound from the piano for a more intimate, less reverberant sound. In addition, two Schoeps MK5 omni microphones were provided for a perspective from the side curve of the piano. Two spaced Neumann TLM170’s in wide cardioid mode provided the preferred classical approach of Mr. Peters. Two B&K 4006’s and a Jeklin disc provided the player’s perspective; and two widely spaced Schoeps MK21 microphones with ball diffusers provided the room perspective from the farthest location from the piano.
Finding the ideal microphone placement—the “sweet spots”—required experimentation and careful listening. The recording system was almost entirely made up of Metric Halo products. A MIO 2882 and two ULN2 firewire audio interfaces plus a soon to be released developmental product were utilized to record the project. Twelve of the microphone pre-amps were from the two ULN2’s and the Metric Halo (beta) device. They also used four channels of Prism mic pre-amps. This gave them 16 channels of world-class mic pre-amps into the A/D converters of the 2882 and the Beta firewire interfaces, which were all synchronized via WC (WordClock). Garritan recorded every channel at 24-bit, 96 kHz resolution. (A piano has such richly harmonic content, 16-bit, 44.1 kHz equipment cannot adequately record it. The higher sample rate captures the top full range of the sound more accurately with less chance of distortion or aliasing.)
With this set-up, Garritan could choose between the various mic techniques in the control room without affecting the data capture. The recording system used was part of the Metric Halo control software that captures the incoming audio via firewire hard drives with no extra overhead of the other DAW software. An Apple PowerBook controlled all of the audio interfaces except for the Prism, and fed the data to the large firewire hard drive arrays. There was also a tape back-up just in case.
With the right Steinway technician, artist, engineers and equipment, Garritan was ready to record. Over the course of the next week, they set up and recorded more than twelve hours a day, and made additional six-hour overnight recordings most nights. They started with pedal-up samples, playing each of the 88 notes from the range of an almost inaudible pianissimo to a roaring fortissimo. They repeated the process for pedal-down notes, then soft pedal, sostenuto, release triggers and staccato notes—all at various dynamic levels. At times, Mr. Jones started at the lowest note of the piano and worked his way up the scale chromatically. Occasionally, he worked from the top note down. Garritan also recorded sympathetic resonances, key clicks and mechanism noises, and piano soundboard impulse resonances.
Throughout this process, the engineers paid constant close attention to monitoring in order to obtain the best recording levels and signals. Mr. Schandall was also there to scrutinize every note that Mr. Jones played, to be sure each and every note was perfect.
As they proceeded with the recording, they had to decide how best to use the limited and costly time available. Garritan wanted alternate takes for safety, and to effectively use all the available time they had at the Troy Music Hall. So, they devised a way to record during the middle of the night: they set up a Playola device, provided by QRS Inc. This device fits over the keys of the piano and allows one to “play” the piano remotely. Jeff Hurchalla programmed MIDI sequences to exercise a series of scales, so alternate material could be recorded while they slept. The Metric Halo control software was able to synchronize with the MIDI sequences and start and stop the recording files automatically.
After more than a week of intense and demanding recording, Garritan had gathered an astonishing 1.2 terabytes of audio data, comprising tens of thousands of samples. They never realized how long, or how much data, it would take to sonically capture a Steinway concert grand piano—with all of its pedal combinations and dynamic abilities!
Producing a “playable” sampled piano instrument from a myriad of source recordings proved to be a daunting challenge, involving a mountain of editing and programming work. A laborious and tedious task, it requires a great deal of care and unfaltering attention to detail. Each of the fifty thousand individual note samples had to be sliced up, trimmed, and named. Selecting the best takes for each note took still more time, as they made decisions on a note-by-note basis.
For editing and programming, Garritan developed their own in-house software. It took over a year just to edit the samples—a Herculean task, to say the least. But even with meticulously edited and comprehensive samples of the finest piano in the world in hand, the job was far from over. They knew they had to make the samples musically playable and expressive. Mere notes alone cannot convey the act and art of musical performance. When emulating the sound of a real piano, the more control options you have, the more successful you will be at creating a realistic performance. Shortcomings in the past had made sampled instruments the antithesis of expressive performance—but they felt it was time to change that perception, forever.
Real pianists perform on the instrument in a variety of ways. They alter dynamics instantly or gradually over time; they do a variety of subtle pedaling; and they impart a wealth of refined playing techniques. What Garritan needed was a way to allow a keyboard player to emulate those and other performance actions with relative ease. That would require an innovative solution.
Tom Hopkins, a fine musician, composer, and programmer extraordinaire, did the instrument programming. Hopkins’ musicianship and programming magically transformed the library into a coherent and musical whole.
Garritan looked at all the samplers on the market and none had the features they would need to develop the instrument they had in mind. They needed a very stable underlying engine, with the ability to do sympathetic resonance DSP, proportional pedaling, and high-order convolution. But nothing out there fit the needs.
Garritan decided to develop their own specialized sampler for this extraordinary project. For this, they enlisted David Viens from Plogue Technologies to create the uniquely powerful authorized Steinway sample piano engine. Magnus Jonsson produced the sympathetic resonance DSP algorithms; and Jeff Hurchalla developed the convolution engine. Every step of the way, they were charting unknown territory with technologies never before attempted.
To Garritan, the user experience was equally important. Software samplers were often laden with knobs, dials and sliders and seemed like one needed a degree in rocket science to operate them. It was an endless source of frustration for many users.
They wanted a user interface that was intuitive, inviting, very easy to use, and which provided the user with a pleasing experience. They also wanted to reflect the distinguished, classic “look and feel” of the beautifully designed Steinway. To help them achieve this goal, they enlisted the services of Wallwork Curry McKenna, the marketing firm that handles all of Steinway & Sons artwork and creative design. After many discussions with Steinway & Sons and Wallwork, they came to a consensus on a GUI design that would be ideal for the Authorized Steinway virtual piano software. Garritan also sought the help of James Mireau, who has been the Garritan design consultant for the past several years. James did the 3D rotoscopy design that displays a visual perspective of the various piano listening positions.
Gradually all of the elements came together. The sound was superb, the sample engine was rock solid and reliable, the look was elegant, and the playability was unparalleled. Garritan previewed a pre-release version of the Authorized Steinway and the praise was unanimous.
A unique and unparalleled virtual sampled concert grand piano had emerged, one that was worthy of the Steinway & Sons name.
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