AcousticsampleS and Lance Herring have announced Kawai-EX, a new sample library of a Kawai EX Concert Grand Piano that used to be in the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. The piano will be offered in two different versions, a light one with only one mic position, a single release and only 4 velocity layers, and a pro version with all the features. It is expected to be released in the first half of September in Kontakt and GIGA formats priced at €59 for the light version and €89 for the full one. Other formats will follow as free updates (Halion, EXS24 and maybe SFZ).

Features of the final product:

• 5 "pedal up" layers, 5 "pedal down" layers and 15 release samples per note (5 only for the light version).
• Thumps samples.
• Automatic Pedal noises samples.
• Multiple mic position and mixing from the interface (in PRO version).
• Ability to save polyphony by enabling / disabling each position.
• Sympathetic resonance (pedal down samples).
• Multiple releases. They have been carefully picked up for each note to really reproduce the real mechanical behaviour of a note.
• A custom Kontakt interface that lets you modify the response of the piano as well as its tone and the volume of the releases.