KVR Audio

pough · Post by **pough** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:28 pm

I got an email from pendle yesterday about it and I'm a little surprised he hasn't posted here about it. Anyways, he... well, I'll just cut and paste from his website:

Here's another small, slightly portable and largely neglected keyboard instrument. Designed by JB Cramer and Sons of London in the late 1800's, the ships piano (or yacht piano) was built especially for the cramped confines of Victorian pleasure boats. The perfect thing for a little sea bound entertainment in the good old pre-ipod days of the empire.

International adventurer Captain Robert Scott (of the Antarctic ) was apparently a fan and always had one onboard for those times when a hearty, spirit lifting sing-along was just the ticket. James Joyce also briefly mentions a ships piano in his book The Dubliners.... which must be worth a few cool points.

Other than that these things are very rare and pretty much ignored these days.

A ships piano is basically a tiny rudimentary upright piano with a five octave keyboard that folds upwards to save space. It has no bottom half and sits either on a low table or a stand with a small leather and chain contraption dangling from its bottom that loops around the foot for the sustain pedal.

Because of its small frame size it struggles with low notes so the bass strings are very wide gauge and particularly flabby, resulting in a strange almost atonal metallic sound in the lower reaches.

The ships piano is no Blüthner or Steinway, and there's no chance of extracting rich sonorous tones from this fella ...but its charming simplicity has lots and lots of useful character. Its very plinky without being too plonky....if you know what I mean.

I've meticulously sampled every usable white note binaurally with 4 and sometimes 5 velocity layers for 155mb of 16bit samples.

Available for £15 as Kontakt 2/3 , EXS, Reason Combinator and Soundfont formats.

One of the songs in his little songbox thingy is a demo of it.

oddbod · Post by **oddbod** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:57 pm

Got to listen to this.
If it's anything like the quality of his Dulcitone, I'll be purchasing immediately. It's one of my absolute favourite instrument samplesets.

mellotronaut · Post by **mellotronaut** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 5:02 pm

oddbod wrote:Got to listen to this.
If it's anything like the quality of his Dulcitone, I'll be purchasing immediately. It's one of my absolute favourite instrument samplesets.

+1

pendle · Post by **pendle** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 12:41 pm

..actually i was holding back a little before anouncing it to the rest of the world...but thanks very much pough

..and thanks very much for everyone who's already taken the plunge and bought it.

..and thanks for the niceness about the dulcitone.

cheers

pendle

pough · Post by **pough** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 6:47 pm

pendle wrote:..actually i was holding back a little before anouncing it to the rest of the world...but thanks very much pough

I figured since it was available (I had bought it) and was featured on your website that it was ready to go!

pendle · Post by **pendle** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 11:53 pm

No worries pough, i'm glad you spilled the beans for me

I was just taking time to mentally prepare myself for a trip inside kvr land, normally i just coyly watch from from the side. ( pity theres no Jimmy Stewart/ Rear Window style emoticon i could use at this point )

....but as i am here now i should mention that the ableton sampler rack version of Ships Piano is now up and running.

pendle · Post by **pendle** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 1:01 am

....and i've got a new website

www.virb.com/pendle

but this one is for my other line of work

pough · Post by **pough** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:51 am

You do something other than make samplesets for me? And it seems to involve two former empire island nations...

pendle · Post by **pendle** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 11:54 am

pough wrote:You do something other than make samplesets for me? And it seems to involve two former empire island nations...

give me a moment to plan a witty reposte.

...damn

...nothing

oddbod · Post by **oddbod** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:46 pm

pendle wrote:....and i've got a new website

www.virb.com/pendle

but this one is for my other line of work

amongst others, I spy an autoharp, what looks like an old Yamaha synth....CS15? and a Waldorf ...microwave?

Vonbrucken · Post by **Vonbrucken** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:12 pm

Please Wusikstation version !!!!!!!!!

pendle · Post by **pendle** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:37 pm

Vonbrucken wrote:Please Wusikstation version !!!!!!!!!

soon(ish)

funkychickendance · Post by **funkychickendance** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:56 pm

mellotronaut wrote:
oddbod wrote:Got to listen to this.
If it's anything like the quality of his Dulcitone, I'll be purchasing immediately. It's one of my absolute favourite instrument samplesets.
+1

Oh, i gotta try this. Sounds really nice in the demo. And the Dulcitone is the bomb. I listened to it a while back, and forgot to bookmark it. Now i have Kontakt, gotta do it...

//fnx

Vonbrucken · Post by **Vonbrucken** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 1:12 am

pendle wrote:
Vonbrucken wrote:Please Wusikstation version !!!!!!!!!

soon(ish)

Hi ha just hope to receive it free of charge as i bought already the Kontakt version

pendle · Post by **pendle** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 7:02 pm

hi all

i'm sorry that soon(ish) took a little longer than expected.

but the wusik version of ships piano is now officially ready.

check your email vonbrucken

cheers

pendle

New samples from pendle (Dulcitone1884) - Ships Piano