Samplist Dan Dean from Dan Dean Productions and audio architect Ernest Cholakis from Numerical Sound have joined forces in creating the new "Blüthner Digital Model One" Grand Piano, announcing its release in Native Instruments Kontakt 2 Player format today. Priced at $299 for the single DVD, this piano is packed full of new technologies and features.
Recorded at Skywalker Sound (a division of Lucasfilm, Ltd.) - one of the quietest studios in the world (both physically and electronically). Superb acoustics, excellent technical implementation and hand selected microphones, cables, preamps with Pacific Microsonics digital converters optimize the "front end" for the highest detail sample recordings.
Multiple Layers and Multiple Timbres. There are 12 layers of samples both pedal up and pedal down versions, utilizing our new Discrete Sustain technology. The number of samples totals well over 2,000. The BDMO's pedal down samples have "air" and depth in a spacious stereo field. Every sustain sample is unique – not modeled or computer generated. Our samples have the lowest noise floor of any digital piano on the market, using our proprietary techniques and algorithms.
Recorded "dry". The BDMO is close miked, meaning that there are no room reflections or acoustic ambience in the sample recordings. Close miking gives you far greater sonic detail and allows you to add the reverbs YOU choose – or use our custom created Impulse Response reverbs.
Extremely Wide Timbral Range. All the very low level detail of the piano have been captured with noise free pppp, ppp and pp samples. We placed special emphasis on accurately capturing and programming the Blüthner's rich and colorful low velocity dynamics. Most digital pianos' low levels "start" at our level 5 or 6.
Convolution. The BDMO comes loaded with 3 types of custom designed Convolution: Timbral, Reverb and Sustain. Since we captured the BDMO in a close-miked perspective, the samples are dry, optimized for use with our proprietary Impulse Response technologies.
Timbral Impulses are literally "sonic fingerprints" of over 260 individual pianos and piano recordings.
Timbral Impulse Groups. With the push of a button, you can instantly transform the BDMO's sound into one of over 260 discretely different pianos from seven TI categories:
- Classical. Timbres captured from some of the world's finest pianos and piano recordings from the past century. Our Timbral Impulses not only capture the sound of the piano, but the proximity effect and other acoustic effects of the performance.
- Custom. Timbral Impulses from the Custom Group were specifically created to include various Blüthner piano models, such as uprights used in Hollywood films and other vintage pianos from the collection of the Kazimoff family in Los Angeles. You will also find some of Ernest's special hi-tech features in this group.
- Jazz. This group includes many different pianos from some of the world's greatest pianos and jazz pianists. Some of these have been captured from films, private recordings and artists' personal pianos.
- Pop. The Pop TI collection takes the BDMO to a different place. You'll find brighter, more present, punchier piano timbres in this group. There's more edge in these TI's and you'll find they will cut through a rhythm track.
- R&B. These TI's have been derived from some of the world's most famous R&B piano performances. Some of these are from New Orleans and very vintage.
- Vocal. Ernest went to work on creating a set of vocal phonemes with TI's based on speech elements such as: oo (as in boot), ought (as in bought), ss, tt and many more.
- Pianos. These TI's were derived from pianos of other manufacturers. Without being specific, these pianos were built in Europe, Japan and the United States. Again, at the click of mouse, you can transform the BDMO into another manufacturer's timbre.
Reverb Impulses. We've included a huge assortment of Reverb Impulses ranging from small isolation booth ambience to very small rooms to very large rooms, scoring stage ambiences, various recital halls, concert halls and finally large symphony halls. Choose from Crisp, Clear, Warm and Dark variations of each of the Reverb Impulses for even more tonal flexibility. Each one of these complex, dense IR's has been optimized for use with the Blüthner Digital Model One.
Sustain Impulses. Realistic sounding sustain is a tremendously complex, near 3 dimensional component. True sustain has very small amounts of pitch, pan and harmonic movement, depth of field dynamics and other psychoacoustic factors. It is virtually impossible to capture true sustain using discrete samples alone. We began by recording very accurate pedal-down samples, specially captured to provide our unique True Sustain for the BDMO. Additional proprietary recordings were made from which very complex Sustain Impulses were derived from our custom algorithms. When combined with our pedal down samples, these SI's provide the dynamic 3 dimensional component like you would hear in a real piano.
Linear db Keyboard Velocity – True Piano Dynamics. Proprietary Linear db Scaling accurately recreates the true dynamics of the BDMO. Each individual sample has its own calibrated dynamic level derived from the actual acoustics of the Blüthner Model One.
Keyboard Scaling. The BDMO instrument patches are built with high accuracy Keyboard Scaling programmed directly into them. Choose from 100% (acoustic) to 45% (compressed).
Variable Tuning. The BDMO offers built-in floating just intonation, custom designed by Ernest. It can be addressed by either using a 2nd keyboard or by assigning a MIDI controller to CC#16.
Variable Sustain Pedal ready. We created a complete set of patches to take full advantage of Variable Sustain pedal features found in Kontakt 2. Instead of the typical cc#64 on/off switch you can now control the amount of sustain using a special footswitch. You can adjust the sustain amount and depth by pedal pressure.
Concentrated enough to use on your laptop. Unlike many of the "mega-pianos" the BDMO was designed with size in mind. Concentrated and ultra-powerful, the Blüthner Digital Model One will run on a laptop – even with 12 layers pedal up and down (24+ stereo samples per note) and advanced convolution.
Sampled and edited by Ernest and Dan. Drawing from many years of combined expertise in digital audio and recording, the BDMO was created by Ernest and Dan. Every sample was recorded by us, edited by us and processed by us. We designed the programming, the layout and worked on new features with NI directly. Only our ears/hands created this product.
Powered by the Kontakt 2 Player Plug-In. Use BDMO as a stand alone application. Kontakt 2 works on the Mac OS X (including Intel-Macs) or on Windows in VST, DXi, AU and RTAS formats.
Pro Audio Vault (PAV) is an international joint venture of Ernest Cholakis and Dan Dean. The Blüthner Digital Model One is its first product.
