Vienna Symphonic Library releases Synchron Fazioli F308 - virtual representation of Italian concert grand

The Vienna Symphonic Library has announced the release of Synchron Fazioli F308, a virtual representation of the flagship concert grand of the acclaimed Italian piano maker. Here's what they say:

The world's largest piano was captured on the spacious Stage A of Synchron Stage Vienna from ten microphone positions and comes with Vienna's powerful and free Synchron Piano Player. With a total of more than 360,000 samples, this software instrument boasts breathtaking authenticity and a warm, colorful sound rich with resonances.

The F308 is not only the jewel in the crown of Fazioli's acclaimed series of pianos, but also of one of Synchron Stage Vienna's exclusive collection of concert grands. Designed for large spaces, the F308 found a perfect home in the 540 m2 "Stage A" that allows its sound to unfold effortlessly, elevated by the exceptional acoustics of this hall.

With a staggering length of 308 cm (10 ft 2 in), the world's largest piano owes its powerful sound and extraordinary harmonic clarity to the increased string length in the bass and middle range, as well as to a host of innovations the Italian piano maker is praised for among musicians and audiences alike. Fazioli pianos are built with a heartfelt passion for music and musicians, extraordinary craftsmanship, advanced technological development, and a careful selection of materials. The heart of each Fazioli – the soundboard – is taken from the same spruce forest in northern Italy's Val di Fiemme where Antonio Stradivari once sourced his wood for his famous violins.

The F308 at Synchron Stage Vienna is equipped with a fourth pedal invented by Fazioli, located to the left of the three traditional pedals, which lowers the keyboard and raises the hammers to be closer to the strings. The effect is a decrease in volume of the sound without changing its timbre, sounding the same overtones and resonances, with a soft but very clear and transparent sound. This innovation also facilitates playing soft glissandos, rapid passages, and legatos. What's more, by combining the una corda pedal with the fourth pedal pianists can increase the variations of soft colors the F308 is able to offer.

Vienna's engineers captured the rich resonances of the instrument's warm, colorful, and sparkling sound with an array of phase-aligned microphones. The signals of 11 mic positions are separately available in the mixer section of the Synchron Piano Player, perfectly pre-configured with Mixer Presets such as Concert, Intimate, Player, Pop, Ambience, and more. As with all Synchron Libraries, users can mix their piano sound in stereo, 5.1 surround or even Dolby Atmos and 9.1 Auro 3D, or any other immersive audio format. Of course, the mixer presets serve as great starting points for the users' creations according to their liking or to the acoustic requirements of the production at hand.

In addition to creating an individual sound by mixing several microphone signals, the free Vienna Synchron Pianos software offers multiple options for shaping the sound of the piano and the playing experience of the user. Hosting a high-performance playback engine, the software provides a full-blown mixer with a broad range of effects such as EQ, compressor, saturator, algorithmic reverb, delay, chorus, flanger, rotary, and many more. Users may also adjust the volume of body resonances, sympathetic strings, and pedal noises right in the main Play window. In the Edit window it is even possible to tweak EQ, volume, tuning, dynamic range, etc. for each individual key.

Synchron Stage Vienna is the only scoring stage in the world that offers clients the possibility to make a choice in advance about which piano to use in the recording sessions. Each of the studio facility's collection of exquisite concert grands is available as a software instrument that enables composers and music executives to play and evaluate the sampled pianos in the comfort of their own studio and hear a 100% accurate rendition of how they will sound in the very hall where the recordings will eventually happen – in stereo, surround and immersive sound formats.

Price: The new product is currently available at an introductory price of $233 for the Standard Library (reg. $299), and $423 for the Full Library (reg. $560). The difference between the Standard Library and the Full Library is the number of available microphone positions.