One of the main improvements of Cassette Piano.02 is a completely new set of samples of an (not so perfect) old upright piano recorded in a ballet training room (in both stereo and mono, with mics at the back of the piano) which resulted in surprisingly organic and tasty sound with all kinds of little imperfections. In order to make the best use of those recordings, and to further expand the sound capabilities of the instrument, four different decks were used to process the samples.
Every note has been carefully denoised with a high quality algorithm to avoid noise stacking when playing more than one note (there’s still some noise left in the samples to avoid denonising artifacts). Noise can still be added with the noise knob – it’s much more flexible this way and allows the ability to adjust the volume of the noise independently whilst also applying parameters such as filtering. It also creates a more realistic sound, so when playing a five voice chord, only one sample of noise instead of five stacked on top of each other will be heard.
The GUI of the Kontakt version has been redesigned – it’s still very simple and clear, but it offers much more editing possibilities, including extended modulation section:
– 2 independent LFOs with 5 shapes and 4 destinations each
– AMPLITUDE envelope with velocity modulation
– FILTER envelope with invert switch
– PITCH envelope with invert switch and attack curve knob
Another improvement is the use of impulse reverb with custom impulses (4 spring impulses, 4 hall impulses & 3 corridor impulses), along with a choice of whether you want it to be placed pre or post insert effects – same thing goes for the delay.
In addition, there are also features you may already know from previous instruments in this series, such as the sample start knob (controlled with the GUI or Mod Wheel) which allows you to control initial transients while designing your sound. Moreover, because of the fact that this kind of instruments sounds great when transposed down (it really adds to the overall ‘lofiness’ of the sound) there’s an octave down switch in the GUI now.
And as the last thing – there’s now also a simple 2 band equaliser (Instrument Tone) located at the bottom of the GUI.
Simulated Round Robin
Makes faster note passages sound more realistic and adds to the overall nonlinearity of the instrument – check out the introduction video to hear it in action (Kontakt and SFZ versions only).
Variety of sounds
Aside from the sound of a cassette record with this instrument you can easily create some weird sounds and there are already quite a few presets included to get you started (Kontakt & Ableton Live versions only).
