Software Eighty-Eights

Oct 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Charlie Otwell, Marshall Otwell, and Len Sasso

STYLE GUIDE

Here is our cumulative opinion on which pianos are particularly well suited for which playing styles. We offer this with the caveat that in the end, it's the player, not the piano.

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TECH TALK

Here's a glossary of technical terms relevant to pianos and piano sampling.

bass section: the copper-wound steel strings that are the leftmost and lowest-sounding strings on the piano. There are one or two strings per note in the bass section.

break: the transition between the bass and treble sections of piano strings. Consistency of timbre across the break is often a problem for lower-quality pianos.

damper: a small felt block that, when lowered onto the strings of a note, dampens (cuts off) the strings' vibrations.

damper pedal: the rightmost of the piano's three pedals, also known as the sustain pedal. Pressing the damper pedal raises the dampers of all notes.

hammer: a felt-covered wood block that strikes the strings when a key is pressed, causing the strings to vibrate.

inharmonicity: the discrepancy between the actual overtones produced by a vibrating string and the theoretical overtones, which are whole-number multiples of the fundamental (lowest) frequency of vibration.

release resonance samples: samples recorded after a note has been released and the damper has fallen on the strings. The strings don't stop vibrating instantly, and other parts of the piano, primarily the soundboard, also continue to vibrate.

repedaling: pressing the sustain (damper) pedal after a note has been released and the damper has fallen on the strings. Because the strings' vibration doesn't stop immediately, repedaling produces an audible effect, which can be simulated by fading in the sustain resonance samples.

sostenuto pedal: the center of the piano's three pedals. Pressing the sostenuto pedal suspends the dampers of the notes that are currently held. This pedal is often omitted on uprights and less expensive pianos.

stretch tuning: the tuning technique that makes the octave intervals slightly greater than the theoretical 2-to-1 ratio in order to compensate for the inharmonicity of the strings.

sustain resonance samples: samples recorded for each note with the sustain (damper) pedal held down. Because the other strings are free to vibrate, sustain resonance samples sound different from samples recorded with the damper pedal up.

sympathetic vibration: vibrations induced in a string by sound waves at one or more of the string's harmonics.

treble section: the strings not in the bass section. These are steel strings that are not copper wound, and there are three strings per note.

una corda pedal: the leftmost of the piano's three pedals, also known as the soft pedal. Pressing the una corda pedal shifts the key bed and hammers slightly to the right. For all but the single-string notes in the bass section, that prevents the hammers from striking the leftmost string, changing both the timbre and volume of the note.

ESSENTIAL STATISTICS

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MANUFACTURER CONTACTS

Art Vista Productions www.artvista.net

Best Service www.soundsonline.com

EastWest www.soundsonline.com

Native Instruments www.native-instruments.com

Steinberg www.steinberg.de

Synthogy www.synthogy.com