FREE: Upright Felt Piano by WESTWOOD (Kontakt Library)

Upright Felt Piano A well loved piano, perfect for alternative scores.

Instrument Overview

A well loved piano, perfect for alternative scores. Westwood's Upright Felt Piano is born from a mission to find and sample a piano filled with interesting and natural character. Using some classic vintage microphones through the highest quality signal path, we created a virtual instrument that is perfect for intimate, alternative film scores. 

They sampled the piano in the crypt of a church. It’s lived there for the past 10 years since a band we know have recorded all their albums in this unlikely place. The space is hard rock walls and vaulted ceilings providing some interesting acoustics; really dry up close, but with a nice amount of liveliness as you record further away. 

They wanted to tame the sound of the piano which is really bright, so they custom felted the strings to take out the top end but not lose any of its unique character. What they were left with is a beautiful warm and intimate sound. 

They used an absolutely world-class pristine signal path recording everything at 96kHz through legendary Neve 1073 pre-amps and Burr Brown AD convertors. 

The signal started with a matched pair of Coles 4038’s as close as we dare put the to the hammers to capture a really detailed sound. A stereo pair of AKG 414’s made an excellent job of capturing a more open room sound. They also used a single SE-2 close to the rear soundboard. This mic position provides a really boxy vintage sound. 

All of these microphones can be mixed independently through the Kontakt interface so you can dial in exactly the sound you want.


WESTWOOD

 Westwood was born from an idea that composing on a computer would be much better if it felt like you’re writing with a musician and an instrument in front of you.  

They understand that not everyone has the means, time or access to live musicians but they know that writing music can often be inspired from experimenting with a real instrument in the room. 

Often to them, virtual instruments sound too clean, polished and have had any natural character stripped from them, which in their minds is the very thing that makes music sound most interesting. They like to find musicians that follow this mindset and will choose instruments that don’t sound too perfect. They then capture real performances with all their individual nuances and playing styles. Sometimes with traditional performance techniques and sometimes with unique and unconventional ideas. These aren’t phrase libraries; more like a real musician putting a feeling in your music. 

 
Westwood sample instruments using the world’s best microphones through an impeccable signal chain. Each individual sample is then crafted to shape its character whilst keeping some of their natural flaws. These samples are then wrapped up in a custom virtual instrument made for use in Native Instrument’s Kontakt.





AVAILABLE FOR FREE : WESTWOOD