Review: The 88 Series Pianos Bundle by Chocolate Audio
Huge range of timbres
Over 100 presets
Great for classical, cinematic, jazz and much more
V1.5 Engine has lots of great controls
Piano tone is a very personal choice so that will be determining factor although there are a lot of options with this bundle.
Piano tone is a very personal choice. The 88 Series Pianos Bundle offers a huge amount of timbres with it’s 4 separate piano libraries and over 100 presets which can be used for a wide range of styles.
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Review: The 88 Series Pianos Bundle by Chocolate Audio
There is a lot to like in this piano bundle. Such a huge amount of timbres for a wide range of styles. The Bundle downloads as 26GB and contains 4 Instruments with over 100 presets. At the time of reviewing the library the bundle was housed in The 88 Series engine v1.5 and does require the full version of Kontakt 5.4.3+.
Piano tone is a very personal choice so that will be determining factor for most of the readers, although there are a lot of options with this bundle huge number of presets and mi positions.
The Bundle includes 3 Acoustic Pianos and 1 Electric Piano: Model 7 Grand, Model D Grand, Steinbach Upright & Model 80 Electric Grand.
The 88 Series Pianos Bundle sells for $299 from Chocolate Audio
Model 7
Model 7 grand piano was sampled from a Yamaha C7 grand coda piano. The Chocolate Audio team fell in love with the c7 after testing out several Grand pianos for the instrument. The instrument was sampled in a medium-size hall surrounded by loads of microphones.
Model D Grand
The Model D grand piano was sampled from recording a Hamburg-made, 1939 Steinway D274 grand coda piano. This older piano has a lot of character and lots of presets which make it great for everything from pop, jazz, classic and even some more cinematic presets.
Steinbach Upright
Chocolate Audio wanted to capture a full sound yet balance the instrument on being just out-of-tune enough to capture tone and character that is in so many historic recordings. Chocolate Audio sampled a Italian upright piano built by Steinbac in a mid-size roomy studio surrounded by a plethora of microphones.
Model 80 Electric Grand
Chocolate Audio had more difficulty when it came to trying to capture the Model 80 Electric Grand with the same quality as their other pianos. In partuicular, the developer found the electronics very noisy with lots of ambient noise. With the Model 80 Electric, Chocolate Audio had to pay special attention and care in restoring, preparing, tuning and sampling this instrument.
Housed in The 88 Series Engine, the piano libraries in the bundle offer users a number of controls including 4 microphone positions, EQ, and, a highlight for me, the LID Open, Semi-open and Closed parameters!
The engine also contains Piano Tone controls, Realism and Velocity sensitivity controls that really allow you to sculpt the playback to behave just how you like it.
Effects and an extensive advanced controls for ADSR are also in separate “Effects” panels of the engine.
The 88 Series Pianos Bundle sells for $299 from Chocolate Audio
