Review The Hammersmith Piano from Soniccouture
I loved the sound of this piano right out-of-the-gate. So many great presets and the TURE-SUSTAIN samples make a world of difference compared to other Piano libraries. The precision sampling technique, beautiful room and top-of-the-line microphone selections make this my new go to piano library.
I personally don't have a CON for this library but that is because the timbre works for me. That said piano choices are very personal so be sure to listen to the demos and check out other reviews before you make a purchase.
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The Hammersmith
The Facts
The Hammersmith is available from Sonicccouture
The Hammersmith comes in 2 versions. A Pro Edition and a Standard Edition. Both libraries come with 24bit/48k stereo samples, 21 velocity layers, intelligent anti-repeat (round robins) and The Hammersmith stand out feature separate True-Sustain samples for playback of notes with the sustain pedal down.
The differences between the Pro and Standard edition come from the number of microphone channels that are accessible with the Standard having 2 Mic Channels and the Pro having 6 selectable microphone channels. The PRo contains 52GB of NCW lossless compressed files while the Standard contains 19GB.
Both versions come with full expression controls panels, scale presets , micro tune features as well as a effects panel with customized IR reverb.
Both editions of The Hammersmith are comptible with the free and full versions of kontakt 5.1 or higher.
For the purpose of my review I am examining the Pro Edition but my review will cover the sample sample set as the Standard Edition with the main difference being the additional Microphone channel selections.
THE OPTIONS PANEL (BOTH EDITIONS)
The Options Panel has a very powerful selection of tools enable you to make The Hammersmith respond exactly how you want. Includes a USER LEARN function which calibrates Hammersmith to your MIDI keyboard with a few simple steps, and a comprehensive tuning section in which you can load custom scales, create your own, or just retune a single key.
THE EFFECTS PANEL (BOTH EDITIONS)
The Effect Panel of The Hammersmith has a good selection of high quality processing, including Soniccouture‘s custom convolution reverb effects and a velocity responsive low pass filter.
Capturing the Samples and the True-Sustain
First up, let’s talk about the True-Sustain samples and the technique used to capture the sounds of this Steinway Model D Piano. BUt what made this piano special was that the piano had been customized and modified as a MIDI player piano.
This allowed Soniccouture to trigger the piano using MIDI giving them extremely consistent velocity playback and the ability to not have a human at the piano playing the notes which equaled long recording sessions with no mistakes, coughs or breaks and the ability to capture huge amounts of clean samples from the piano.
For the studio Soniccouture selected Mark Knopfler’s British Grove studios in Hammersmith, West London thus the name of the library.
Microphones Make the Difference
The Hammersmith has several mic options and the ability to mute, solo, change phase and EQ right from the front of the instruments panel. mics include:
CLOSE: NEUMANN M49 PAIR
CLOSE: AKG D19 MONO
MID: SCHOEPS MK4 PAIR
MID: NEUMANN KM133D PAIR
ROOM: NEUMANN KU100 BINAURAL HEAD
ROOM: NEUMANN M50 DECCA TREEThe Hammersmith
The Hammersmith Mic Options
Thoughts
The technique used to capture this piano has made a world of difference.
The Hammersmith is available from Sonicccouture
