Review: The Upright by Audio Brewers

The Upright is the debut library by new sample developer Audio Brewers, but I sure hope it’s not the last. The Upright is a beautifully sampled upright piano from the late 1980s with a whopping 14 velocity layers, a beautiful and simple interface with tons of sound design and sound-shaping possibilities, and playability and tone that makes you want to just keep playing.

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Review: The Upright by Audio Brewers

The Upright is Audio Brewers debut entry into the sample library world. Delivering an impressive 14 velocity layers, a flexible sound design engine, and taking its place as the first ever sample library to be delivered in Ambisonics, The Upright is an excellent piano library with much more than meets the eye.

By using the code SLRUPRIGHT at checkout, you will have 60,00 Euro off on your purchase, meaning you will be able to get ‘The Upright’ at intro price of €99 until January 12, 2021. The Upright normally sells for €199.00 from Audio Brewers

Thoughts

Audio Brewers are new to the sample library world, but The Upright feels as if it were created by a company with years of experience creating sample libraries. Instantly playable, The Upright comes with a whopping 14 velocity layers and multiple instrument patches: The Upright, Una Corda, Felt, and Prepared, along with a separate “layered” patch for each one. The Upright might possibly be the most real feeling sampled piano I have ever played. The 14 velocity layers make it feel like it has the responsiveness of a real piano. The tone is beautiful as well. However, there are two things that really set The Upright apart from most other piano libraries on the market: it’s the first sample library to ever be recorded, mixed, and delivered in Amisonics and it has a deep and easy-to-use sound design engine. For those not familiar with Ambisonics, it allows you to place the instrument in a surround sound environment via a third-party plugin. As Kontakt doesn’t support Ambisonics decoding at this time, a third-party plugin might be needed if your DAW cannot decode natively. There are numerous third-party plugins on the market and some of these are even free. While the surround sound capabilities of The Upright are a unique feature, I’m personally more interested in how it performs in a stereo environment, and I’m happy to say that it is easily one of the best (of many) piano libraries I have ever played. The piano is beautiful and instantly playable all by itself, but the deep sound design possibilities just put it over the top. The layered patches give you full control over every part of the piano sound (pedal, resonance, sustain, keystrokes), allowing you to assign different modulation parameters to different parts of the piano sound resulting in new, unusual, and beautiful sounds. With everything from an onboard sequencer that can control multiple modulation sources to things like a formant and gate control, The Upright is an excellent entry into the world of sample library development for Audio Brewers.

Facts

The Upright was taken from a deeply sampled upright piano from the late 1980s. It weighs in at 49 GB (100 GB uncompressed) and offers three mix configurations with over 42,000 samples. The Upright requires the full version of Kontakt 6.2.1 or above.

The Upright is being released in five volumes over the next several weeks: Vol. 1: The Upright (€99.00), Vol. 2: The Upright: Felt Keys (€139.00), Vol. 3: The Upright: Una Corda (€159.00), and Vol. 4: The Upright: Prepared (€199.00). There is also a surprise Vol. 5 freebie coming on January 19th that will be included for all owners of The Upright. A purchase of any of the volumes includes all of the previous and future volumes 1-5 in The Upright series.

By using the code SLRUPRIGHT at checkout, you will have 60,00 Euro off on your purchase, meaning you will be able to get ‘The Upright’ at intro price of 99,00 Euro! Until January 12,2021. The Upright normally sells for €199.00 from Audio Brewers

Demos of The Upright by Audio Brewers

Videos of The Upright by Audio Brewers

Contributor Raborn Johnson reviews The Upright by Audio Brewers
“The Upright is the debut library by new sample developers, Audio Brewers, but I sure hope it’s not the last. The Upright is a beautifully sampled upright piano from the late 1980s with a whopping 14 velocity layers, a beautiful and simple interface with tons of sound design and sound-shaping possibilities, and a playability and tone that makes you want to just keep playing.”