Piano Stage 3

[Argenta Sugden]

StagePiano includes multi-layer sample sets collected from the world's most impressive acoustic pianos that cost more than a car! With Stage Piano, you can get the best and most sought-after acoustic pianos inside a VST/AU/AAX-compatible plugin host. The AIR engineering team has painstakingly sampled each piano model in Germany to make sure they captured the natural beauty of the instrument's acoustic characteristics.

Experience the joy of playing the most acclaimed pianos in history with brilliant multi-sampled sounds that offer you access to the original instrument's sonic characteristics and timbre options. With its elegant interface, you can control the piano model's dynamics, age, and even the lid position and mechanics of the hammers. Stage Piano also gives you access to attack and release amplitude control, bringing your concert to life. In addition, Stage Piano includes a powerful FX section allowing you to add creative timbres to your tones.

We built Stage Piano with piano players in mind, whether they are on-stage or in the studio. The plugin includes plenty of articulations and foot pedal parameters that give you the natural expression of a real acoustic piano. Each sample set offers separate pedal parameters that will let you adjust the level of sustain resonance, the hammer falls, staccato release, and soft pedal to create a genuinely accurate piano performance.

Stage Piano includes multiple effects like Flavor timbre control, EQ, compression, rich reverb, and delay. Create brilliant shimmers, dark haunting echoes, or spacey washed pianos with a cutting-edge effects engine built into the instrument.

Purchase this plugin and you'll get the ability to unlock it within your Akai Professional MPC / FORCE Standalone hardware as well as using within your favorite DAW. Seamlessly move productions from standalone hardware to your DAW with the same great sounds.

This instrument is available in VST, AU, and AAX format as well as offering full support for MPC standalone and desktop systems running version 2.11 (or later). FORCE users will need version 3.2 or later. Click below to download and install the 10 day trial of the Stage Piano desktop VST, AU, or AAX version of this plugin.

Stage Piano is designed to support VST 2 and VST3 Plugin hosts as well as full support for AU, AAX, and MPC/FORCE Standalone systems. This software requires an internet connection to authorize. You will need to install Akai's MPC desktop software version 2.11 or higher to use desktop versions of the plugins.

A stage piano is an electronic musical instrument designed for use in live performances on stage or in a studio, as well as for music recording in Jazz and popular music. While stage pianos share some of the same features as digital pianos designed for home use and synthesizers, they have a number of features which set them apart. Stage pianos usually provide a smaller number of sounds (usually acoustic piano, electric piano, and hammond organ), with these being of higher quality than the ones found on regular digital pianos and home synthesizers.

Unlike many digital pianos, which are designed for semi-permanent installation in a private home and have design elements which make regular transportation difficult (e.g., permanently mounted legs, modesty panel, internal power amplifier and speakers, and a fixed sustain pedal), a stage piano generally has a portable, detachable stand, no internal amp or speakers (an output jack is provided so the instrument can be plugged into a keyboard amplifier), a detachable sustain pedal to be plugged into a jack, and a robust body. This enables a performer to remove all of the detachable parts and makes the instrument easier to transport to gigs and rehearsals.

The sounds of a high-end stage piano are usually created through sampling or complex digital signal processing-modelling, methods of higher quality compared to what is commonly found on digital keyboards, which use relatively simple synthesis methods to allow for more, different types of sounds, albeit in lower quality. Along with the sounds of the most common keyboard instruments, most stage pianos also provide a recreation of electro-mechanical pianos like the Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer 200A, or Yamaha CP-70/CP-80 series, which were based on picking up the sound of a metal tine, reed or string hit by a hammer.

While almost all digital pianos and lower-end synthesizer keyboards designed for home use have small onboard powered speakers, stage pianos are often designed without onboard speakers; instead, they are designed to be used with external amplification. In some models, low powered speakers built into the instrument are present and are intended for home use, however in case of live performances more powerful and higher quality amplifiers are preferred, plugging them through the output jack. Only some particular models of stage pianos, such as the Yamaha P-250 or Casio Privia, have onboard powered speakers already built into the instrument.

The controls on stage pianos can usually be navigated through knobs and buttons placed on the instrument. Among these, MIDI interfaces are provided to permit them to be used as master keyboards, which can control other tone-generating modules, such as Hammond organ-emulators or synthesizer string modules.

Stage pianos usually have 88 keys, which is standard for all modern acoustic pianos. However, some stage pianos have fewer keys, such as the Kurzweil SP76 which has only 76 semi-weighted keys, but is still called a stage piano because of its layout and weighted keys.

The venue: This will be happing in our temporary 380 seat performance space. We have a total stage of 8m wide by 3m deep at 850mm high from the floor (made up of sections of 2x1 deck). There is steps access to the either side of stage, and there is a 1.5m wide aisle either side of the stage, one of which I can block as its not required fro emergency access.

What would people suggest about moving the piano daily considering the venue and time restraints we have? I am thinking about something like a 'rolling riser' that could roll next to my main stage at the same height and I transfer the piano on and off (would this be stable at 850mm high ??). Should I look at tipping the piano everyday or would that mean it needs tuning everyday?

Does anybody know of any motorised piano lifts that could be useful in this situation? Would I be able to push the piano up a ramp from the floor to stage or does that put too much adverse pressure on the legs? Is there someway it could live under the stage and be raised and lowered?

At one of my venues, we do it with a ramp. The piano has a steel frame around the base of its legs which provides the necessary bracing - you can't do it without that. We use a turfer for moving it up & down. It takes longer to built and de-rig the ramp than your half hour window, but that's partly just the nature of its particular construction. It does need tuning after a trip up & down.

You definitely don't want to be tipping it or pushing it up and down a ramp if you can avoid it, it would need tuning for sure then. Even being rolled around on the flat might cause tuning problems, though this may or may not be important depending on the nature of the show.

Aye to what everyone else has said about tuning - even just rolling it around on the flat is going to knock it out of tune after a couple of days, and if you're having to go up and down a ramp or anything like that then you're going to need to have it tuned daily (from the sound of it, the piano is a pretty central part of the performance).

You know the dimensions, so I guess it's safe to assume that you've got somewhere to store the instrument that's well away from the risk of it getting damaged by the setting and striking of the other seven shows. But you shouldn't underestimate the weight of an instrument like that - both in terms of the manual handling implications, and also the fact that if it's being regularly moved about like this I'd say it's pretty important to sit it onto a suitable frame so that the legs don't cop for too much of a battering.

I'm guessing you're going to be renting this instrument? If so, speak to the rental company that it's coming from and get their input. Piano rental companies have a lot of experience of getting their instruments in and out of venues, and on and off stages - I'm sure they'll have some advice to offer.

You really should be asking piano movers, not theatre technicians :) . There are many labour saving devices allowing a small number of people to move very large pianos up and down stairs, on and off platforms etc. there was a very interesting programme on R4 the other day about this very thing, unfortunately I can't recall the name of the company involved, but they were very proud of their piano-moving robot. Be prepared for a enormous bill, however. And whether it is feasible in half hour turn-round is a good question.

I wonder, if the performers are proposing to hit the instrument, scrape the strings etcetera whether tuning is of primary concern, but of course as everyone has said, refer to the artistes about this.

If they are thinking of hiring one in then I think it your moral duty to tell them to strike the whole idea. I would have to vacate the premises if anyone started battering a 30,000 Steinway in front of me. How is your insurance?

It's clear that tuning will be a factor however its moved, thats another block of time I have to find in an already packed schedule every couple of days, I hope the piano tuner either works very late, or very early !!

The show is providing the piano and arranging insurance, and yes, I am in talks with the supplier about movement etc.. but I was hoping to speak to technicians to see if anybody had any clever ideas about moving it that I could see if the piano supplier is happy with.

Unfortunately, there are no wings in this venue as its a thrust stage built into the room, with a tiered seating bank on three sides. The 2x1 deck is 'Topdeck', but I could switch this out for something else if needed. I've attached a photo to give you an idea of the stage/room. Whats not clear is the aisle space I have between the seating and back wall (the area under the yellow logo gobo) which is about 1.7m wide

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