East West Quantum Leap Pianos Platinum Torrent WORK
Latrina Cobbett
This is the largest library devoted to one type of instrument I've seen, and installing its samples takes a very long time indeed. Do not make the mistake of showing up to a recording session or rehearsal and saying, 'Just hold on a minute while I install this new piano guys'. If your DVD drive is a bit on the slow side, by the time you've finished your colleagues will have gone to the pub, stayed till closing time, joined the landlord in an illegal after-hours drinking session, staggered home, slept for eight hours, got up, eaten a hearty breakfast and returned to the studio for the next day's session. In their absence you will have spent a sleepless night grimly installing over 68,000 samples from 35 double-layer DVDs. After that I guarantee you'll be in no mood to play a piano, even a superior sampled one recorded by a top sound company.
Sensitive is not the word I'd use to describe the Bechstein 'classic pop' patch engineered by Ken Scott; its samples sound heavily EQ'd and the hard, metallic tone reminded me of the piano (another Bechstein) at London's Trident Studios, where Mr Scott used to work. The crashing low-end and smack-in-the-face middle register of this patch work a treat for brash pop and rock but would give any classical pianist or singer-songwriter of a nervous disposition the screaming ab-dabs. Incidentally, at the time of writing the aforementioned Trident piano was up for auction with a guide price of 300-400k. I'd suggest that this astronomical figure is less a reflection of its unique tone than the fact that it was played on 'Hey Jude'!
One of the defining characteristics of this make of piano is the set of additional keys at the low end, extending the range from the conventional bottom note of 'A' down to a profoundly low 'C'. Though the extra bass notes' fundamental pitch is too low and rumbly to have much intrinsic musical value, they are said to influence the piano's sonic character by resonating when other strings are struck with the sustain pedal down, contributing additional body to the tone. Sounds logical, and since actual 'pedal on' samples are triggered whenever the sustain pedal is pressed, you can rest assured that you'll be getting the benefit of these extra overtones!
QL Piano's simple microphone mixer allows you to easily blend and pan the selection of close, player perspective and room mics.Quantum Leap Pianos offers a choice of three microphone positions for each of its four pianos: close, player perspective and room. The room recordings are not designed to be used on their own; their purpose is purely to add ambience and some 'air' to the overall sound, and if played in isolation they lack definition. Users are therefore advised to work with the two closer mikings and add the room mics to taste. According to co-producer Nick Phoenix, most systems can't handle three microphone positions playing at the same time due to the huge amount of samples involved, but in his view two mics sound better anyway!
EastWest/Quantum Leap now say on their web site that the minimum RAM required to run QL Pianos is 2GB and the recommended figure is 4GB. That might seem like a 'quantum leap' from the numbers printed on the product box (1GB and 2GB respectively), but there's no doubt that to get the best out of these powerful, multi-dynamic, wide-range instruments and convolution reverbs you do need generous amounts of memory. This is one area where a 64-bit operating system (which can access unprecedentedly large amounts of RAM) would be a huge advantage.
The Bechstein, Bsendorfer and Steinway pianos were recorded in EastWest's large Studio 1, whose acoustics are similar to an orchestral stage or Hollywood soundstage. The Yamaha was recorded in EastWest's Studio 2, which is mainly used for rock, due to its relatively dry sound. Because of the lack of room ambience it was deemed unnecessary to include release trails for this piano, and I can't say I missed them!
In the years before EastWest acquired the studio complex formerly known as Western Recorders, this Yamaha C7 appeared on countless US hit records. I can't promise that its Midas touch will rub off on your recordings, but I can recommend it to the pop community as a very decent sampled grand.
Una corda is not the name of an Italian punk band, but the classical term used for the piano soft pedal. Most piano notes have three strings; when you press the soft pedal the piano's hammers shift to the right and hit only two of them, giving a smaller, softer sound. All four pianos have a full set of soft-pedal samples that can be accessed by sending the player a MIDI CC#67 command. The effect differs from piano to piano, but in all cases it transforms the sonic character and adds greatly to the timbral variety of the instruments.
If your system can't cope with thousands of samples and multiple mikings, you can unload unwanted articulations from a patch and use just one mic position. My personal favourite was the player perspective, which is close enough to bring out the precise attack of notes and distant enough to introduce a bit of 'air' into the sound. Once you've played the pianos and decided on your favourite(s), you might want to delete one or more of the others to free up some disk space. QL Pianos simplifies the job of doing this by grouping each piano's samples in a clearly identified folder.
Piano sound being such a personal thing, it's hard to predict which way players might jump if asked to choose between QL Pianos' instruments. I've a feeling that classically-trained pianists will lean towards the Bechstein's intimate tone and high-end sparkle, though some of them might prefer the Bsendorfer's precision and low-end strength, particularly if playing a piece that demands size and power. Jazz players and improvisers will enjoy the Steinway's superbly even touch, open sound and fluid attack, though again the Bsendorfer also fares quite well if played quietly (the instrument belongs to Quantum Leap's Nick Phoenix, who describes his own playing style as 'improvisational and romantic'). The bright sound of the Yamaha is unbeatable for pop and rock, and if you need a more extreme noise you can dial up Ken Scott's EQ'd Bechstein 'classic pop' patch, which has top and high-middle frequencies in abundance. Whatever your preference, it's clear that all four are very good sampled pianos, and since they're sold as a bundle, buyers will be spoiled for choice!
The release of QL Pianos completes the first set of Play-formatted libraries originally announced in the spring of 2007. If that seems like an unreasonably long wait, bear in mind that recording projects of this size take a very long time. Editing the 68,000 samples in this library took four people eight months, and I bet pianist John Sawoski's figures are still aching! The ultimate test of whether all the effort was worth it comes when a musician sits down to play the instruments, and this musician spent many happy hours playing the 'fab four' (to coin a phrase) pianos included in this world-beating collection.
A 'Sensitivity' control lets you tailor the dynamic response of the patches to your touch, a nice facility that's more convenient than having to change the velocity curve on your master keyboard every time you play the library. The control defaults to a diagonal straight graph line; if you alter its shape to a concave curve, mid-range velocities are reduced, lower velocities are compressed and higher velocities are exaggerated, while a convex curve makes mid-range velocities louder, exaggerates lower velocities and compresses higher velocities. This system should cover most dynamic requirements, but it's a little complicated; I'd prefer a simple control where you can add or subtract a user-defined number to or from the MIDI velocity values, enabling a global dynamic up or down shift.
The convolution reverbs included in QL Pianos will bring cheer to its users: in addition to the impulses recorded in EastWest's Studio 1, there are impulse responses from the large orchestral hall used to record EastWest/Quantum Leap Symphony Orchestra. Applying this reverb to the pianos therefore ensures compatibility with that library's reverberant samples. These pianos already sound great dry, so the provision of this expensive-sounding, luxuriant concert hall effect is the icing on the cake.
This collection of four superb instruments raises the bar for sampled grand piano playability without hiking the price too high. Sampled pianos aren't for everyone, but any pop, rock, jazz and classical player, producer or programmer who needs a digital piano should find something to their taste in this highly versatile library.
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