The Smiley Smile Message Board

Not having the room for a real piano, I'm always on the lookout for the best tack piano sample library. I've just found this one. The demos are down the page a bit. What do you guys think?

http://www.sampleism.com/taleweaver/ancient-wooden-piano (http://www.sampleism.com/taleweaver/ancient-wooden-piano)

I'm sure some of you have made your own tack pianos. How was that? Has anyone got that genuine BW sound. Obviously it's a case of miking the thing as well. How would that  amazing H&V chorus have been miked? To me that always sounded like a tack and harpsichord together, though I could well be wrong.

Just think... Brian could make a small fortune creating sample packs. It'd be interesting to get the remaining cast from the golden age of the studio together and have them create sounds on vintage equipment.

I've isolated some of the single drum hits, where they've popped up on their own in the session tapes. Not that I'd use them in my recordings, of course! But yes, A BW sample library along the lines of East West Fab Four (only better), which was incidently recorded at Western, home of EastWest now. So to me a BW or Spector sample library would be an obvious move for them.

Doubtless that "sound" you seek had a lot to do with the room acoustics and how the board was set that day.
 Most people's hearing isnt good enough that they can spot subtle sonic nuances, so a having good ear is paramount.
You wouldnt have started the thread if you didnt have that!  :p

The Emu "ZR" tack piano is pretty decent, even dry. Some large room reverb (applied in small amount) improves it.
Hope you can manage to nail that sound you are wanting. Or should I say "tack it"?

I really, really want a sample of a piano which sounds as close to possible as Brian's from the late 60s as possible.

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Can anyone recommend a good harpsichord/tack piano for MIDI keyboards?

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For those interested in how Brian and the engineers got that tack piano sound in 1966, I actually wrote a few posts on that topic on this board a few years ago when the GV studio session film started appearing, but I can't remember or find where that discussion was! But I do have the photo frames I captured from the film.

This is the GV session at Western #3, showing the upright piano. We know from other frames in this film that there was a standard piano there too, as well as a Hammond organ, and Brian is shown sitting at the regular piano in several shots.

So we can assume for now *this* camera angle is showing the "tack piano", and notice too I put number showing the microphones being used to capture the sound. There may have been another mic or mics too which are hidden behind Brian or even elsewhere.

Note especially that the front paneling of this upright (or tack piano if we go on the assumption) has been removed, exposing the soundboard, the "harp", and the strings/hammers. This seemed to be common with tack pianos, even ones I've seen on TV performances. If you want to capture the "strike" of the hammers, you'd expose them in some way beyond a normal piano where you'd more often mic around the strings/harp and in the "sweet spot" of the cabinet. You want to hear that hard strike as the defining sound that makes a tack piano.

Note too the "distant micing" techniques as shown, and they look like dynamics rather than condensers or even the ubiquitous ribbons like a 44 or 77. The mics are not jammed right up to the hammers or strings, but rather a few feet out. More distance here would mean a bigger and more full sound, just like getting a guitar amp with both a close mic on the cone and a distant mic or two to capture the cabinet resonance, the room, and the actual air the speaker is pushing out.

Hope this provides some more info on that classic Brian tack piano sound!

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/pianomics.jpg)

Mrs Mills' piano from the Abbey Road keyboard collection is the best tack piano VST I've heard.