Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars
British creative studio Song Athletics have collaborated with innovative pianist/composer Sarah Nicolls for Inside‑Out Piano, which is, quite literally, a deep dive into the instrument — in this case a 1910 Érard grand — re‑shaped by Nicolls to turn the soundboard upright, thus exposing the strings and making them a key part of the performance. That, combined with a gorgeous core piano sound, makes this a wonderfully creative endeavour that pushes the boundaries of what a piano can do and presents it in an easy‑to‑use package for composers to build on the experimentation.
The instrument consists of one piano and five keyboard layers. The core piano sound features touch sensitivity with three dynamic layers and two round robins, offering sufficient dynamic control. The five keyboard layers contain the open string sounds and articulations captured from inside the piano, which are grouped and split across the keyboards in sections with the bottom and top keyboard range triggering different sounds.
Nicolls used a variety of tools to draw out sound from the strings ranging from just her fingers to rubber and glass balls, wooden skewers, magnets, timpani mallets, an EBow, and even a straw. The resulting tones include muted strings, glissandos, nail scrapes, bass hits, harmonics and more, with precise control to allow you to layer them in as you desire.
On the neatly‑designed interface, you can control the main piano level and combined keyboard level, assigned by default to CC11 and CC1 respectively. You can solo or mute each layer and adjust levels within each section of a keyboard by dragging the fader vertically.
The instrument also allows further manipulation of the samples with delay and tape effects, two reverbs, and aftertouch. A generous set of five mic positions — Ribbon, Room, Close, Wide, Rear — expands your toolkit greatly, with the warm, velvety ribbon mic sounding particularly evocative. Both effects and mic levels can be easily assigned to your MIDI controller, which is great because it allows you to perform the instrument and add even more depth to your sound. Additionally, in the true spirit of experimentation, Effects, Mics and Keyboards each come with a randomisation button that you can click on to your heart’s content. It’s exciting because it’s random but also educational because it generates sonic ideas that help you discover the possibilities of the instrument outside of your own imagination.
Inside‑Out Piano passes the baton of sounds that were created by the hand of Sarah Nicolls to your fingertips to further experiment with.
Inside‑Out Piano is a solid virtual instrument with sounds that range from clean and expressive to fully experimental. It’s the kind of instrument that reveals facets of your own ability you didn’t know about. Tinker with it long enough and any preconceived notions of what a piano does melt away because it is such a pleasure to play with. Inside‑Out Piano passes the baton of sounds that were created by the hand of Sarah Nicolls to your fingertips to further experiment with — experimentation using experimental sounds, if you will. It’s a joy to explore!