Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars
Sampled Steinway D‑274 grand pianos aren’t exactly in short supply, but this one’s a bit special: it belongs to American composer James Newton Howard, veteran of 140 film and TV projects including Pretty Woman, The Fugitive, The Sixth Sense, Peter Pan, King Kong, The Hunger Games, Fantastic Beasts, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (the latter pair composed with Hans Zimmer).
This 21st Century Hamburg‑built Model D was singled out by Steinway as an exceptional instrument and offered to Mr Howard (a trained concert pianist) for his personal use. The composer subsequently used it to write many of his main themes, including the haunting three‑note motif which recurs throughout the film Signs. When the idea arose to create a commercial product out of the piano, Orchestral Tools were happy to send a small recording team to sample it in JNH’s Santa Monica residence.
Occupying pride of place in the maestro’s compact practice/composing room, the Steinway was recorded from spot, close, back (aka mid) and room positions using a combination of ribbon and capacitor mics. All 88 notes were played for 30 seconds at 25 dynamic levels using a reference measurement microphone, thus ensuring a realistic touch response. In addition to the long unlooped sustains are a complete set of staccato and portato release samples, which trigger intelligently when you play shorter notes, a further aid to realism.
The library includes five production‑ready mixes by Hollywood mixing legend Alan Meyerson and an additional ‘Pure Piano’ instrument featuring the raw, unprocessed samples. All six options present multiple mic positions on separate channels along with a handy stereo mixdown, so you can dive straight into composing your own heart‑rending, sure‑to‑be‑Grammy‑nominated pianistic movie soundtrack, or recording some tasty piano overdubs on your latest jazz/rock/pop/R&B/classical (etc) masterwork.
Whatever your chosen style, this lovely Steinway concert grand merits attention. The tone is superb, the treble/bass balance and dynamic response are perfect and the touch is exquisitely sensitive. Meyerson’s mixes hit the spot: the ballad‑friendly ‘Soft Piano’ sounds full, warm and intimate; ‘Stage Piano’ has a harder, somewhat imperious tone; ‘Dark Piano’ sounds more distant; while the ‘Ambient’ and ‘Cinematic’ pianos’ lush, Lexicon‑style reverb sounds amazing on high‑register chords. Due to the room’s dry acoustic and the Sine Player’s lamentable lack of internal effects, the reverb is achieved using release samples, which I found sounded disconcertingly dry on long note releases.
If you want a beautifully expressive grand piano with a heavenly sustain, look no further.
In keeping with the tender piano style adopted in its owner’s film scores, Orchestral Tools say they aimed for a delicate cinematic sound and avoided aggressive playing techniques when sampling the piano. So although its loudest dynamic is good and strong, this instrument is not best suited to crashing, quadruple‑forte Rachmaninov‑esque textures. But if you want a beautifully expressive grand piano with a heavenly sustain, look no further.