will be released in march
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Avant-Gardist: Tonally Prepared Cinematic Piano
(Library runs in FULL Kontakt 6.8 plugin vst or newer)
Yes, Avant-Gardist is our best instrument so far.
No, it is not another prepared piano. It is literally a new, unique set of tonal cinematic acoustic instruments which you can play like a piano but… they don’t sound like a standard or prepared piano. Avant-Gardist has the most original, yet natural and beautifully organic sound you can imagine. It can be dark, it can be subtle, it can be unpredictable or warm, intimate (and simultaneously extraordinary and cinematic!). Recorded and sampled with techniques which aren’t used in piano libraries (explained below). And yes, it’s dirty, sometimes out of tune and full of artifacts. You can hear and feel the pianist sitting at the keyboard.
unique – inspiring – playable
Why does it sound so unique? Imagine a group of pianists. Each of them plays only on one upright piano string with their fingers, horsehairs, chains, ebows, sticks, patafix, magnets, etc. And what’s the most important: they play tonally. Even more: each string has it’s own close stereo microphones (instead of standard mics positioned farther to record a whole piano) which means that every note sounds extremely close, centered, „in your face”. And finally: patches use creative sampling techniques (which keep samples acoustic and almost unprocessed) and creative tuning (it’s slightly out of tune but in a very natural and variable way, which is unusual for pianos! It reminds strings hand-andjusted tuning on strings). This is how Avant-Gardist sounds.
In other words: it allows you to achieve tonal articulations that aren’t possible to be played by one pianist and a sound which does not exist in a standard instrumental library. Including highly playable unique melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic multi-articulation instruments, tonal and non-tonal playable textures, loops and creative menus, even piano noise & ASMR.
Avant-Gardist is made for cinematic composers not only as one-of-a-kind virtual instrument but also as an inspiring sonic palette. Just play a few notes of random patch and it will instantly inspire you with fresh musical ideas. Especially if you’re looking for a set of instruments ranging from thriller, dark, horror, through unique signature sound to intimate, subtle and mellow tone.
the sound
You can play Avant-Gardist like a piano because it sounds genuinely rich and full when played solo. It has so many colors that you can even create a whole soundtrack using only this library. Besides that, don’t forget about the big catalog of playable textures and SFXs which help in keeping the consistent sound without frustrating repetition of samples.
Everything was recorded as closely as possible with such a beautiful sound, that almost all instruments remained acoustic and unprocessed (besides standard eq, compression and pitching). This means you really do not have to mix them, they already sound great.
And what if you need a distant cinematic sound? Simply move one knob of the in-built reverb. Need a close and intimate tone? Remove the reverb. The whole interface is easy and very user-friendly. You will find there one-knob filters, tone, attack/release, stereo, pitch, compressor, lofi, distortion, bit crusher, decimator, rotary, delay and reverb.
piano – preparations – mics
Now a few words about the recorded piano. It’s a hundred-year-old GUSTAV ROSLER upright piano which definitely needs a repair and tuning. We were going to repair it a little and tune it up but when we made test recordings… we realized that it sounds awesome just the way it is. It’s not the type of sound you would like to play sugary Chopin but gives an exceptionally organic and beautifully dirty, unpredictable sound when you prepare it with ingenious techniques and play subtle, dark, or mellow cinematic parts. Skipping tuning was the best idea ever!
Usually, you try to stay quiet during the recordings. Not this time. Our piano surprised us with the amount of mechanical noise and sound artifacts. So we decided… to make them even louder. We recorded some patches by playing sounds and simultaneously making additional noises by pressing keys too hard, pushing the soundboard, slightly squeaking the sustain pedal, „accidentally” rubbing strings and wood, sometimes even breathing „too” close the microphone. We liked that so much that we even recorded „noise-only” and „ASMR” patches (e.g. room ambience, player foleys and our favorite: playable keys & mechanism noise only). That’s why it sounds so intimate.
This wouldn’t be possible without our highest quality microphones: Sennheiser MKH8020. They are very special because they have an incredibly low noise floor and record everything up to 60kHz. As said before, we have recorded each string separately for the playable patches. This means we had to move microphones every time we were going to record another string. This allowed us to capture even the most subtle and intimate sounds which gave the impression of sitting very close to the instrument.
First, we did a few experimental recording sessions to choose best sounding articulations. We found that in a such extremely close recordings the most important is not WHAT you use for a preparation but HOW you use it. For example if you use one hand to mute the string and other to pluck it, the sound:
– will be „regularly” muted if you press it in a place without a strong harmonic
– may sound like a different pitch if the harmonic is stronger than the root
– this „alternative” pitch will differ depending on the place on a string where you put your finger
– it will sound different if you pluck it with a finger or nail or finger-and-nail-one-after-another or with a-few-fingers/nails etc.
– it will sound different whether you pluck it hard or soft
Quite a few options! After the first tests we realized that the most natural and organic sound happens when we record all variants of one preparation technique and put it together in one patch. In other words, e.g. our „harmonics” patch doesn’t focus on one type of harmonics but consists of all types of them. This adds the unpredictability of a sound, which is so specific for a live performance.
A few examples of WHAT we used for the preparation: chain, patafix, horsehair, magnets, ebow, ribbon, kitchen strain, pens, various metals, and wooden items, felt, beads, hat (yes, a hat), rubber lamp, and finally: fingers fists, hands, and fingernails. And this is HOW we used them: plucked, rubbed, muted, stuck, tapped, stroked, rubbed, knocked, dragged, pulled, pressed, hit, scraped and scratched. That was a lot of fun!
In Avant-Gardist you will find the following types of patches:
ONE PLAYER ENSEMBLE instruments are the most complex. They use multi-articulation velocity layers with 5 fake round robins on each layer. We have used the fake round robin technique because it sounds way more interesting and original than classic round-robins. As a result, each Avant-Gardist key gives much more colors than pianos recorded with the classic „rr” technique. It’s beautifully unpredictable.
INSPIRATIONScatalog includes a wide range of instruments focused on a specific playable sound or texture. Just play random patches and feel the inspiration and musical ideas flowing to you. Some of them have round robins [rr], some are one-shots [os]. All of them are playable and tonal.
NOISE & ASMR this is something extra for those who like to layer instruments with organic, natural sound. You will find here keys mechanism, piano noises (e.g. creaks), piano ASMR, room ambience, even player foleys. All patches are round robin which make them… playable.
CREATIVE MENUS are ten menus full of one-shot samples placed one after another on a keyboard. As composers we know how important is to have a huge, consistent, and inspiring set of sound effects, hits, pings, fills, swells, textures, reversed sounds and loops which allow you to find the best sample without the need of changing the patch. So we put as much as we could into ten menus filled with a wide selection of cinematic sounds.
LOOPS: one key plays one rhythmic layer. To play creative rhythms, simply play a few notes or a whole cluster. Available in 120BPM and 90BPM (but they also automatically play in any other BPM set in DAW).
Instruments structure:
56 INSPIRATIONS:
– playable preparations (round robin)
– tonal one-shots
– playable tonal textures
– noise & ASMR playable patches
23 ONE PLAYER ENSEMBLES:
– multi-layer round robin instruments
8 NOISE & ASMR:
– keys mechanism
– piano noises (e.g. creaks)
– piano ASMR & room ambience
– player foleys
– all patches are round robin
9 CREATIVE MENUS:
– Motion Textures
– Rhythmic Textures
– Noise & ASMR Textures
– Hits & Pings
– Fills & Swells
– Reversed
– Mix of Textures
– Loops in 120bpm and 90bpm
Built-in effects:
– Reverb & Delay
– Lo/Hi filters
– Tone
– Attack/Release
– Pitch
– Stereo
– Compressor, Distortion, Lofi, BitCrusher, Decimator
It will be released in March.
To run Avant-Gardist, you need FULL Kontakt 6.8 plugin or newer. Free Kontakt Player vst will run the library in the DEMO mode.
