In real-world playing situations I doubt many people will notice this slight unevenness in the sampling implementation, which only occurs in certain circumstances anyway. The top octave and a third of the pitch range, which on the original CFX (as with most grand pianos) has no dampers, has the room sound even when it’s been silenced lower down. It’s an unexpected and fine-sounding feature, and I hasten to stress that it is completely controllable - with the Release knobs turned down the piano sound goes completely dry. Far from a subtle effect, when Release Volume and Decay are turned up the big, bright Studio One reverb tail rings on after note endings. Garritan might as well have grouped them together under an ‘Abbey Road Studio One Contribution’ banner, as they control the amount of room tone that’s audible after notes are damped. The three Release controls relate to CFX’s use of separate note release samples that are triggered by MIDI note-off messages. In fact I found some contribution from the close mics was always necessary, to provide focus and prevent the high treble sounding too distant. In headphones I did not, incidentally, experience any spine-tingling ultra-realistic binaural magic from the dummy head channel heard alone. Again, it doesn’t change the piano’s essential character, but my first impressions were that this was the cleanest and most neutral perspective. Player: The goal here was to recreate the experience of sitting at the piano keyboard, and to that end the close channel has Neumann KM84s over the hammers, and the ambient a Neumann KU100 dummy head over the player’s head.It’s not a world away from Classic, though, just another flavour. Subjectively the player may feel there’s more to immediately ‘dig into’ here.
GARRITAN STEINWAY OR CONCERT D CODE
As to whether ‘contemporary’ is a code word for ‘pop/rock’, well, possibly. It combines an interesting AKG C12 & D19 close pickup with Schoeps MK2H room mics.
You’d hope that mics of that value would produce a great sound, and thankfully they do, with what is quite frankly a stunning piano capture.
It’s hand built, the nine-foot model costs upwards of £100,000 $100,000, and plenty of classical virtuosi have been ready to endorse it. However, that perception is way too simplistic, and the CFX is an entirely different proposition. Certainly the fact that their uprights (not to mention motorbikes!) are everywhere does nothing to position Yamaha as a luxury, premium marque. Yamahas are too often thought of primarily as pop pianos, with a strident and slightly thuggish tone. Steinways are totally different propositions to Bechsteins, as are Bosendorfers to Faziolis, and the cultural and historical baggage that go along with these great names feed our preconceptions about the musical roles for which they’re best suited. For an instrument that is supposedly fairly standardised, it’s remarkable how much real pianos vary from one to another.
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