PLUCKED GRAND PIANO. Plucked Grand Piano 8DIO PLUCKED GRAND PIANO. Welcome to the 8DIO PLUCKED GRAND PIANO.

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1 PLUCKED GRAND PIANO 8DIO PLUCKED GRAND PIANO Plucked Grand Piano Produced by 8DIO Team Welcome to the 8DIO PLUCKED GRAND PIANO. As die-hard art-weirdoes and do-it-yourselfers, we here at 8DIO are big fans of some of the early classic piano experimentalism of the mid-20th century, where a few brave musical souls began to peel back the more rigid layers of instrumental dogma that had encrusted musical theory over roughly the previous 100 years. Just as musical traditions are built over time, so must they inevitably and righteously be again dismantled for the good of the art form. This library contains bowed and hammered piano. We captured every note, with sustains and release triggers, over multiple velocities and round-robin variations, using an massively over-sized nylon guitar pick for the plucked articulation. We then used a small 1-oz. stainless steel hammer to strike each string for the hammered articulation. Once we completed our little masterpiece, we tunneled even deeper into the sound, building-in a broad interface packed full of of custom performance, tone and effect controls to allow plenty of creative freedom. Note: This product was formerly known as Tonehammer Plucked Grand Piano 1

2 8DIO Plucked Grand Piano OVERVIEW 14 Kontakt patches 1406 Samples 5.07 GB Installed Custom Convolution Reverb Impulses Powerful custom performance control interface Note: Native Instruments Kontakt full retail version required. Credits Produced by Michael Peaslee Recorded & Engineered by Gregg Stephens and Michael Peaslee Scripting and UI design by Chris Marshall Sample Editing by Erik Smith RESOURCES This library is designed for the full retail version of Kontakt 4.1 and later ONLY. It cannot be used in the free Kontakt Player. Please read the instrument specifications and software requirements before purchasing this or any other 8DIO products to see the full list of software requirements, features and format compatibility for each library. If you have any problems with the THInstaller download manager, follow the manual download instructions. After downloading, use Winrar, UnrarX, Unrar or other.rarcompatible program to uncompress the download files. Click Here to download Winrar for PC. Click Here to download UnRarX for OSX. Then, extract the Part 1 of the included rar file set. The other parts will automatically self-extract and install during the process. Next, follow the UI installation process on the page below. 2 Once installation is complete, you can browse and load the included.nki presets using the Files or Database tabs in the Kontakt Browser view on the left side of Kontakt, or with the main File load/save menu. You can t use the Libraries view to load standard open-format Kontakt Instruments like this library. Only locked Powered-By-Kontakt Libraries are supported by that view. The Add-Library function does not support this product.

3 38DIO Bowed Grand Piano System Requirements Please be aware that many instrument and multi-instrument programs in this library are extremely ram/cpu and hard disk-streaming resource intensive and may use a large number of simultaneous voices. We recommend that you have at least 2GB of system ram, a dual-core cpu and at least a 7200 rpm SATA II hard disk with an 8MB buffer, before purchasing this or any 8DIO library. Large sample sets like those found in this library may load slowly and may cause system instability on older machines. We also recommend using ASIO or Core Audio audio driver latency settings of 256 samples or greater for best performance. Custom User-Interface Installation Procedure This library has a scripted user interface that must be installed before the library is loaded into Kontakt for the first time. Because this is a standard open-format Kontakt Instrument, the UI images and template files must be placed in Kontakt s default user pictures folder so that Kontakt can find and load them automatically. We ve provided a simple self-installer program to make the process easier. PC users should click on the file called Bowed Win Installer.exe. Mac Users should unzip Bowed Mac Installer.zip and then run the app called Bowed Mac Installer. A small program window will open, asking you to select your preferred language and follow the instructions. From, there, continue to the screen that asks you to choose your Kontakt 4 User Picture Folder. For most users, the default path that the app pre-selects for you is the correct location. You can simply press the Next button and continue until the app has finished. This library should now be installed and ready to use. Some users with have multiple user accounts or a customized user documents folder location may need to click the browse button and navigate to the proper user documents folder location or/or may need to install the UI images in multiple locations to insure that all users can load the library properly. If you load the library and see a cluttered overlapping mess of grey boxes and sliders, that means the special UI images aren t in the right place. This can be corrected easily by closing Kontakt and running the app again, in some cases multiple times, until you ve installed the UI images in every instance of the folder path../documents/ Native Instruments/Kontakt 4/pictures/ that you can find on your computer, or until the UI shows up properly for you in Kontakt. when loading any of this library s nki presets. The image and template files are tiny and passive, so you don t need worry about wasting drive space. or cluttering your system Note: The first time they run the UI installer, some Win 7 users may see a system message at the very end asking them if the program has installed properly. Since the app does not make any system or registry changes, other than moving image and text files into the Kontakt pictures folder, the OS may think that the app hasn t actually done anything., even though it s finished sucessfully. If you see that message pop up, you can ignore it or tell Windows that the program has installed properly by selecting that option in the pop-up.

4 About The Plucked Grand Piano: After spending so much time and effort searching out the right piano for our Emotional Piano library, we decided to keep it around for awhile longer. There were just some things that needed to be done to it. The unique thing about plucking or hammering a piano string that creates such a starkly different sound from simply playing it with the normal keys is that first, you only strike a single string, rather than the full choir of 2-3 identically tuned strings that a pianos hammer normally strikes to achieve the full sound typical of a piano. Even though the other strings resonate sympathetically with the primary string being struck or plucked, the sound is much more singular, focused and narrow, with more buzz and wah in the sound. It s much more like a harp crossed with a gigantic 88-string guitar, yet completely unique. The piano itself descended from earlier stringed percussion instruments that were played with fingers, picks or hammers, such as dulcimers, and zithers, so in a sense, playing a piano in that fashion is not really that experimental. In addition, throughout the last two centuries, various alternate versions and popular modifications to the piano have branched out into what we now term the prepared realm of piano design and playing methods. Like many of the more unconventional methods of utilizing a piano, plucking, hammering and bowing the strings was essentially rediscovered in early and mid 20th century by artists like John Cage, Henry Cowell and others, who composed a great many scores specifically for plucked, bowed and otherwise modified piano configurations or articulations. 4 The purpose of this library was essentially to focus on the clean and most direct interpretation of plucked and hammered piano, presenting it as a massive ultra-wide-ranged zither/dulcimer-esque instrument, as a clean, fundamental starting point on what is becoming our long journey into the inner world of the piano.

5 Front Panel Controls: We've added a variety of specialized tone, effect and performance shaping controls on the front instrument panel, providing everything from subtle tonal reshaping to dramatic otherworldly effects. Please be aware that the value ranges for many of our controls allow you to go way beyond realistic behavior for this or any real-world piano. We provide such extreme variability to allow more creative potential. Extreme values on any one control that sound horrible by themselves can sound amazing when combined with complimentary values on another control. It's quite easy to introduce distortion or clipping if you increase EQ or Convolution Effect values without properly reattenuating your signal output to compensate for the increase. Please also note that numeric values ranges and intervals for each control do note necessarily correspond to milliseconds, decibels, cents, or any other specific scale. They are simply mathematical multipliers that control underlying processes. Some of them are on linear scales while others follow distinct mathematical curves. Therefore, they're best used by ear and feel, rather than by following any arbitrary set of rules. Attack Knob This knob shapes how quickly the note bites, ranging from natural and quick to very smooth. More moderate values allow you to simulate softer hammer felt, while extremely high values allow for a long, slow fade-in. Release This knob controls the decay duration of the release samples. These are the sounds of the overtones and residual vibrations fading away after a string has been dampened by the felt, whether after releasing a single note, or multiple notes at once when releasing the sustain pedal. Pedal Volume 5 This knob controls the velocity and volume of the sustain pedal up and down sound effects. Since midi sustain pedals can only transmit "on" and "off" messages, there's no way to automatically tell how much intensity and force you're playing the pedal with. This knob allows you to adjust the sound to appropriately match the tone and feel of your performance. The pedal sound effects were recorded in several velocity layers and with multiple round-robin variations to provide greater natural realism. Turning the knob all the way down to 0 will disable all pedal sound effects.

6 68DIO PLUCKED GRAND PIANO Dynamics This knob shapes the overall dynamic response of the piano, to allow for a wide range of personal playing styles, tonal flavors and performance characteristics. The lower the knob setting, the less the tonal and dynamic difference between the lowest and highest velocities. Turning the knob to 0 sets the piano to behave exactly as our microphones hear the piano naturally, without any filtering, attenuation or other alterations in the signal path. Turning the value to 100 creates an exaggerated tonal and dynamic spread from the softest to loudest notes. Swell This control sets the overall volume and is mapped to the modwheel (CC1) to allow smooth volume swells and fades. Rel. Volume (Release Volume) This control sets the volume of the note release samples. Harp Button Activating this mode changes the instrument s behavior from piano to that of a harp, so that all notes ring out while the sustain pedal is up. Pressing down on the sustain pedal while in this mode will damp/mute any currently playing notes. Dulcimer Button Activating this mode changes the instrument s behavior to simulate a hammered dulcimer, with each strike triggering a trailing set of bouncing repeats. Echo This control sets the number of dulcimer bounces/repeats that are triggered by each note. Velocity This control adjusts the intensity fall-off scaling from one dulcimer bounce/repeat to the next as the sound trails off. Delay This control adjusts the time scaling between each dulcimer bounce/repeat. Natural rate fall-off is calculated automatically, regardless of the delay settings

7 78DIO PLUCKED GRAND PIANO Special LFO Effects Vibrato Controls This is a LFO-based pitch bending effect. Intensity This controls the overall mix of the vibrato effect. Setting it to OFF disables this effect. Wobble This controls the oscillation speed of the effect. Depth This controls the pitch sweep depth. Higher settings result in more extreme pitch warping during each up and down bend. Tremolo Controls This is a LFO-based volume swelling effect. On/Off Button This button turns on and off the Tremolo effect. Pulse This controls the volume pulse rate of the effect. Depth This controls the volume swell depth for each pulse. Higher settings result in more extreme dynamic swelling. Panner Controls This is a LFO-based pan sweeping effect. On/Off Button This button turns on and off the Panner effect. Sweep This controls the left-right pan sweep rate of the effect. Depth This controls the left-right pan range for each sweep. Higher settings result in wider pan sweeps.

8 88DIO PLUCKED GRAND PIANO Reverb Dry Mix This knob controls the amount of "dry" or "clean" signal returning from the convolution reverb effect. This knob is only active when a reverb impulse has been loaded in the Impulse Select drop-down menu located to the right of the "wet mix" knob or in presets that come with an impulse already pre-loaded. Reverb Wet Mix This knob controls the amount of "wet" signal returning from the convolution reverb effect. This knob is only active when a reverb impulse has been loaded in the Impulse Select drop-down menu located to the right of the "wet mix" knob or in presets that come with an impulse already pre-loaded. Low Pass This knob enables and controls the high-frequency roll off amount that is applied to the convolution output. Use this to dull, darken and soften the sound. Convolution Reverb Impulse Menu This drop-down menu allows instant access to a variety of custom convolution impulses that we've captured in some of our favorite locations or created using various special techniques. As soon as you load an impulse from the menu, the effect is activated and the impulse you've chosen is loaded into the signal path. Once an impulse has been loaded, the "Dry mix" and "Wet Mix" knobs become active. You can disable and bypass the convolution effect entirely and unload any loaded impulse file at any time, by selecting the "None" option at the top of the list. EQ Processing On/Off This button enables or disables all 3 EQ tone knobs When it is disabled by choosing the "Bypassed" option, the signal passes through without being processed by the global EQ. To restore tone control, select "Active" once again. EQ Gain Controls These 3 EQ Gain knobs control bass, mid and treble tone characteristics.

9 98DIO PLUCKED GRAND PIANO Uberpeggiator System We designed a custom arpeggiator system to expand the instant creative potential of these instruments. It includes a wide range of automatable performance controls that shape all aspects of the arpeggiator. We ve built it into special nki presets specially designed to work well with it. When used normally, pressing a key causes the note to self-repeat as long as a key is held down. If additional notes are played, it adds them to the sequence of repeats in various ways, depending on the settings you choose. This is used to produce complex melodic chains, plucking patterns and other effects. Mode This knob controls the Arpeggiator mode. Choosing OFF disables the Arp system entirely. ON sets it to respond only while a note is pressed., cycling through all held notes as it arpeggiates. HOLD sets it to automatically sustain one note at a time, (monophonic) so that changing keys changes the note that is repeating. HOLD + sets it to allow new notes to be added to the automated chain of repeats. Hits and H. Scale Knobs These settings are similar to the dulcimer Echo and Velocity knobs, with the difference being that HITS sets the number of repeats of each note BEFORE moving on to the next note in the arp sequence, and H.Scale sets the intensity fall-off rate for each repeat, before resetting for the next note in the sequence. Duration This shapes the note decay damping amount. Lower settings result in sharper staccatos, while higher settings allow each note to ring out more fully. Pitch This is a strange effect that might not do what you think it does. It sets the pitch up or down in quarter-tone intervals for each repeat AFTER the initial note is pressed and it remains in a pseudo legato state as long as any key is held down. This setting allows extreme glitch stutter and stair-step effects and can self-generate strange grooves and beats, based on the combination of notes you hold and the pitch setting at any given moment. Rhythm This sets the speed of arpeggiation, as measured in musical time, ranging from whole bars to 128th notes. Fast settings can yield interesting results, but keep in mind that the faster the speed, the more voices you use. Swing This sets the amount of rhythmic offset (swing) that the arpeggiations fall on.

10 Arpeggio Direction Menu This drop-down menu allows you to select any number of simple or complex cycle patterns that the arpeggiation will follow as it plays through the sequence of notes you have triggered. Choosing As Played will cause it to follow the original order you played the notes in, with the newest note always added to the end of the chain. Midi Thru This button allows midi messages to be passed through the script the the instrument, which allows you to play normal sustaining notes on top of the arpeggiation. Repeat Setting This sets the direction of the up or down repeats. Velocity Graph Step Sequencer This customizable graph allows you to draw the velocities that you want each step in your arpeggiation sequence to play at. The RESET button resets the Graph to blank Steps This setting determines the number of steps that are used by the velocity graph step sequencer, starting from the left. Table Velocities This activates the Graph. When it is active, the arpeggiation follows the note velocities that you ve drawn on the graph. When it is bypassed, each note repeat is played at the velocity that it s original note was played at. Key Selector Knob This control binds the arpeggiation scale you ve chosen to a specific key. Scale Selector This control binds the arpeggiation sequence to a specific scale that you can choose by turning the knob. Key Root Note Button This sets the root note of the Key you ve chosen to the next higher or lower octave. 10

11 Instruments: We've created a variety of ready-made presets that present some of the many sides our Plucked Grand Piano has to offer. You can modify all preset values. If you which to restore any knob setting to it's default value after you've changed it, simply hold the control key and press your right mouse button. This only works for knobs however, bot for buttons or the impulse drop-down menu. Plucked Grand_Piano.nki This is the standard Plucked Grand Piano instrument patch, with all velocity layers and all dynamic, tone and performance settings at default. This is the sound of our actual piano, essentially just as it feels and sounds in the flesh. We played it by using a giant guitar-syle pick, roughly 3 inches wide and plucking the strings slightly behind the piano s normal hammer action striking position. Plucked_Grand_Piano_lite.nki A light reduced-memory version of the master program. Plucked_Grand_Piano_ultralite.nki This special preset is just stripped down to the bare essentials for maximum efficiency. Plucked_Grand_Piano_Uberpeggiator.nki This special version of the preset incorporates our special arpeggiator system, rather than the built-in harp and dulcimer modes. Hammered Grand_Piano.nki This alternate articulation was recorded by striking each of the strings with a small 1oz. stainless steel hammer. Hammered_Grand_Piano_Uberpeggiator.nki This special version of the preset incorporates our special arpeggiator system, rather than the built-in harp and dulcimer modes. 11

12 Special Effect Presets: These presets take the plucked/hammered piano a little farther into to the unnatural, ranging from simple dulcimer presets to total pan-dimensional chaos. Basic_Grand_Dulcimer.nki This preset has been dialed in to achieve a universal hammer-dulcimer style sound and performance style. Hammered_Grand_Wetspin.nki A watery leslie-effect. Hammered_Grand_What.nki A strange washed-out wah-wah pulse blossoms out of each note. Hammered_Grunker.nki 4-bit-o-rama. Use the modwheel to wreck it harder. Plucked_Grand_HelloOperator.nki Droning robo-tears Plucked_Grand_Infader.nki Sinister inflow Plucked_Grand_PleaseHoldTheLine.nki The future is now Plucked_Grand_Revsmatter.nki Apply firm suction Plucked_Grand_Shimmer-ring.nki Is what it sounds like it is Plucked_Grand_Winderbender.nki Oh God something s gone wrong I think PLEASE NOTE: The special effect programs use custom convolution impulses to morph the sound into a wide range of melodic, dark, astral and often undefinable sounds. Due to the long, evolving nature of the impulses being used, these presets use signifiant CPU resources to load and play. Please use caution when using these patches and consider avoiding them completely if your computer only has a single processor. Using these presets on an underpowered system can cause performance problems, instability and even crashing. 12

13 8DIO GENERAL LICENSING AGREEMENT LICENSE AGREEMENT By installing the product you accept the following product license agreement: LICENSE GRANT The license for this product is granted only to a single individual user. No unlicensed use is permitted. All sounds and samples in this product are licensed, but not sold, to you by 8DIO, Inc. for commercial and non-commercial use in music, sound-effect, audio/video post-production, performance, broadcast or similar finished contentcreation and production use. Individual license holders are permitted to install this library on multiple computers or other equipment only if they are the sole owner and only user of said equipment. 8DIO allows you to use any of the sounds and samples in the library(s) you've purchased for commercial recordings without paying any additional license fees or providing source attribution to 8DIO, Inc. This license expressly forbids any unauthorized inclusion of content contained within this library, or any any 8DIO library, into any other sample instrument or library of any kind, without our express written consent. 8DIO retains full copyright privileges and complete ownership of all recorded sounds, instrument programming, documentation and musical performances included within this product. REFUNDS Downloaded libraries can't be returned, so we can't provide refunds. or exchanges We may choose do so at our own discretion,but please be aware that as soon as you've downloaded it, you can't return it. RESPONSIBILITY Using this product and any supplied software is at the licensee s own risk. 8DIO holds no responsibility for any direct or indirect loss arising from any form of use of this product. TERMS This license agreement is effective from the moment the product is purchased or acquired by any means. The license will remain in full effect until termination. The license is terminated if you break any of the terms or conditions of this agreement, or request a refund for any reason. Upon termination you agree to destroy all copies and contents of the product at your own expense. This license also forbids any transfer, resale or any form of re-distribution of this product, or its sounds, through any means, including but not limited to, re-sampling, mixing, processing, isolating, or embedding into software or hardware of any kind, for the purpose of re-recording or reproduction as part of any free or commercial library of musical and/or sound effect samples and/ or articulations, or any form of musical sample or sound effect sample playback system or device. Licenses cannot be transferred to another entity, without written consent of 8DIO, Inc. VIOLATION If you enjoy our instruments and care about the hard work that went into this labor of love, then we know you won t pirate. Remember, the more you support us, the more awesome libraries we can afford to make for you. We also reserve the right to prosecute piracy and defend this copyrighted creation to the fullest extent of civil and criminal law to enforce it s intellectual property rights. RIGHTS 13

14 THANK YOU. We wanna thank you for buying the 8DIO PLUCKED GRAND PIANO. If you have any questions, concerns, love-letters or hate mail feel free to send it to: or fly to for more sample love Love, Mike and Troels. 14 All programming, samples, images and text 8DIO All Rights Reserved. 8DIO is a registered trademark of 8DIO, Inc. Kontakt and Kontakt 4 Player are trademarks of Native Instruments, Gmbh.