Chocolate Audio Model 80 V2 – 88 Series Pianos

NEW – Version 2.0 of The 88 Series Pianos engine is out
V. 2 represents a new version of our engine. Here are the changes since v. 1.0 (include v. 1.5 too):

• BUG-FIXING
  • Fixed a bug in Mute/Solo logic
  • Fixed bugs in Release, Resonances and Release Trails samples playback
  • Fixed some graphics bugs
  • Other minor bug-fixes
• NEW FEATURES
  • Added Previous/Next Preset buttons
  • Added support for continuous Sustain Pedal (Half-Pedaling)
  • Added Advanced Settings page with Key Level Trimmer
  • Added Credits page
  • New GUI
• IMPROVEMENTS
  • Vastly improved .nki program for Model D Grand
  • Dramatically improved CPU and Voice management
  • Improvements in many small aspects of the pianos

Fast forward to the past
Sampled from a Yamaha CP80 compact electric grand, the Model 80 is a work of love and an homage to the sound that defined an era.

Features

• 2.26 GB (lossless compressed) library size, 1933 samples
• 12 sustaining dynamic layers, chromatically sampled
• 9 release trails layers, chromatically sampled
• independently controllable sustain-pedal resonances
• key-release noise for added authenticity
• sustain-pedal down and up noise layers
• a top-notch rendition of the Yamaha CP80 compact electric grand piano
• sampled direct from the output to a Millennia preamp and Apogee converter
• all of the details of the piano recreated through the use of our custom advanced scripting
• recorded at 24 bit / 96 KHz, released at 24 bit / 44.1 KHz
• dry recordings allows for maximum flexibility and sound design, either using Kontakt’s own effect or your choice of third party plug-ins

Restoration
The electric piano was properly restored and tuned before being sampled. Special care was taken in recreating the characteristic edgy sound of the middle registers, the shallow tone of the lows and the stingy highs.

Details, details, details
Achieving a quality level on par with our goals from this piano was tough. The onboard electronics are very noisy and the piano picks up a lot of ambient noise even if it’s electric (imagine a guitar with 88 strings and a pick-up for each single string!). Through attention and care, both in restoring, preparing, tuning and sampling this amazing piece of technical excellence, we managed to capture what we believe is the best rendition of this classic compact electric grand piano.

Simplicity, with depth
Our approach to sampled Instruments is to let the musician in you fly free of any technical burden. Fast, full satisfaction is guaranteed: you just need to play, the fastest possible learning-curve is always kept as a reference when designing our Instruments. At the same time, when there’s that techie-need to tweak and fine-tune, our multi-layer user interfaces allow for it, giving you the best of both worlds.

Advanced sampling and scripting
We believe the real break-through in these ages is creating advanced, high-quality Instruments which don’t require you to earn a master in computer programming before you start making music with them. Making matters easy for the musician always means introducing more and more layers of complication for us developers. First of all we are musicians, and we don’t want you to end up putting our products on a virtual shelf and forget about them because they are too hard to learn and use.

Preset-galore
The onboard effects don’t require a degree in audio-engineering to make the best out of them. This is our job. Just select one of the 23 main Presets and fine tune it using a few carefully selected parameters. The Compressor & Tape Emulation section, usually hard to grasp for the inexpert in audio tweaking feature no less than 22 presets with a simple Amount knob to rule it to your taste. Add to this 101 IR custom Reverbs, sampled especially for our products.

Key Level Trimming
Version 1.5 added MIDI key-based level trimming: this feature allows you to further customize the dynamic response of the piano based on your keyboard action and listening environment