This high definition library contains recordings made during two sessions – one in St Peterburg and another in Moscow.

The piano in St Peterburg, a soviet Lira, a regular upright piano for home, was in a good shape. While the second one in Moscow was pretty much
dead. It was manufactured in London in 1805, and I could not figure out the manufacturer’s name on front panel because of the archaic font design.

The strings were plucked by metallic tweezers, bowed with thick glass vase, struck firmly with heavy objects, strained with sticks and excited by vibration speaker.

I was strongly impressed by it’s gritty, dissonant, somewhat sinister sounds. The resulting recorded gestures can be used as sweeteners for horror film impacts, as part of musical score, as strained metal sound effects.

The pianos were recorded in 24/96 with 2 Nevaton MK-50 microphones and C-ducer contact microphones to Tascam HS-P82.

Number of Files: 374 High Quality WAVS
Size Unpacked: 3.2 GB
Sample Rate: 96kHz/24bit
Other Info: Meta-Tagged