VSL Studio German Upright 1904 (Standard Library)

This specific C. Bechstein upright piano was built in Berlin Kreuzberg in the early 20th century. Its distinct vintage character, owing to its generous proportion of resonating wood, was captured with a multi-microphone setup at Stage B of Vienna Synchron Stage.

Brought to Stuttgart by pianoforte maker and dealer B. Klinkerfuss, Württemberg’s sole representative for C. Bechstein and J. Blüthner, the instrument has always been in residence with families in the Stuttgart area. It was played by pianist and film composer Mick Baumeister, co-creator of the Hornberg breath controller, during different stages of his life. The upright was owned by Martin Friz who taught a young Mick improvisation on this instrument. Decades later, Mick purchased the piano from German actor Holger Daemgen’s family, and – in his words – it never ceases to inspire him and to find “the truth”.

To accurately digitalize the C. Bechstein upright with all its subtleties, Vienna’s engineers developed an exceptionally precise motion-control system based on a solenoid that controls a perfectly silent “robot finger”. The micro-controller moves the finger with super-human precision, providing flexible curvatures for down-strokes and release movements, the latter corresponding with the preceding note length and various release speeds.

In order to capture this marvelous instrument in Stage B of Vienna Synchron Stage, Vienna’s recording engineers used multiple high-end microphone arrays (8 microphone positions), offering an abundance of options for creating your individual sound. Even if you’re not using a surround setup, adding the Full Library’s additional room microphone signals to your stereo mix will provide you with more ambience variation and spatial depth.