The Drinking Piano
Price history
- On sale
- 21 of the last 90 days
- Lowest in 90 days
- $29.40
- Highest in 90 days
- $49.00
About this plugin
Soundiron's Drinking Piano is a sampled instrument library built on a heavily compromised Ivors and Pond upright from the early 1900s. Rather than restoring the instrument, Soundiron captured it in its current state - detuned, mechanically unreliable, and acoustically complex. The result is a Kontakt-based plugin that delivers authentic character sourced from genuine degradation rather than synthesized approximation.
The sonic signature sits between a honky-tonk and a neglected concert instrument. Recorded close to the strings in a small reflective space, the Drinking Piano exhibits the tonal complexity of aged, corroded strings alongside mechanical noise that defines its personality. The half-step flat tuning, worn felts, and loose dampers aren't artifacts to remove but foundational qualities that distinguish this instrument from pristine alternatives.
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The interface provides substantial control over sonic character through parametric shaping. Attack, release, swell, and offset controls allow nuanced performance adjustment, while a modulation system with LFO integration enables dynamic movement. The filter section offers conventional highpass and lowpass options alongside specialty FX filters, all modulatable and tempo-syncable. Pitch coarse and fine tuning, articulation switching, and cross-fading between layers round out the creative toolkit.
Best suited for producers and composers seeking authentic period sounds, film scoring, and recordings prioritizing character over polish, the Drinking Piano occupies a specific niche effectively. Its strength lies not in versatility but in delivering a convincing 1920s beer hall aesthetic with mechanical authenticity that would require significant sound design effort to replicate synthetically. For this singular purpose, it remains uncompromised.