Bosendorfer Imperial Grand [4 CD]

This 9 1/2 foot concert grand piano is Bosendorfer's top of the line. The extra lower bass strings give superior resonance to this world class concert grand piano. There are four velocity layers of pedal up samples, four velocity layers of pedal down samples, and release note off samples. The release "note off" samples very nicely capture the ambient sound of the performance hall in which this Bosendorfer Imperial was sample recorded. These are all actual sample recorded velocity layers and without any filtering in order to produce additional "fake" velocity layers, such has been done by other developers who claim to have eight to sixteen layer sampled pianos. Many other current sampled pianos claiming to have eight to sixteen velocity layers have been produced by only sample recording two or three actual velocity layers, and then applying low pass filtering onto those samples in order to produce up to sixteen "fake" velocity layers, and also with only every second or third note sample recorded, and with the rest of the notes being pitch shifted from those notes. Sample editing methods used by these developers who "streamline" their work include batch auto cropping of samples, and a great deal of batch processing for many different processes.

These sampling "shortcut" methods are much quicker, easier, and with much less work involved in producing a sampled instrument. The quality of sound of any sampled acoustic instrument, which has been produced with these fast streamlined methods of low pass filtering for producing multiple fake velocities, pitch shifting of notes, auto cropping, and batch processing for various tasks, is unnatural and inferior. Each and every note of the Bardstown Audio Bosendorfer Imperial was sample recorded at all four velocity levels and articulations of pedal up, pedal down, and release, and with no pitch shifting of any notes. In other words, each and every note of the eighty-eight keys on this sampled Bosendorfer Imperial has been sample recorded nine different ways, for a total of 792 recorded samples. All sampled notes on "all" sampled instruments produced by Bardstown Audio have been edited and tweaked by hand, one note at a time, and with no quick streamlining methods or batch processing whatsoever. The most advanced state of the art recording techniques and world class recording equipment were used to sample record this Bosendorfer Imperial in a world class performance hall. This sampled Bosendorfer Imperial is considered by the vast majority of people to be the best sounding and most playable sampled piano in the world.