Hammersmith

[Steve Nathan]

New from Sonicouture

Hammersmith

Anyone using it??

I just got a demo copy. Pretty nice so far.

[MorayM]

I've been very impressed with the demos (and I'm a big fan of Soniccouture's past work), but I've been holding off for the moment as the GBP price is way over the EUR/USD, even before the intro discount.

[Steve Nathan]

Surprised there's so little interest in this

 

It's sounds pretty dang good. Has it been discussed elsewhere?

Are we bored with this stuff? Tired of trying to keep up?

 

[midinut]

I got Ravenscroft and am very happy with that. The demos do sound good though. I saw the $20/$40 off codes but didn't see the price of Hammersmith anywhere. I'll dig around some more and see if I can find it. Found it. $129 for Standard and $229 for Professional before the discounts. Wife just bought us a Tempur-Pedic bed and says I'm sleeping on my next few music purchases.

 

[Michael Wright]

You've got my interest The demos sound pretty good.

I was not aware of this. Seems we've got until May to get a deal.

Thanks Steve. I may get to live here yet.

http://www.theburprag.com/BR-Lander-in-Doghouse.jpg

[J. Dan]

Looks awesome, I'm just not a software guy. I'm a little curious how they handle switching between sample sets based on sustain pedal usage......does it essentially cross fade during performance? Because, obviously, if you trigger the non-sustained sample, then step on the pedal, the other strings are affected.....and differently than if you struck a note with the pedal already sustained. Picky? I guess if they're going to bring it up, I'm going to challenge. In reality, I'm happy with my Kronos, which is nowhere near this in quality. So I'm probably the wrong guy to ask. But since the traffic wasn't what you hoped, I figured I'd chime in to keep it alive and hope my post count some day approaches Joe's, without the propensity to break the forum,

[Michael Wright]

I figured I'd chime in to keep it alive and hope my post count some day approaches Joe's, without the propensity to break the forum,

[davinwv]

I am happy with Ravenscroft, but I am very interested to hear your thoughts on the Hammersmith, Steve.

 

Also, have you checked out the Impact Soundworks Pearl C7?

 

http://impactsoundworks.com/pearl-concert-grand/

 

We can start a new thread to discuss that piano to keep this one on topic!

[Steve Nathan]

I got Ravenscroft and am very happy with that.

 

Me too

 

I use Ravenscroft most of the time. It is very flexible and well suited for much of the work I do. This one sounds quite different though, particularly in a way that I'd think would appeal to Clasical and Jazz players. I think it will be another nice addition to my stable of "fake pianos"

 

[Joe Muscara]

I figured I'd chime in to keep it alive and hope my post count some day approaches Joe's, without the propensity to break the forum,

Joe who?

[Michael Wright]

This is a very nice library! I got it up and running and have been working with it a bit. More to follow!

[Sven Golly]

I hadn't heard of this before, but I'm well aware of SonicCouture, so I'm interested in checking this out, most notably how it behaves in a live Mainstage-based rig compared to Ivory II (which I run at a lower-layer setting).

 

Almost want to buy it just for the in-hole mic position and add Lady Madonna to every gig I do... that sounds bang on!

[Steve Nathan]

I'm still playing with the demo. I like it, but it does require the lowest buffer setting I can handle on my aging MBP to get the latency comfortable.

Just as I do with Ravenscroft, I like having all the mike choices, but w/Ravenscroft I can turn on all positions w/o pushing my Processor Meter into the red. I wont get away with that using Hammersmith, but in a track, I could certainly program the midi using a light load setting, and then print separate passes of the different mikes (much like I do in the "real" world).

 

And that "Lady Madonna" setting is spot on

[MathOfInsects]

Since I'm very good at knocking a thread off-topic: here's the tune McCartney says he took his Lady Madonna piano riff from. As for the sound...Geoff Emerick claims that after trying lots of mics and placements, he finally went with a cheap condenser mic and a lot of compression.

 

[video:youtube]

 

[Michael Wright]

Just to keep this in view. This is an outstanding piano. If I get a chance, I will write a review this week(FWIW). I love the Ravenscroft, but as Steve stated, the Hammersmith is a little different, but well worth consideration. And it is discounted until May,

[Steve Nathan]

Also, have you checked out the Impact Soundworks Pearl C7?

 

Sorry, I missed this question.

I listened to the demos, and it sounds nice, but I have AcousticSamples C7 already, which imho sounds fabulous.

I'm gonna go ahead and buy the Hammersmith. Like I said, it's a different piano from the Ravenscroft and the Steinways, C7s and others I have. I know I'll find myself faced with songs that it will be a good choice for, and I guess in my business, it's better to be over prepared than under

[Steve Nathan]

Downloading the Pro Edition now.

Only 47.22 GB Remaining

 

I've only had the Standard Edition to demo. Can't wait to hear the other mikes. I'll report back soon.

[davinwv]

Also, have you checked out the Impact Soundworks Pearl C7?

 

Sorry, I missed this question.

I listened to the demos, and it sounds nice, but I have AcousticSamples C7 already, which imho sounds fabulous.

 

Interesting - I have the AcousticSamples C7, and I don't care for it at all. It is nowhere near as polished sounding as the Ravenscroft. Horses for courses.

 

I bought the Pearl Grand a few days back, and I am getting the Hammersmith Standard today. I will also try to report back.

[willf]

Thanks for the information, I hadn't seen this.

[Michael Wright]

Interesting - I have the AcousticSamples C7, and I don't care for it at all. It is nowhere near as polished sounding as the Ravenscroft. Horses for courses.

I have the AS C7 also, I should use it more. The Hammersmith PE took me quite a while to download. Nice piano. I am however, still a great proponent of the Ravenscroft.

[Geoff Grace]

I like the sound of the audio demos. Thanks for starting this thread, Steve.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[Steve Nathan]

Interesting - I have the AcousticSamples C7, and I don't care for it at all. It is nowhere near as polished sounding as the Ravenscroft. Horses for courses.

 

Apples and oranges for sure. The Ravenscroft is absolutely more focused and polished, but I wanted a C7 because nearly all the pro studios have them, and a lot of artists and writers around here think "that is what a piano should sound like"

When I got it, I set up at Loud Studios (which has one of the nicest C7s in town), and I got the real one and the AS one in the phones at the same time. I mimicked the mike pre and small bit of compression from the real one, and compared the sounds against each other. It was pretty freaky how close they were

 

I will still primarily use Ravenscroft when I choose not to use a real piano, precisely because of it's polish and focus. I can do a whole lot with it, while making it fit within a complex, multi-instrument track. But I see myself loading Hammersmith when I want a looser, more open piano sound, like on intimate "piano driven" ballads, or smaller section jazzier stuff. I sure could have used it last week on the Swing tracks we cut

 

I've just begun listening to the various mike options, but so far I have to say they used some top shelf mikes and it sound it.

[Mark Schmieder]

To my ears it has the best audio quality of any Steinway library so far.

 

It didn't react as well to pre-recorded MIDI as I had hoped, but the developers say it is really focused on live real-time playing (which I can't do at the moment, as I do not own a weighted action 88-key controller right now). And it reacted to MIDI better than my other sample libraries. The main thing is sustain. But I always have to edit that individually for each sound source anyway.

 

I look forward to working with this library more once I buy another weighted keyboard. I would rather use notation for piano parts in the meantime than suffer the results of using a semi-weighted action board.

 

I bought the full edition as I see no point otherwise; it's all about mic positioning and blending, after all.

 

Kudos to James and team for another job well done!

 

Interestingly, this is the ONLY Steinway library whose overall timbre is almost indistinguishable from Pianoteq's Steinway model!

 

BTW as of today there is already a second update to the Kontakt scripting. It may be weeks before I get a chance to try it though, as I have gigs out the wazoo, work deadlines, and an upcoming family visit. I'm not really working on much piano-based material at the moment -- maybe later this year.

[MorayM]

I got the standard version yesterday and first impressions are lovely. Ran a couple of old MIDI files through it and have been very impressed with the results. I'm sure they'll be even better when I've tweaked them for this library.

 

I haven't done much live playing with it yet - there are a few latency issues in my system I need to squash first. If it plays nice from my PC3K8, I may well pony up for the full version with the binaural mics for practice on headphones.

[Marko in Boston]

Picked up the Hammersmith Pro Edition on sale for $148.85US. Sonicouture has a 35% off special running until 12/31. Download takes little awhile - 50GB. No review for you yet. Starting using it for about an hour via CP4. So far sounds very authentic and beautiful. Great interface - lots more to go through.

 

If interested:

 

35% Off - enter code: YUUAUU35 at checkout http://www.soniccouture.com/en/

 

 

 

[Dave Osoff]

Tempted.... Has anybody tried it with a Receptor? I have 16GB RAM to play with. Just read the manual and listened to the demos. Very nice! I'm also thinking about picking up their Clav D6 library.

[davinwv]

Tempted.... Has anybody tried it with a Receptor? I have 16GB RAM to play with. Just read the manual and listened to the demos. Very nice! I'm also thinking about picking up their Clav D6 library.

 

Their Clavinet is excellent! I use it all the time. Among

Scarbee, the Acousticsamples Clavinet, and the SC Clavinet, the SC is the clear winner to my ears.

[Dave Osoff]

Good to hear! I have the Scarbee, Acoustic Samples and Sampletekk ST Clav. I haven't used the Acoustic samples Clav too much because UVI Workstation tends to crash my Receptor. But I do enjoy the Sampletekk Clav as it was sampled through a Fender Twin and has a nice edge to the sound. The Soniccouture Clav has a ton of great features also. Gonna grab it while it's on sale...

 

OK, back to the Hammersmith...

:-)

[Mark Schmieder]

I totally forgot I had this, as I was so busy at the time I bought it. I bought the True Keys bundle tonight primarily for the Bechstein and for the Fazioli (as I despise my Ivory II Fazioli, even after a full weekend last year of carefully programming and tweaking it).

 

This is a good reminder to give it another spin on my jazz album before I start wrapping up my final mixes this weekend. My recollection is that I already tried it on this material earlier this year, but in reviewing my previous post, it wasn't really designed to render MIDI recordings (even though those are "live", yet played against a different sound source at the time), and I'm in no position to re-do all these parts as live re-entered tracks -- especially given all of the nuances.

 

If you own other Soniccouture products, you might even have received a 40% coupon. I was only able to use that on a tiny new library just released, as I had already used the smaller discount a couple of weeks earlier to belatedly buy the excellent Imogen Heap collection of rare instruments.

 

As for Impact Soundworks Pearl, it's apples and oranges since it's a Yamaha, and I did find it more balanced than most Yamaha libraries, but ultimately am not finding any of my most active current projects to benefit from the more compressed and bright sound of a Yamaha grand. Maybe when I get back to some rock projects...

[Dave Osoff]

Mark, I look forward to hearing thoughts on the True Keys bundle after you've had some time with it. Your post also just reminded me I need to get back to that Pearl Grand C7 that I bought 5 or 6 months ago and haven't really played with much. I do a lot of rock, blues, boogie, funk, R&B so the C7s get a lot of use. I've collected several C7 libraries: the Pearl, Sampletekk 7CG, K Sounds Epic, Production Grand LE, all good but my favorite right now is the Orange Tree Evolution Rosewood Grand. It just has a warmth, presence and response that really hits the spot for me.

 

As far as the Steinways - I have a few libraries, but no clear-cut favorite yet, at least for live use. I don't really care for my Ivory American D grand that much these days, I have the old Galaxy D which cuts through at gigs nicely, but I probably will end up getting the Hammersmith or the Ravenscroft at some point when I get more serious about doing that solo piano record that's been on the back burner for a few years now.

 

I did grab the Soniccouture Broken Wurly and Clav D6 at their buy one get one free sale this week. That'll round out things nicely for those sounds. When's the next sale happening? :-)