Firewood Piano is the latest installment in the artist-created Originals range and it features multiple presets aimed at capturing the unique piano’s resonances and physical traits.
Only days after announcing a new orchestral library recorded in Abbey Road Studios, Spitfire Audio have released a new upright piano instrument. Firewood Piano is the latest addition to the Originals range, which is comprised of affordable virtual instruments designed to capture the sound of the collaborating artists.
The instrument takes its name from the original upright piano owned by Jeremiah Fraites, who is a founding member of folk rock band The Lumineers. New Jersey-born Fraites claims that his piano tuner described the instrument as “only good for firewood!” due to its cracked bridge and other physical imperfections.
Despite his tuner’s counsel, Fraites continued to use the piano due to its peculiar tuning and enharmonic resonances. Spitfire Audio claim to have captured this very character and the instrument divides the piano’s qualities among five different presets. These include a straightforward piano sound, a pad version (with the sustain pedal pressed), two felted options, and Warps, which captures the cracked piano’s unusual resonances.
The interface is identical to other Originals instruments with two faders for expression and stereo width in the top left, a circular contextual fader for effects on the top right, various character parameters on the bottom right and the microphone mix in the bottom left corner.
Firewood Piano has three microphone positions – Close, Room and Pad. The pad signal captures notes with the sustain pedal held down so that unplayed strings also resonate.
Users can also adjust tweak the balance of the direct signal, reverb, amount of hammer noise, pedal noise, and more.
Spitfire Originals Firewood Piano is available now for £/$/€ 29.
Head to Spitfire Audio for more information.