A free CC-BY experimental minimalist piano sample library.
This piano is a byproduct of another work in progress and have thus received some unconventional augmentations, and thus resulting in a unique unconventional sound. The library is sampled at minor thirds. The wav files are mono but individual samples are programmatically panned in the SFZ file to simulate the piano key layout. Longer, lower notes are looped to have an extended decay. This artificial stereo panning and looping makes the overall sample library just 10.8mb without sacrificing number of samples, thus avoiding overstretching pitches. The ogg version is just 2.8mb! Reverb, however, is necessary to give it a better stereo feel.
Download from the following:
Good enough to be removed by SoundCloud!
On an interesting note, the originally intended demo song, Beethoven’s Fur Elise, was removed by SoundCloud stating that it belongs to Vladimir Ashkenazy and Universal Music. It is funny since SoundCloud is based in Berlin and it’s like their giving away a German national treasure to Russia! It is obviously a glitch of their automated system. I’m actually partly glad that this feature exists in SoundCloud since it can keep the community clean, and decrease “easy mass uploads” that uses more resources, and in turn, might increase the cost of their services. It is also flattering that these humble samples could sound as good as the said professional musician and be detected as his work.
SoundCloud did make the track accessible again after I followed their procedures for following copyright disputes. It didn’t take more than 2 days to fix, and this happened during a weekend. You now can listen to it below:
Going back on track, feel free to modify or re-distribute this sample library. Just credit Signal Experiments if you do so. For normal music production or performance, attribution is not required, but is highly appreciated.
Happy music making!
Signal Experiments 