GEAR REVIEW
IK MULTIMEDIA ’ S PIANOVERSE | Steve Sattler
Pianoverse is a new , fully immersive virtual piano instrument from IK Multimedia . Pianoverse is unlike any other virtual piano instrument on the market , not only does it sound incredibly realistic , but it also opens a whole new world of possibilities both as a live performance instrument and as a studio tool . To create Pianoverse , IK Mulktimedia set out to capture the world ’ s most exceptional pianos , recreating the full timbral and dynamic range of each instrument . To do this , IK Multimedia created a custom robot for capturing the full performance of each note .
The process of installing each Pianoverse instrument is managed by IK Multimedia ’ s free software application manager which gives you the option to select the file installation path for each piano as you install them . This is important as the size of each piano is on the larger side , they are about 20 to 23 gigabytes for each one of the pianos you will be installing … so you will want to use an external thumb drive or SSD .
In creating Pianoverse , IK Multimedia ’ s goal was to make an instrument that will be as realistic as possible but at the same time keeping the flexibility and workflow of playing on a real piano in a real studio . This is particularly true for the dynamic response of the instrument . A key has its own dynamic curve , the way it responds to varying velocity , and this curve is different from one key to another , so that is a lot of data you need to cover the whole keyboard . Only with a high resolution , high consistency sampling robot is it possible to capture the detailed representation of the entire dynamics of the piano without flattening it or simplifying it too much , which is what necessarily happens if a human is doing the sampling .
In creating Pianoverse , IK Multimedia designed the robots and the whole sampling process with the goal of first capturing all these sorts of subtleties which all together make the sonic DNA image of the sampled piano , and secondly , translate the DNA of the instrument into the virtual world . Pianoverse offers a comprehensive way of managing pedal pressure for all the three pedals as linear values instead of a simple switch that allows for the use of what IK Multimedia calls continuous pedal , giving the user not only access to the half-pedaling function but also to all the different pedal positions .
IK Multimedia provides you with two sets of microphones per piano so that you can choose if they prefer a more modern or a more classical sound . At the same time , the player is allowed to customize the perceived strength of each piano using the software velocity controls , or the lid position , or even the noise of the piano mallets , things that are usually only available in modeled instruments .
The Space section is another tool to help the user fine tune Pianoverse . On that page the user can choose the room where they would prefer to virtually perform the piano . Some of these spaces are inspired by top-level recording studios . Some are less traditional and realistic
100 April 2024 Subscribe for Free ...