As part of their Sonic Drop initiative Avid have released the latest of their Sonic Drops of new audio content for Pro Tools - Pummeled Piano.
Pro Tools Sonic Drop was announced as part of the Pro Tools 2023.3 release. At that time there were six ‘Drops’ of content. Pro Tools Sonic Drops are available to Pro Tools subscribers or perpetual licence holders with active update plans. This initiative was always presented as a rolling programme with monthly updates so the value grows over time.
What Is Pummeled Piano?
The piano is technically a percussive instrument, as its sound is generated by hammers hitting strings—so Matt thought that perhaps he should take the percussive categorization a tad more literally. He essentially struck every corner of the piano with his hands, drumsticks, brushes and brooms, mallets, and sometimes even using the piano to strike itself. Friction mallets when dragged slowly across the bridge of the hammers created a guttural whale like groan which really is quite something when you add some distortion or pitch shift it. Of course, recordings were made with the sustain pedal on and off, and the reverberation you get with a sustain pedal engaged is truly magnificent. If you haven’t before, next time you’re at a piano, hold down the sustain pedal and yell into the piano strings... it’s a “string reverb” if you will.
A big part of the sound of Pummeled Piano was the recording chain, which consisted of a pair of Neumann KM184 microphones set about an inch off of the hammers, Heritage 1073’s, an SSL Ultraviolet EQ, and very importantly, a pair of Audioscape V3A’s. The V3A’s were absolutely SLAMMED to take what might sound smaller by nature (it’s a piano, not a taiko after all) and blow it out to a gigantic proportion. The samples and loops in Pummeled Piano sound like big drums, simple as that, but with a different flair. Matt also created a set of FX out of the recordings, including impacts, risers, ambiences and so on. This is without a doubt the most cinematic library in the Sonic Drop.
Also, please don’t do this to your own piano.
The Sonic Drops available so far are:
Pummeled Piano
Noise Engineering Modular Motifs
Mike Avanaim Burnin’ Breaks
Elektron Syntakt Beats
Eventide H90 Drums
Kitchen Kit
Pumpkins
Rob’s Basement Beats
Ultra 808s
Isorhythm
To find out more about Pummeled Piano check out the video below, read Avid’s blog about Percussive Piano and to hear more about Sonic Drop listen to our podcast with Matt and Greg from Avid, also below. Sonic Drop is available to all Pro Tools users with active subscriptions or Update plans, Access Sonic Drop through Avid Link.