Big Block – Clavinet / Pianet: Logic

Description

This library started with the restoration of a badly bruised Clavinet / Pianet purchased from a second-hand shop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. New strings, new dampers and a new pickup were part of the restoration, as well as a deep clean and tuning.

The Clavinet / Pianet itself is a bit of a strange combination – full of recognizable, classic keyboard sounds from the 70’s. When you think of “Feeling Stronger Every Day” from Chicago, “Space Race” from Billy Preston, or “Life During Wartime” from Talking Heads, you are thinking of either Pianet or Clavinet sounds.

The Clavinet has, in addition to a physical mute damper for all of the plucked strings, four pickup switches that were faithfully sampled in this library. The SoundEngine Big Block Library preset names indicate which switches were in the “down” position during sampling: AC, BC, BD, or DA. Samples were captured with the Full Mute Damper in place for the AC and BD pickup settings. Key Up noise was also sampled and programmed … a critical component of the Clavinet and Pianet sound.

The Clavinet / Pianet was  sampled at 48Khz, 24-bit through a PreSonus Studio Live 32 console over Firewire directly into a Mac. From there, a number of editors were used to get you the samples you hear today, including SoundForge Mac, DSP Quattro, and Wavelab. iZotope Noise Reduction was used in some instances to get rid of pickup hum from the Clavinet – these things are noisy.

In this library, you will receive at least 950 samples and at least 65 presets – I’m programming more all the time as these instruments continue to be inspirational. As always, free updates and free restore downloads (in case something goes wrong) are available from SoundEngine.com.