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I’ll take two, please! Synthogy’s copy was in Studio A of Firehouse Recording Studio, Pasadena: now itself closed down, pending relocation, but once the recipient of various gongs for jazz recording and TV work. At 7’4” (225cm) it’s still not Last Night Of The Proms material, but it’s certainly big enough, especially with Bösendorfer’s trademark extended bass (down to a trouser- and woofer-flapping F), and would set you back over £100,000. They’re not full-on concert grands, but they’re often first choice for smaller venues, and as concert pianists’ home instruments.Īs for the Bösendorfer, it’s a model 225. Model Bs, in case you’re wondering, are 6’11” (211cm) instruments that go back well over 100 years, and will cost you upwards of £70,000 to buy new. The piano (presumably a new one) was selected from the Steinway factory in New York and set up by its technicians. The acoustic is supposedly an exact copy of the now defunct Power Station/Avatar studio in New York, which, if you haven’t heard of it already, was pretty much a rock, pop and jazz fusion Shangri-La. The Steinway is a Model B, from the live room of Power Station studio New England, recorded by Mark Donahue (who has a formidable CV, of predominantly classical work). In this case, in Studio Grands, it’s a Steinway and a Bösendorfer, sampled in two identifiable American studio acoustics by experienced engineers.
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The trend now is towards individualistic pianos, that can be identified with specific model numbers, years, places or some other kind of provenance, and preferably with an original manufacturer endorsement. With so many competing virtual pianos on the market now, and competition for the top spots fiercer than ever, companies are going beyond just developing great but generic instruments. We’ve since had another Steinway, a Fazioli and some uprights added to the product range, and the very latest offering is what’s on test here: Ivory II Studio Grands.
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Ivory II came along in late 2010, upped the library size to over 80GB (which is still considered big, by some standards), and added all kinds of nuance and sophistication. Their Ivory collection of three grands dates back to 2004, when its 30GB library would have been considered absolutely gargantuan. Synthogy have a serious track record when it comes to piano sampling. Synthogy continue to do what they do best, with another pair of stellar virtual pianos. A familiar interface to anyone who’s used other Synthogy pianos, Studio Grands positively bristles with controls for subtle and not-so-subtle modifications to the basic sound.