Spitfire’s Firewood Piano samples a beautifully weathered upright piano
The family heirloom of The Lumineers’ Jeremiah Fraites gains a new digital lifespan.
Image: Spitfire Audio
Spitfire Audio breathes new digital life into a beaten-up, weathered upright piano with its latest software instrument: Firewood Piano.
The instrument samples a 1955 Krakeuer Brothers upright piano; a family heirloom of Jeremiah Fraites of the American folk-rock outfit, The Lumineers. The recording session for the plug-in – which took place at Colorado Sound Studios – saw Fraites himself at the keys.
Firewood Piano gives music-makers access to five distinct presets spanning natural dry and felted timbres to warped, pad-like tones derived from the piano’s resonances.
Three “sound-altering signal paths” are also available. Close offers an upfront sound derived from a pair of close mics; Mid has the piano’s middle pedal depressed to highlight the unique timbre of the instrument’s broken bridge, and Pad delivers natural reverberant pads summoned by the piano’s resonating strings.
Other onboard parameters – labelled reverb, tightness, hammers and pedal – also offer an added degree of control over the instrument’s tones and effects.
On how Firewood Piano got its curious name, Spitfire revealed in a press statement:
“[It] came from something that piano tuner Michael Jackson once said since the faithful Fraites’ spinet was so obviously old and battered: ‘All this is good for is firewood!’”
Watch a behind-the-scenes video on the making of the plug-in here:
Firewood Piano is available as an AAX, AU, VST2, and VST3 formats, with support for Mac OS X 10.10 or later and Windows 7 (and up). It’s priced at £29/$29.
Meanwhile, Spitfire’s upcoming Abbey Road One: Orchestral Foundations – the brand’s first software instrument library conceived with the iconic British Studio – is due for release this Thursday (5 November).
Learn more at spitfireaudio.com
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