77% off “Luthéal Piano” by realsamples

Explore The Inspiring Sounds Of “The Original Prepared Piano”

The Luthéal is probably one of the rarest piano instruments in existence – with only one original instrument being left. Invented by the Belgian George Cloetens, it uses a grand piano as its basis and allows to change the tone of the piano by applying the Luthéal mechanism. Built in 1922, it has been completely restored and resides at the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) in Brussels.

Conductors from all over the world inquire regularly to rent the Luthéal for concerts to play Maurice Ravel’s pieces. However, shipping the last one of its kind around the globe proved to be impossible. As a result, MIM and realsamples teamed up to provide a comprehensive sample set of this rare instrument, featuring more than 9.500 single samples. The virtual Luthéal allows to play Ravel’s pieces the way they were supposed to be.

Besides the regular grand piano sound – coming from a great Pleyel™ grand – the iron mechanism of the Luthéal offers additional sounds such as the Clavecin stop: It is reminiscent of a harpsichord by adding nails to the strings. The Clavecin (“harpsichord”) stop is a great call for a little experiment when a straight harpsichord would sound too far off.

The Harp Tirée stop adds felt dampers to the strings, producing a harmonic sound similar to an all-acoustic version of a Rhodes® electric piano, with warm yet lively harmonics. Both stops can be added at the same time, a combined setup which is referred to as Cimbalom, offering the sound spectrum of a dulcimer.

Perhaps realsamples should have called the library “The Original Prepared Piano” – because that is basically what the Luthéal is. While the Luthéal hasn’t exactly been music for the masses yet, it is treasuring unique yet musical sounds to be explored by the curious and the willing.

The instrument was sampled chromatically with every register, providing up to 32 velocity layers to musically reproduce the Luthéal. Additionally, samples of key release noises for each key and stop are available with 8 velocity layers per key to contribute to the overall picture of the instrument. Pedal noise samples of each stop (pedal push/release) have been recorded as well.

Presets are included for Kontakt® (full version required) and EXS24® software samplers.

For the recording, realsamples employed Wagner™ U47w® tube microphones with Crane Song™ Flamingo® preamps and Universal Audio™ 2192® digital converters. The samples were recorded at 192 kHz/24 bits and downsampled to 44.1kHz/24bits.

Additional Product Information

• Samplerate – 44.1 kHz/24bits
• Format – Kontakt™/EXS24™
• Delivery – Download