Extensively and professionally sampled from a Yamaha C7 grand piano in an Italian concert hall, Chocolate Audio Model 7 is a virtual instrument library designed for use in the Mac-/Windows-compatible Native Instruments Kontakt engine. With over 6640 samples, this 9.12GB library features loads of content that's ideal for creating realistic, dynamic, and nuanced performances in your digital audio workstation.
The samples were captured with four sets of carefully selected studio microphones (ribbons and condensers) through premium mic preamps into Apogee converters at 96 kHz, before being edited and down-sampled to 44.1 kHz for more efficient usage of system resources. Thanks to the onboard mixer, Model 7 lets you adjust volume, pan, and width, as well as apply reverb and master effects such as 3-band EQ, compression, and tape emulation. With many presets immediately available, you can spend more time playing and less time fiddling with parameters.
- Schoeps CMC 6 with MK 4 cardioid capsules as a matched pair placed at the player's position
- Royer 121 matched pair placed inside the open-lid, but at a healthy distance from the soundboard to pickup both the direct sound and the reflections from the lid
- Modded Oktava MK-012 matched pair in a spaced configuration right above the strings
- Matched Neumann M149 mics to pick up the sound from a medium distance
These microphones, by themselves or combined, give you the widest possible gamut of tonal colors you might need from a top-notch concert piano. To preserve tonal balance, all the mics were carefully phase-aligned.
- Volume
- Pan
- Mute
- Solo
- Width
- Reverb Send
- Master Effects: 3-band EQ with cherry-picked frequency centers, preset compressor and tape emulation, and an IR reverb
The compressor and tape emulation section, usually hard to grasp for the novice, features no less than 22 + 22 (for when using a single mic only, marked with a + sign) presets with a simple Amount knob to adjust each one to taste.
The reverb section, so critical for acoustic pianos in particular, features an in-house developed collection of 101 carefully selected high-quality impulse responses coming from both real spaces and revered vintage and contemporary studio hardware.
- 9.12GB (lossless compressed) library size
- 6640 samples
- 4 microphone sets—Schoeps CMC 6 MK 4 condensers, Royer 121 ribbons, modded Oktava MK-012s, and a Neumann M149 stereo room set
- 11 sustaining dynamic layers, chromatically sampled
- 8 release trails layers, chromatically sampled
- Independently controllable sustain pedal resonances
- Key release noise for added authenticity
- Sustain pedal down and up noise layers
- Sampled with Millennia, Neve, SSL, and Focusrite preamps fed direct into Apogee converters
- All details of the piano recreated through the use of custom advanced scripting
- Recorded at 24-bit / 96 kHz, released at 24-bit / 44.1 kHz
- Requires the full retail version of Native Instruments Kontakt 5.5.2 or later