M a n u a l

V e r s i o n 1 . 0

w w w . o r c h e s t r a l t o o l s . c o m
Credits
Produced by OrchestralTools.com
Schwarzer & Mantik GbR

Created and Produced by

Manfred Mantik, Hendrik Schwarzer

Concept, Scripting and Mapping

Hendrik Schwarzer
Stan Berzon

Mixing / Denoising / Mastering

Manfred Mantik
Stan Berzon

Editing
Tobias Escher
Manfred Mantik
Stan Berzon

Quality Assurance
Hendrik Schwarzer

Manual
Tobias Escher

Recording Engineer
Tom Rußbueldt

Recorded at Teldex Berlin

Thanks to all our beta testers!

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The Orchestral Grands - Manual 2

Installation Notes
After downloading the library, the Continuata system should have extracted everything
automatically. If you can read this manual, that means that extraction was successful. In
case your folder structure gets mixed up, here is what it is supposed to look like:

There is no further installation or activation required. Please note that The Orchestral
Grands requires a full Kontakt 4.2.4 or later to run. It is not compatible with the free
Kontakt Player!

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The Orchestral Grands - Manual 3

The Orchestral Grands 101
Instrumentation and Recording

The Orchestral Grands gives you two of the most famous grand pianos in the world: A
Steinway B and a Steinway D. These two pianos are designed to cover your piano needs
both in the context of solo passages as well as in the context of the orchestra.

For more intimate moments, the special Sustaining Grand, produced by a stunning
analogue signal chain (Chandler Zener Limiter, A-Design´s Hammer EQ, Electrodyn
501 preamps) will enable you to melt hearts at the press of a key (literally!).

You have free choice between three microphone positions, Close, Mid and Room, the
latter being a splendidly lofty Decca Tree with M50s.
These microphone positions are switchable in the GUI. All samples as usual with
OrchestralTools have their natural panning.

The Orchestral Grands was recorded at the Teldex Scoring Stage Berlin/Germany with
high-end Neumann microphones like the legendary M50 tube microphone.

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The Orchestral Grands - Manual 4

Blending With Other Libraries

We have spent considerable energy on making The Orchestral Grands fit into your
existing workflow and make it work together effortlessly with other libraries you are
using, especially in the context of an orchestral arrangement.

The right reverb

You can control the amount of room information with the three adjustable microphone
positions in The Orchestral Grand’s interface.
More Room = more softness, wideness; More mid = more presence and character; more
Close = more detail.
Using the Close position solely allows you to shape the sound even further by using your
own reverb - at the expense of loosing the natural sound of the Teldex stage.

In general we suggest the use of an unobtrusive final reverb on top of the samples to
blend everything nicely together in a coherent space and to allow for spatial positioning
of instruments within the mix (or, in plain words: to move instruments further back or to
the front in the mix).

Volume Control via Kontakt

We have chosen to not normalise the audio samples used in The Orchestral Grands (with
the exception of the Sustaining Grand). This means that all samples are at their natural
volume, making some instrument ranges much quieter than you may find in other
libraries. This is intentional to give you the full dynamic spectrum. If you want to raise
the overall volume of The Orchestral Grands’s patches, you can either raise the volume of
individual patches or raise Kontakt’s master volume slider:

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The Orchestral Grands - Manual 5

GUI Overview
General GUI

This section shows the user interface of The Orchestral Grands. Please note that
different patches have different UI elements, all of which are described in the following
sections:

Microphone Positions

All patches in The Orchestral Grands have three adjustable microphone positions. You
will find rotary encoders with on/off buttons for all positions at the bottom right of each
patch:

If you switch off a position, its samples will be purged from memory. Conversely, as soon
as you switch a position on, the samples will be loaded.

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The Orchestral Grands - Manual 6

Close
Increase the amount of the Close knob if you want to have a more direct sound with less
response of the room. Raising the volume of the Close mics will also increase the playing
noises made by the musicians, providing added realism for intimate settings.

Mid

The Mid microphones provide a balance between Close and Room. Use them to add
presence to the sound by allowing some room response on, while still keeping the sound
relatively controlled.

Room
Increase the amount of the Room knob if you want to have as much room information as
possible. The reverb will increase while the direct sound decreases.

Note: You do not need to think about adjusting the mic positions if you do not want to!
When you load any instrument into Kontakt, the microphone knobs will be set to well-
balanced standard positions.

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The Orchestral Grands - Manual 7

Control Box

The right of the interface contains a framed box with controls.

Release

All patches in The Orchestral Grands have dedicated release samples, which will be
triggered when you release a key. With the Release Volume dial you can control the
volume of the release samples that get triggered when you release a key. Increase the
value of the knob if you want to increase the volume of the release samples, decrease the
value and the volume of the release samples will decrease. To switch the release samples
off completely, move the knob all to the left.

Ped Noise

The noise of the sustain pedal is an important part of sound. Frequently overlooked, it
adds to dynamic playing and makes the sound realistic. The Orchestral Grands features
recorded pedal samples, not just for releasing the pedal, but also for pressing it down.
This slider along with the respective on/off switch allow you to set the volume of these
samples or switch them off completely. To toggle, click on the on/off switch.

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The Orchestral Grands - Manual 8

Dynamic Range

Some keyboard feature non-standard velocity curves; or maybe you just want to limit or
expand the dynamic range. This slider lets you do exactly this.

Velocity

Whenever you want to tweak the velocity curve in fine detail, click on the Velocity button
and the graph below will appear. Here you can adjust the curve to your liking.

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The Orchestral Grands - Manual 9

Steinway B
Usage and Characteristics

The Steinway B with its brilliant sound cuts right through anything. Use it if you need a
piano with a lot of presence that is easily heard.

The instrument has all the features discussed above.

Steinway D
Usage and Characteristics

A true gem, the Steinway D lives and breathes nobility. With a very smooth sound when
playing piano and a well rounded forte, use this grand piano for places where either a
soloistic sound is needed, or a classical sound blending well with the orchestra.

This piano features 4 round robins for all sustains.

Staccato

The Steinway D features special Staccato samples with six round robins. To use these
samples, move the modwheel (CC1) up. Move it down again to play sustain.

The staccato mode is great for percussive passages cutting right through a dense
orchestration.

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The Orchestral Grands - Manual 10

Sustaining Grand
User Interface

Usage and Characteristics

If you cry easily, beware of the Sustaining Grand. This special processed piano will
enhance all those bittersweet moments in your scores. Lovers long separated will reunite,
the valiant hero, who just once again happened to save the world, lovingly embraces his
treasured lady... you get the trick.

Just play this piano and marvel at it beautiful tone. And then post in online forums that
good old analogue signal chains sound bad. We dare you!

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The Orchestral Grands - Manual 11

Teldex Impulse Response

The Sustaining Grand comes with a special close microphone position. To facilitate
blending the instrument with the other instruments in your compositions, we included a
special Impulse Response (IR) of the Teldex Scoring Stage, courtesy of Samplicity.

You can switch the Teldex IR on or off by clicking on the Teldex IR button.

Adjust the dry/wet ratio as well as the pre-delay with the knobs. By default, the
Sustaining Grand is set to factory settings suitable for most applications.

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The Orchestral Grands - Manual 12