Man Makes Noise releases The Lobby Piano (a creative piano library for Omnisphere 2.5) - Intro offer extended!

[Kuusniemi]

In honor of getting the Top Pick from Sample Library Review the intro offer of 35€ (excluding VAT) will be continue for 10 days until the 10th of March! After that the full price will be 49€ (excluding VAT).

Get it here: https://www.manmakesnoise.com/the-lobby-piano

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I’m proud to announce my first official release with Man Makes Noise's The Lobby Piano. As this will be the first thing I release I kept pondering what should it be. And so I had a thought no sample library developer has ever had: let’s make a piano library.

I know, I know. The world really frigging doesn’t need another deep sampled piano library with a hundred microphones to choose from. So I didn’t make one. Instead I made you something very different.

The Lobby Piano is an exploration into what a piano can be. A collection of sound design piano tones ranging from experimental playing styles to completely recharged sound explorations. The Lobby Piano is at home in pretty much everything you do. It’s not really a piano anymore. Really it isn’t.

I recorded sounds from a single piano (located in a lobby, duh) with an assortment of orthodox and unorthodox methods and tools (a hammer and a keychain were involved among other items). Still this is not an effects piano nor a prepared piano. It’s a designed piano.

The Lobby Piano contains 200 patches with 296 original soundsources. The patches are divided into 13 categories that are easily identifiable within Omnisphere.

Today I tease you with the first official demo for the product composed by Stephan Baer using only sounds from the library:

[soundcloud][/soundcloud]

The release date is here!

https://www.manmakesnoise.com/the-lobby-piano

The Lobby Piano is now available for purchase at the intro price of 35€ (excluding VAT). The intro price will run until the end of February 2019 when the price will be 49€ (excluding VAT).

I have a free set of 10 patches available at: https://www.manmakesnoise.com/freebies

[Kuusniemi]

The second demo to tease the library is some post rock goodness from Posthouse Tuomi. Dressed and Naked version to show The Lobby Piano in context and the sounds as they are:





Also more details about the contents on the The Lobby Piano:

ALARMS - 7 -Scream type of sounds.

ARPS - 22 - Tonal and rhythmic movements.

ATMOSPHERES - 16 - Tonal long ambient sounds.

BASIC PIANO SOUNDS - 10 - Single soundsource instruments displaying the variety of recorded sounds.

BASSES - 10 - Low end stuff.

DESIGNED - 8 - Piano + another sound combined into designed instruments.

FX - 10 - Non tonal sounds go here. Most of the riser sounds are controlled by modwheel to allow you to create the length of riser as it suits you!

HITS - 8 - Big hits.

KEYS - 43 - Layered keyboard sounds.

PADS - 35 - Long tonal pads.

PERCUSSIONS - 20 - Percussive loops and instruments.

PULSES - 6 -Rhythmic pulsing elements.

SYNTHS - 5 - Here are sounds that started as a piano, but were transformed into synth sounds outside of Omnisphere and then brought back for further mangling.

The Lobby Piano requires Omnisphere 2.5. The library will be released on Wednesday the 30th of January 2019.

[wst3]

you do get an awful lot of mileage from a piano - I am very intrigued! And impressed.

[Kuusniemi]

you do get an awful lot of mileage from a piano - I am very intrigued! And impressed.

Oh, I did abuse that poor piano quite a bit.

[Guy Rowland]

As I've said here before I'm now feel officially expansioned out with Omni - the work involved tagging and organising and trying to keep up with Spectrsonics' ever changing standards adds to the fact I now have several thousand 3rd party libraries on top of the many more thousand factory ones.

But I must admit... damn this sounds good. And it doesn't sound like other stuff. Walkthough coming?

Very good work, Kuusniemi, and all the very best with the release.

[Kuusniemi]

As I've said here before I'm now feel officially expansioned out with Omni - the work involved tagging and organising and trying to keep up with Spectrsonics' ever changing standards adds to the fact I now have several thousand 3rd party libraries on top of the many more thousand factory ones.

But I must admit... damn this sounds good. And it doesn't sound like other stuff. Walkthough coming?

Very good work, Kuusniemi, and all the very best with the release.

Thanks for the kind words! I've been trying to get a walkthrough done, but I'm having trouble recording audio with my screen capture software. But once I have thar sorted out, I'll do walkthrough. In the mean time do test out the free patches, they give a nice look at the library.

[Kuusniemi]

The release date is here!

https://www.manmakesnoise.com/the-lobby-piano

The Lobby Piano is now available for purchase at the intro price of 35€ (excluding VAT). The intro price will run until the end of February 2019 when the price will be 49€ (excluding VAT).

Two new demos (one with a dressed and naked version) are up as well:



Also more details:

In addition to the Omnisphere 2.5 patches The Lobby Piano includes 20 Roomshaker sub booms in WAV format.

[Jaap]

Congrats on the release. Sounds really interesting!

Regarding making a walkthrough. I could advise OBS (free) in combination with voicemeter. Setup is easy. Select voicemeter in your DAW as output, start up the voicemeter program, open up OBS and select in OBS under settings - audio - desktop audio and desktop audio 1 the voiceover meter input and record ahead. If any questions feel free to PM me or shoot a mail at info@triplespiralaudio.com - happy to help out

https://obsproject.com/
https://www.vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/

[Kuusniemi]

Congrats on the release. Sounds really interesting!

Regarding making a walkthrough. I could advise OBS (free) in combination with voicemeter. Setup is easy. Select voicemeter in your DAW as output, start up the voicemeter program, open up OBS and select in OBS under settings - audio - desktop audio and desktop audio 1 the voiceover meter input and record ahead. If any questions feel free to PM me or shoot a mail at info@triplespiralaudio.com - happy to help out

https://obsproject.com/
https://www.vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/

Thanks you Jaap! I'm considering doing it the crude way, recording the screen to my capture software and just recording the audio into my DAW then join the in my video editor. Not planning on talking much during the walkthrough... But I will check those out, thanks for the hints.

[Kuusniemi]

Just got a new demo from Brian Brylow. This is some ambient / prog rock floating in the style of Eloy and Pink Floyd:

[Guy Rowland]

Good work Kuusniemi! I'm sure you'll update us here when that walkthrough is up, looking forward to seeing the organisation of the library as well as hearing some individual sounds.

[Kuusniemi]

Good work Kuusniemi! I'm sure you'll update us here when that walkthrough is up, looking forward to seeing the organisation of the library as well as hearing some individual sounds.

I will. Didn't yet have a chance to sit properly to do it (yesterday was my birthday so wanted to take some time with the family as well) but I will do it as soon as possible.

[Kuusniemi]

Good work Kuusniemi! I'm sure you'll update us here when that walkthrough is up, looking forward to seeing the organisation of the library as well as hearing some individual sounds.

Just a quick update, that I finally got my screencap software to record sound so I'll be doing the walkthrough probably tomorrow.

[Kuusniemi]

Congrats on the release. Sounds really interesting!

Regarding making a walkthrough. I could advise OBS (free) in combination with voicemeter. Setup is easy. Select voicemeter in your DAW as output, start up the voicemeter program, open up OBS and select in OBS under settings - audio - desktop audio and desktop audio 1 the voiceover meter input and record ahead. If any questions feel free to PM me or shoot a mail at info@triplespiralaudio.com - happy to help out

https://obsproject.com/
https://www.vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/

I am on PC so I was adviced to try the WASAPI protocol instead of ASIO and it worked.

[Jaap]

Ah great! Good to hear

[Kuusniemi]

Ah great! Good to hear

Apparently Windows is not able to record ASIO internally. So a Windows problem. WASAPI can be recorded internally. Go figure...

[Kuusniemi]

Alright, here is the walkthrough. I apologize for the low quality, need to find better tools to make these than what I have now:

[Kuusniemi]

Good work Kuusniemi! I'm sure you'll update us here when that walkthrough is up, looking forward to seeing the organisation of the library as well as hearing some individual sounds.

Got it up last night, Guy.

[Guy Rowland]

Good work Kuusneiemi, some fine sounds there for sure. REALLY good in some cases, would be great to use.

Now, I really am boring myself at this point, but forgive me for raising it one more time - tags. This is probably the main reason at this point why I buy far fewer expansions than I once did. I can instantly see that The Lobby Piano would be a big investment of time for me to get it into a state where I can use it. The bare minimum is that the categories have to match the factory library, not helped at all since Spectrasonics do have a habit of changing them themselves - in 2.5 Synth Pluck changed to Synth Short for example. But however annoying it is, when you have 15,000 patches, if it can't be quickly found then it may as well not be there.

Your categories are all bespoke to the library, which is a nightmare for me. I can easily find any Lobby Piano patches by just searching that one library, so all the other references to it are redundant. "The Lobby Piano - Arps" should be "ARP + BPM", otherwise they will never come up in an ALL search. Further they then need to broadly follow the Spectrasonics conventions - in the tag edit window, as much as possible follow the blue options that appear at the top of the assignments windows, those are the tags that are used by the factory presets in that category, so again they will return in the ALL searches. You might well find things that don't easily fit and then fine create something bespoke, but if that was only a small part of the library it would be far better. Finally, I really dislike having category bolds at the front of patch names - that's what the categories themselves are for!

All this is just my thing. Matt Bowdler gave up talking to me on this subject, that's how boring I am about it. Really, really boring. I was irritating Spectrasonics themselves again this week, I can't for the life of me understand why their Hardware patches have bolded synth names in the patches rather than use the Model tag. So I'm clearly unreasonably obsessed. But I reason it this way... of those 15.000 patches I have, a good third are likely to may as well not be there because they're not well tagged. It's like how a website may as well not be there if Google can't see it. I've manually changed thousands of tags to help, and its a never ending chore. The bottom line is - when it comes to new stuff, it just adds to my workload, unless its really well tagged. Others may not be bothered in the slightest, that their workflow is different, but just explaining my own view really.

[Kuusniemi]

Good work Kuusneiemi, some fine sounds there for sure. REALLY good in some cases, would be great to use.

Thanks!

Now, I really am boring myself at this point, but forgive me for raising it one more time - tags. This is probably the main reason at this point why I buy far fewer expansions than I once did. I can instantly see that The Lobby Piano would be a big investment of time for me to get it into a state where I can use it. The bare minimum is that the categories have to match the factory library, not helped at all since Spectrasonics do have a habit of changing them themselves - in 2.5 Synth Pluck changed to Synth Short for example. But however annoying it is, when you have 15,000 patches, if it can't be quickly found then it may as well not be there.

Your categories are all bespoke to the library, which is a nightmare for me. I can easily find any Lobby Piano patches by just searching that one library, so all the other references to it are redundant. "The Lobby Piano - Arps" should be "ARP + BPM", otherwise they will never come up in an ALL search. Further they then need to broadly follow the Spectrasonics conventions - in the tag edit window, as much as possible follow the blue options that appear at the top of the assignments windows, those are the tags that are used by the factory presets in that category, so again they will return in the ALL searches. You might well find things that don't easily fit and then fine create something bespoke, but if that was only a small part of the library it would be far better. Finally, I really dislike having category bolds at the front of patch names - that's what the categories themselves are for!

All this is just my thing. Matt Bowdler gave up talking to me on this subject, that's how boring I am about it. Really, really boring. I was irritating Spectrasonics themselves again this week, I can't for the life of me understand why their Hardware patches have bolded synth names in the patches rather than use the Model tag. So I'm clearly unreasonably obsessed. But I reason it this way... of those 15.000 patches I have, a good third are likely to may as well not be there because they're not well tagged. It's like how a website may as well not be there if Google can't see it. I've manually changed thousands of tags to help, and its a never ending chore. The bottom line is - when it comes to new stuff, it just adds to my workload, unless its really well tagged. Others may not be bothered in the slightest, that their workflow is different, but just explaining my own view really.

I can understand your point of view and will take things into consideration in the future. I am one of those whose workflow is different and have always found the Omnisphere factory categories and tags misleading by a mile... I tend to use the Type, Mood, Model and Genre slots when going through sounds and not the Category slot. And that is mostly how I have tagged The Lobby Piano. But I will see what I can do in my future endeavors.

Just out of curiosity would you be willing to open up on how you tag and organize your patches? I mean what kind of information you wish to have in a patch.

[Jaap]

First of all, great great sounds!

When I started out I was also using my own system as I use Omnisphere also not with the categories and find them by times also utterly confusing (also due to the fact that things being changed all the time). But believe me Guy, you are not alone in this I am over the year some very nice and good constructive talks with customers about this and it made me also change my strategy regarding this.
It's not only to "please" everyone, but also because what I personaly want as well is that people are able to quickly find the sounds, use them in the projects and provide them with the quickest route in going from A to B and I realised also that its also part of our job to provide them with this.
I changed my setup along the year and slowly also updating my previous sets.
Actually I am quite suprised that Spectrasonics did not hard lock the category folders, specially with such an amount of presets and also by the enormous amount of 3rd party presets it is indeed a sort recipe for "chaos" instead of a clear organised structure.

[Kuusniemi]

First of all, great great sounds!

Thank you!

When I started out I was also using my own system as I use Omnisphere also not with the categories and find them by times also utterly confusing (also due to the fact that things being changed all the time). But believe me Guy, you are not alone in this I am over the year some very nice and good constructive talks with customers about this and it made me also change my strategy regarding this.
It's not only to "please" everyone, but also because what I personaly want as well is that people are able to quickly find the sounds, use them in the projects and provide them with the quickest route in going from A to B and I realised also that its also part of our job to provide them with this.
I changed my setup along the year and slowly also updating my previous sets.
Actually I am quite suprised that Spectrasonics did not hard lock the category folders, specially with such an amount of presets and also by the enormous amount of 3rd party presets it is indeed a sort recipe for "chaos" instead of a clear organised structure.

I'll structure my libraries differently in the future. As I edited to the above response to Guy I mentioned that I'm so used to using all the other tags other than the Category tag that I did not ponder that there would be any trouble for others using these sounds.

[Arcana]

I found myself taking a break from composing, so I ended up checking out the walkthrough.
I almost didn't cause I really couldn't care less about a new piano library.

But....this is really not a piano library. This is an atmospheric dark film score soundset and it's right up there with the best of them.
Superb stuff Kuusniemi. I just wished I had more of a need for these type of sounds cause they are all very inspiring.

Outstanding job, and to think these sounds derive from just a piano...wow.

[Kuusniemi]

I found myself taking a break from composing, so I ended up checking out the walkthrough.
I almost didn't cause I really couldn't care less about a new piano library.

But....this is really not a piano library. This is an atmospheric dark film score soundset and it's right up there with the best of them.
Superb stuff Kuusniemi. I just wished I had more of a need for these type of sounds cause they are all very inspiring.

Outstanding job, and to think these sounds derive from just a piano...wow.

Thank you for the kind words!

You have no idea how long I debated myself about titling this. The name could have been so different. But the side of me that wanted to poke a little fun at all the new game changing piano libraries that have been released in the last years won the debate... Not that I don't clearly state in the info that The Lobby Piano is not really a piano library...

[Guy Rowland]

Just out of curiosity would you be willing to open up on how you tag and organize your patches? I mean what kind of information you wish to have in a patch.

Well I guess I wrote most of the principles in the previous post. After picking the library (or ALL) In general I always go to category first - ARPs, Bass etc - then depends on what I'm looking for after that. I use Type and Mood the most I think, genre the least. The general principle is to follow the category names for the factory library and then the blue links in the edit tags dialogue as much as possible.

What Arcana said raises the excellent point that it would be tempting to just reach for this library when after a piano sound, that's when you'd think to select the library itself. But then you'd miss 80% of it which is all the other good stuff - you probably wouldn't think to look there when going for ARPs or textures, and you certainly wouldn't manually look through all the libraries one by one just in case. That's why some kind of standardisation is important imo (and yes I totally agree Spectrasonics really do not help here).