Lifting the lid on ROLI Learn’s new piano sound with Embertone
Ever wanted to play a Steinway? Now’s your chance.
When we think of really special pianos, we think of Steinway & Sons. If you haven’t heard the name, you’ve certainly heard the warm, rich “house sound” of this legendary German-American builder’s pianos. From Rachmaninoff to Lang Lang to the Piano Man himself, Billy Joel, many of the most prominent players of the 19th and 20th centuries swear by their Steinways, and they’ve long been a staple of large concert halls and high-end recording studios around the world.
So, what do we think of when we think of really special Steinways? That would be the Model D-274. First introduced as the brand’s flagship model in 1884, the D, as it’s affectionately known, is truly the Rolls-Royce of pianos — or the Steinway of Steinways, if you prefer. And with a price tag over $200,000, it ought to be. The D is what’s known as a grand piano — it’s big (274 cm long, hence the name), loud, and exceptionally heavy. You won’t find one in many homes, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a world-class concert hall without one.
All that to say, unless you’re exceptionally wealthy, talented, or well-connected, you’re unlikely to be getting your hands on a Model D any time soon. But that doesn’t mean you can’t play one.
Enter Embertone. The North Carolina–based virtual instrument manufacturer is one of the world’s leading experts on “sampling” real instruments and turning them into software versions that we can play at home using a MIDI controller (like ROLI Pianos or Seaboards). They’ve created dozens of incredibly lifelike sampled instruments over the years, collaborating with some of the world’s top musicians in the process, and earning themselves a legion of fans that includes numerous well-known Hollywood composers and chart-topping producers.
Now, thanks to this expertise, you can play your very own Steinway Model D every time you learn with ROLI. The ROLI Learn app’s default piano sound is now powered by a new, custom version of Embertone’s “absurdly sampled” Hamburg-made Walker 1955 Concert D. To mark the occasion, we sat down with Embertone founder Jonathan Churchill to learn more about this legendary instrument and find out about the incredible lengths he and his team went to in order to capture its unique sound.
But first, let’s take a look at what exactly we mean when we talk about “sampling.” Unlike the technique of repurposing and remixing parts of other recordings, as pioneered by New York hip hop artists in the 1970s and 80s, sampling in this context refers to the process of recording individual notes or phrases of an instrument in order to perform them back later. It’s how we create virtual instruments that sound virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.
So, if a concert piano has 88 keys, that’s 88 samples, right? Not quite. ”Our sampling sessions are like hell,” says Jonathan. “They’re misery, I mean.”
What he’s referring to is a concept sometimes known as “sample math”. In order to create a really convincing virtual instrument, it’s not enough to use one recording of each key. Playing notes harder, for example, doesn’t just make them louder, it changes the quality of the sound. Playing with the sustain pedal up or down also changes the tone of each note. The key mechanism itself makes noise, both when keys are pressed and released. And what if we want the option to hear a piano with the lid both open and closed? How about some different microphone positions?
Opting to include all of the above in a sampling session can result in more detail and more realism when it comes time to create a virtual version of the instrument in question, but they don’t simply add work, they multiply it — “exponentially” in Jonathan’s words — and things can quickly get out of control. Now add in the pressures of capturing a perfect recording for every note, every time, and with a truly obsessive level of detail, and it’s easy to see why it pays to call in the experts.
"I don’t remember how we met John Q Walker,” Jonathan says of the piano’s owner, “but he lives in our town, pretty nearby. We found out that he’s this genius engineer who developed technology for voice over IP. He studied piano at some point in his life, and he’s really passionate about music and classical piano.”
Walker started a technology company called Zenph Sound Innovations in 2002, dedicated to creating what he calls “reperformances” of classic piano recordings, allowing for new releases in higher quality than had previously been possible. The technology allowed Sony Masterworks to release new versions of Glenn Gould’s 1955 Goldberg Variations and Art Tatum’s Piano Starts Here, among others. Zenph’s innovation centered around an extremely precise, high-tech version of the classic self-playing player piano. Walker’s 1955 Steinway D was retrofitted with Zenph’s technology, allowing it to effectively play itself (the company, coincidentally, was acquired by Steinway in 2015).
"The recording process consisted of setting up all our mics and converting the notes we wanted to record into a special format for the piano to play,” explains Jonathan. “Still, we had to run it overnight for a week — that was the only time it was quiet enough in John’s neighbourhood. It was kind of in the woods, but you could hear noise outside like trucks and cars during the day.”
"We’d go in there at night, set everything up, and run it. We’d come back the next day, see how it worked out, and then run it again.”
While, thankfully, nobody had to sit and physically play the piano in this instance, the sheer volume of notes presented challenges of its own. The project had a dedicated piano tuner on hand to ensure that the extensive use wouldn’t result in strings drifting out of tune. And even once the recordings were finished, Jonathan’s team was left with terabytes of data and hours upon hours of recordings to edit.
The payoff for all of this, however, is a virtual piano that not only sounds incredible, but feels incredible to play. The Zenph mechanism allowed the team to capture a far more precise performance than would have been humanly possible, and with a greater number of “velocity layers” — that is, the number of different notes of varying volume that were recorded for each key. That allows for incredibly fine variations that are highly responsive to your playing.
Sound matters too, of course, and Embertone are obsessive about this too; recorded with a sensitive pair of studio microphones from a typical audience perspective, the sound of the new piano is an incredibly lifelike representation of what you’d hear while attending a concert or listening to a great recording.
A great deal of an acoustic instrument’s sound is the space it’s played in; this piano is no exception. And John Walker’s personal recital hall, modelled after that of Richard Wagner’s villa in Bayreuth, Germany, is certainly an exceptional space.
“Even people who work really hard to record full-scale piano libraries usually have to work with what they have,” says Jonathan. Which is usually a piano in some kind of recording studio or a bigger concert hall. This, however, is an ideal scenario for capturing ideal-sounding samples. A lot of where this instrument shines is in how it lives in the space.
"So when you press a key, when you play this piano back, it's going to sound as good as it possibly can — it's going to feel really natural and really responsive.”
"And that's one of the benefits of using the Zenph mechanism,” he continues. “You get rid of all the imperfections. Some composers like to hear that in their music, but for the sake of learning, you want something that’s going to be as responsive as possible.”
The result of all this work, when it comes to learning with the ROLI Piano System, is threefold. First, you’ll be able to play more expressively than ever before, and hear the result of smaller nuances in your technique. This is especially true when playing with the new ROLI Piano, whose keys feature the same “plunge depth” as those of a standard acoustic piano. Secondly, the dedicated sustain recordings make playing with a pedal — using the input on ROLI Piano or Airwave — far more realistic. And thirdly, you now have the entire 88-key range of a grand piano available; try shifting between octaves in the new Playground mode to hear how the quality of sound changes at the extreme ends of the keyboard.
The new ROLI Learn piano sound, powered by Embertone, is available in the app now. Just make sure everything is up to date, then load up one of your favorite songs to try it out for yourself.
You can check out the full version of the Walker 1955 Concert D and everything else Embertone offers over on their site.
Make your first piano a Steinway
Not learning with us yet? There’s never been a better time to start. The brand-new flagship, ROLI Piano, ships soon and features full sustain-pedal support so you can hear even more of those special samples. It’s currently available to preorder for a discount of $200 / £180 / €200.
