UNA CORDA presents evocative tones from a unique upright piano that uses only a single string per key. Start with pure, resonant sound. Transform the timbre by adding felt and cotton preparations between hammers and strings. Apply effects to create ethereal pads and atmospheric soundscapes. Whatever music you make, from classical to contemporary, infuse your sound with a distinctive array of new tonal colors from UNA CORDA.

Komplete : Keys : Una Corda | Products

Love how it sounds.

I really like NI Demo tracks, don't know why many people here consider them bad, there's this one, the 3rd one on their site called "Calling Through the Cloud" which i'd love to know how it was made, not sure how to make something like that, the strings sound really nice... I've never heard that sound in the Kontakt factory library..

How would you guys approach making tracks like the ones in their demos? There's so much detail I wouldn't know where to start...

Very beautiful sound!

Love it. And his voice.

The Maverick, The Grandeur, The Gentleman, Alicia's Keys, The Gigant and now Una Corda - someone at NI likes pianos....

Yup, very nice demos for this library.

... And so do I!

The Maverick is now the only piano library I use, and it's one of the cheapest.

Hey guys,

thanks for posting our walkthrough of the Una Corda. You should also check out the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD8rs_AMHZ0

Well, we obviously like pianos and always look for a way to do something fresh and exciting for us as a project
The Una Corda definitely was

Cheers,
Stephan
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Hi Stephan, perhaps this is my opportunity to personally thank you guys for The Maverick..? I can't tell you how grateful I am for this library... I am sitting here right now with it, practising. The Maverick is the first library I've tried (I own quite a few) that is perfectly balanced across all octaves and never sounds clangy.

Have you considered sampling a 1920s or so Steinway? I am sure you'd do an amazing job.

Anyway, congrats on your recent release, I'll be checking it out.

CORDA sound simply stunning. Really love the approach and all the possibilities shown in the Video Demonstration. Man as soon as I have a moment, i'll grab this and give it a spin. Very inspiring and great Vid demonstration and presentation :-)

Way to go NI

Cool, like an acoustic CP70.

I like the grand, but for any other upright sound I always resort to the Nord sounds over the NI ones. The Nord ones just have more character.
This one will be welcomed though.

Dear Tui,

thank you for your kind words on the Maverick. We really like this one here as well The piano really grabbed our attention when we found it in the shop (we didn't plan on sampling a smaller grand like the Bechstein, the Maverick is based on), it just has a unique character.
Regarding the old 1920s Steinway, here is ours: Vintage D You should check it out, since many pianists use our Vintage D as their go-to grand.

Cheers,
Stephan
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Wow that's very cool. A unique sounding instrument with roots in tradition. Very cool.

Is there or will, there be a Demo? I would love to try to put it in less reverby/new agey settings

Amazing sounding instrument!

Hi Juansep, I'm the composer, what do you want to know ?

Downloaded it this morning. Very nice indeed. Been after something like this for ages.

Hey, I also noticed this track. Very, very nice.

My first question would be: Are the strings directly from the Kontakt factory content? Are the sounds based on presets?

What kind of FX did you use (if you would like to share that info)?

Did you compose the other demo tracks as well?

thanks a lot !
the strings are completely String Ensemble from the new Symphony series, with some EQ. I turned off the built in reverb and they all went thru a real Bricasti combined with Replika in diffusion mode. Very nice combo. I played the chords with an con sordino ensemble patch and repeated each line with the legato patches.
I use mostly the pp or p samples of the strings, CC1 (mod wheel) around 20, this creates this warm and round sound.
There were 6 Kontakts with strings in this demo.
The other effects I have to look up, but nothing fancy, some delays, some crunch from supercharger GT and Decapitator.
The rhythmic figure in the background is a live played Hang.
First bit of the melody is played by one una corda, for the second part I used 2, one very bright with felt and the other very dull and warm.
This way, I could change the brightness dynamically without using EQ.

It's the only demo from me, I made another one, that didn't make it
I also programmed around 40 presets, but I don't know, how much are in the release version, still use my developer version.
You can dig really deep with it. I especially liked the string resonances in the space section under the FX Tab. It's an ambience machine.

Una Corda is really a fantastic piano, Galaxy did a really superb job. I also had the chance to play on a real one this year, but at that time, I had no clue, that there is a sampled version on the way.

Thank you for sharing that information! Did you mix and master it too? How did you master? It sounds amazing!

I was fortunate to buy this puppy and take it for a spin. This thing sounds so nice and round and I love the settings I can tweak for width and space. The "Pure" is my favorite one of them all. Thanks guys!

Just bought this library, it looks and sounds really good. Doing a doc soundtrack right now, this will see a lot of use!

Hopefully they won't run a 1/2 off holiday special starting tomorrow.

How much involvement did Nils Frahm had with the production of this library? after all it is "his sound", examples sound exactly like his "felt" album.

You guys at Galaxy are truly gifted to create astonishing piano sounds. Wonderful instrument, indeed. That's how a piano should sound.

I know you sampled a Boesendorfer 290 already in the past but on my personal wish list would be a reworked/updated version of a Boesi and a Ravenscroft 275 with the approach and technology available in this day and age combined with your talent and vision. If somebody would be able to provide inspiring and !playable! versions of these pianos than certainly Galaxy.

Yeah, a Bosendofer would be great, as well as some other high end instruments which haven't been sampled: Mason & Hamlin and Shigueru Kawai,.

Thanks, kosi. First rate.

Thanks, Stephan.

I listened to the Vintage D demo, and I hope you don't mind me making some comments.

You see, I have a general problem with piano libraries (I'm classically trained), in that, I hear a certain phaseyness in the mid to upper octaves with most of them. As I go up the registers, the tone becomes thinner and thinner and individual notes seem to be out of phase with themselves... Difficult to describe. It is, to my ears, what makes recordings made with samples scream "samples!" This effect was really noticeable with the first libraries that became available, and sampling techniques seem to have improved a lot. However, it is this one element (apart from repeated notes) which gives away the origin of sample-based piano recordings.

With The Maverick, however, you have managed to avoid this effect almost entirely. I find it a joy to play (mind you, I make sure to disable all Kontakt EQs which aren't that great).

I wonder, has the phaseyness - for want of a better word - something to do with mic placement? Room acoustics? Post-production?

These demos are blowing me away! nice surprise. I would really love to listen to the demo track in the video on repeat. Where can I find it???

Also, who composed the demo track Magic String?

Dear Tui,

sure, I don't mind you giving us some input
I understand partly what you mean by the term "phaseyness". For the individual tones of the piano we try to avoid phaseyness by working on the phase-relationship quite a lot during the mixdown of the samples, so there shouldn't be any surprises. That's also the reason why we don't allow lots of mixable close-miking options, since that usually results in a phase-mess

Cheers,
Stephan
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Oh yeah because he invented the concept of the "prepared piano" uh huh, right...

R.

I ask because NI mentions Nils on the product website and the una Corda was developed for him (and he uses it on his tour) .

Just curiosity about his envolvement. He is a die hard analog fan so it seems incredible he took on this project.