Chocolate Audio already has four pianos in their product line, two of which are very sought-after top-notch models. They made the choice to release another stunning piano sample pack which was a difficult task to do, but it ended up being very rewarding in the end.

They felt there is a lack of personality in the majority of virtual pianos collections and most are far from fulfilling the dream of being the perfect piano. As any accomplished piano player knows, such a piano only exists for a single player, not for the world-wide community of piano players. So, Chocolate Audio decided to do a distinctive and unusual piano collection.

They deliberately chose to sample the piano with full detail (11 dynamic levels) but stop before the "ff" dynamic, The results are this whole piano collection has a warm and intimate sound.

All the sampling was done with a superb sounding Yamaha C6 as the source.

They chose to capture its different tonalities by carefully placed no less than 29 microphones around the pianos in order to achieve many different sound signatures.

The recordings were done in one of the best studios in Italy, Art&Music Studios.

The choice of microphones were far beyond the usual choices for recording "perfect pianos", the microphones they used were selected to record the sound they thought would be inspirational for users.

They then compiled and edited the entire collection into a set of 3 soulful and lush sounding instruments.

O.D.D Grand Piano is made up of 3 Kontakt NKI Instrument files.

1/ Oneiric Piano

An open, wide piano sound, with lots of roomy combinations recorded with the following mikes and placements:

- 2 x AKG C414B TLII widely spaced located at the musician's position at the piano
- A Wunder Audio CM7 FET on the opposite side of the piano, capturing a darker and more intimate tone
- 2 x vintage AKG C460 CK1 as room mics, placed far away and very low
- 2 x vintage AKG C451E CK22 omni microphones, capturing the height of the room

2/ Dark Piano

Recorded with a ribbon mic based combination, resulting in a sound full of personality and some precious darkness with an edge.

- 2 x AEA N22 matched pair in AB configuration on the listener side
- 2 x Earthworks SR77 matched pair on the end tail of the piano
- A single vintage Beyerdynamic M88N(C) capturing the bassy tone of the holes
- 2 x AEA N8 matched pair in Blumlein configuration placed high and 2.5 meters away on the listener side

3/ Dreamy Piano

Based on dynamic mics recording underneath the piano creating an edgy and wide sound palette.

- 2 x vintage, cheap but amazingly good AKG D190E on the player side in a wide AB pattern
- A single AKG C414B ULS placed on the floor underneath the piano body
- 2 x Crown PZM30D placed between the legs and the harmonic board, one next to the low strings, the other next to the higher registers
- A single vintage dynamic omni Sennheiser MD211 on the ground as room mic