Three stunning sounding, highly realistic pianos for Reason's Combinator.

The Reason Pianos ReFill collection gives you three amazing-sounding Hypersampled acoustic pianos with the kind of presence and playability you normally wouldn't associate with sampled pianos. Until now. Where other piano libraries leave you with a fixed piano sound that may or may not suit your project, Reason Pianos does just the opposite: these pianos were recorded using multiple microphones, leaving the mixing and shaping of your piano sound to you. You create piano sounds that suit your mix, not the other way around. A large selection of Combinator presets ranging from basic microphone setups to wide multi-mic patches guarantees you absolute sonic control. There's no one way to record a piano. And, there's no one way to mix one.

Note: ReFills do not work in standalone—they require a full version of Reason to operate. (See What is a ReFill below)

The Pianos
The featured pianos were chosen for their classic pop and rock friendly sound; The Steinway D is considered to be the world's finest grand piano, the Yamaha C7 is a classic rock and jazz piano with a distinctive sound, and the Steinway K is a well balanced upright known for its deep tone. These instruments were hand-picked and then tuned and adjusted to perfection.

In the mix
The Piano with its wide tonal range and broad frequency spectrum is a notoriously tricky instrument to fit into a mix. Not any more. The four stereo pairs and the two separate mono microphones used to record the pianos are all represented as individual channels in Reason's mixer, allowing you to tailor your piano sound to suit the other elements in your songs.

Use plenty of mics or just a few, whatever sounds best. The mono ribbon mic signal alone might be perfect for a busy track. Need more bass? Simply bring up the floor microphones a notch. Or, give the individual mics some EQ or compression or other FX. For further sound sculpting, use the Combinator's front-panel rotaries and buttons to control release resonance, presence, dynamics and more.

Classically unclassical - yet classy
The Reason Pianos ReFill does not seek to deliver a set of clinically perfect, scientifically reproduced concert pianos in a box. These are pianos you can use. Pianos to play. Pianos that simply sound good - without filling up your harddrive or chewing up all your RAM. These hypersampled pianos are sophisticated and highly responsive instruments - play softly or put some weight into it, and you'll feel it. Enjoy.

Forget multisampling - this is hypersampling
The three pianos reproduced in the Reason Pianos ReFill were recorded in large, hardwood floored recording rooms, the perfect environment for pop piano recordings. In order to capture every aspect of the instruments - from the way they resound in the room to their unique timbres and characteristics - they were all recorded at multiple velocity levels, from multiple angles, using six different sets of microphones. A quality blend of vintage and modern day technology was used throughout the recording process, for that warm, yet crystal clear sound.

How it works:

The Reason Pianos ReFill was created using Propellerhead Software's Hypersampling method:

- Multiple velocity levels
For capturing each instrument's full dynamic range.
- Multiple microphones
For capturing and controlling distance, ambience and characteristics.
- Multiple variation sampling
For capturing the human input and the different quirks and noises that bring life to an instrument. Multisampling is the industry standard for digital representation of acoustic and analog instruments. While the method has been refined somewhat over the years, multisampling still has a few shortcomings:

1. The dynamic resolution is too low, failing to capture the subtle nuances between the steps. Reason Pianos use 4 velocity levels and 25 sampling points across the keyboard.

2. Typically, a single microphone (or a merged signal from multiple microphones) is used, leaving the recording distance, ambience and character set in stone.

The Reason Pianos samples were captured through ten different microphones (4 stereo + 2 mono), giving the end user complete control over all aspects of the sound relating to microphone placement and signal mix.

3. The strive for manageability and RAM efficiency often results in the omission of certain subtleties, for example the sounds made when strings or keys are released. This negatively influences the realism of the multisampled instrument. Reason Pianos incorporate hammer noise and release resonance samples, thus mimicking real pianos all the way from keystroke through key release. Propellerhead calls this hypersampling.

The studios
The Steinway D and K pianos were recorded in Studio 5 at Sveriges Radio, Sweden's public service radio. In the early 1960s, SR built a number of large studios to accommodate orchestras and big bands, for recording and live broadcasts. The smallest, Studio 5, is known for its warm and pleasant acoustics and soon became a favorite for chamber orchestra and jazz ensemble performances. The Yamaha C7 grand piano was recorded at NordHansen Studio (formerly known as Europa Studio), one of Sweden's oldest and most renowned studios where artists like Bob Marley, Quincy Jones, Errol Garner, Sivuca, Refugee All Stars and Jojje Wadenius have recorded music.

What is a ReFill?

Even if you haven't come across the term ReFill before, as a Reason user you most likely use ReFills daily. All sounds, patches, loops and grooves included with Reason come in ReFill format, as both the Factory and Orkester Sound Banks are ReFills.

When using ReFills with Reason, you can load patches for any of the devices included in Reason, as well as REX files, samples in WAV or AIFF format, MIDI files and Reason song files.

One advantage of containing sounds in ReFills is that audio samples are compressed to about half their original file size when stored in ReFills, with no loss of audio quality. Samples contained in ReFills also load faster in Reason.

Propellerhead Reason Pianos 1.0 ReFill Features:

• Contents:
• 1 Steinway D Grand Piano
• 1 Yamaha C7 Grand Piano
• 1 Steinway K Upright Piano
  
  42 Preset Piano Patches
• Ready-made Combi patches comprising numerous microphone setup combinations for all three pianos
  
  29 Style Piano Patches
• A selection of Combinator patches ranging from classic piano sounds to tweaked-out layered instruments
  
  11 Producer Piano Patches
• Producer Patches Top producers have created production friendly piano patches using Reason's processors and effects
  
  8 Template Patches
• Pre-wired empty piano patches to serve as starting points for creating your own sounds
  
  14 Reverb Patches
• Reverb Patches Luxurious, Piano-friendly reverb patches for Reason's excellent RV7000 unit
  
  5 Demo Songs
• Demos Professionally produced, differently styled demo song files. Created and mixed in Reason

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Propellerhead Reason Pianos 1.0 ReFill Specifications:

• System requirements
• When designing Reason Pianos, Propellerhead set out to strike an optimal balance between sound quality and resource allocation. In other words, they wanted to give you the best piano tool possible, but not at the expense of stealing the entire RAM of your computer. Having said that, Reason Pianos is nonetheless a sophisticated ReFill for professional use, and is therefore not suited for low-end systems.
  
  Minimum requirements:
  
  Windows:
• Reason 3.0 or later
• Intel P4 1.4 GHz / AMD Athlon XP
• 512 MB RAM
• DVD player
  
  Mac OS:
• Reason 3.0 or later
• Macintosh G4 1.0 GHz
• 512 MB RAM
• DVD player
  
  Strongly recommended:
  
  Windows:
• Reason 3.0.4 or later
• Intel P4 2.4 GHz
• 1024 MB RAM
• fast hard drive
• Low-latency ASIO compatible soundcard
• DVD drive
  
  Mac OS:
• Reason 3.0.4 or later
• Macintosh Intel, G5 or Dual G4 1.4 GHz
• 1024 MB RAM
• DVD drive