When a particular production calls for something less workaday than that plain old piano, fire up one of these Kontakt libraries and take your tinklings into strange and unexpected realms…

Spitfire Audio Ólafur Arnalds Stratus

Moody soundtrack maestro Ólafur Arnalds has collaborated with Spitfire on a number of soundware projects, and Stratus might just be the best of them. A Kontakt Player library, it features a custom sample playback engine that emulates – and adds to – Arnalds’ ingenious computer-controlled dual self-playing-piano rig, which uses Euclidean algorithms to play note sequences based on chordal input.

Weighing in at 15GB, Stratus centres on 17 main instruments (or ‘matrices’, to give them their proprietary name): four capturing the aforementioned pianos, and 13 built on samples of Arnalds’ Korg PS-3100 and Roland Juno-60 synths. Patterns and loops are assigned to voices in an 8x8 matrix interface, with up to five variations on each grid point, and triggered by held notes, stepping through the pattern rows with each note added to the chord. The matrix can be randomised and manipulated in various ways, basic sound shaping controls and effects are onboard, and the upshot is a truly beautiful and utterly unique piano (and synth) instrument that conjures up unfailingly interesting textures and tones.

Rhythmic Robot Haunted Piano

One of our favourite soundware developers, Rhythmic Robot have built up an extraordinary catalogue of intriguing and splendidly affordable Kontakt curios over the last nine years. Haunted Pianos sees Mongo and The Professor putting their edgy multisampling talents to work on a pair of toy pianos, capturing every note of each across three octaves, at three velocity levels and with two round robin sets. As well as that, 75 extraneous ‘noises’ have been recorded and keymapped – hinge creaks, thumps, squeaks, drops, key rattles and so on – extending the spooky potential of the core instrument beyond its already unsettling primary sound. 

As ever with RR, the scripted interface is relatively simple but plays to the strengths of the soundbank, in this case enabling transposition by +2/-3 octaves, adjustment of attack, decay and key noise (Key Clunk), and the introduction of random pitch modulation (Bad Tuning). You can also flip all samples into reverse at the click of a button, transform the tone with either of two amp sims or a graphite microphone convolution effect, and apply reverb and delay effects.

At its frankly silly asking price, Haunted Piano is a must-have for any Kontakt user in need of naive, macabre horror-movie piano sounds for media or music production.

Cinesamples Randy’s Prepared Piano

Adventurous LA session pianist Randy Kerber teamed up with Cinesamples to put together this 13GB Kontakt library, comprising three acoustic pianos that have been abused in all sorts of eyebrow-raising ways and muiltisampled at the swanky MGM Scoring Stage and Hollywood Scoring Studios. The preparations in question involve the attachment and insertion of various objects and substances to the strings and spaces between them – including coins, putty, chains, metal bars and ping pong balls – and some unusual playing techniques: string scrapes, cross bar strikes, fingered harmonics, etc.

The scripted Kontakt interface is decidedly barebones – four mic channels, four-band EQ, dynamic range and attack adjustment, reverb, Haas on/off, and pedal and hammer volume controls – but that’s fine as this one’s clearly all about the character and quality of the samples themselves, which are exceptional across the board, and, actually, nowhere near as out-there as the description might suggest. Indeed, Randy’s Prepared Piano should really be thought of as a colourful – and, crucially, eminently playable – variation on your regular piano, rather than a bat-shit alternative to it; and it qualifies as a bona fide ‘player’s instrument’.

Sound Dust Plastic Ghost Piano 2

Brit Kontakt instrument designer Pendle Poucher knows a thing or two about inventive multisampling, and his latest offering brings together nine very specific sets of ‘piano’ articulations (1.1GB of samples) for layering into complex composites within a powerful scripted interface. These sound sets include a Technics WSA1 modelling keyboard fed into a convolution reverb and “blasted with varying levels of controlled white noise” (the eponymous ’Plastic Piano’), a “broken” upright acoustic given the same treatment, a looped Hohner Pianet T, a palm muted and valve-amplified Fender Stratocaster guitar, and three reversed variations. Each sound sits on its own dedicated ‘channel strip’ in the interface, which houses a range of transformative parameters, including formant filtering, pitch modulation, amp simulation, chorusing, filtering, volume and pan modulation, and an extensive roster of convolution reverb IRs. On top of that, a rack of insert and send effects provide plenty of sound design spectacle; channel volumes are assignable to the mod wheel with a finely editable response curve (ably demonstrate by the ‘Chaotic Modwheel’ snapshots); note input can be snapped to various chords, scales and keys; and the Note Jitter controls dial in randomisation of note timing, velocity and tuning.

Not only a sublime source of endlessly adaptable ambient and textural pianos, Plastic Ghost Piano 2 also excels at evolving pads, beds and background effects. The Kontakt engine running the show plays a major role in all this, of course, but it’s the brilliantly judged and perfectly calibrated library of samples that really makes it the instrument it is, encouraging layer mixing and experimentation at every turn, and never sounding less than captivating.

Wavesfactory The Tack Piano

With its roots in 2010’s W-Honky, The Tack Piano is a multisampled tacked (ie, with metal thumbtacks stuck into the hammer felts) upright piano, boasting four pedal-controlled articulations, each with eight velocity layers and two round robin sets, and all recorded through three separate mic channels. The 14GB sample bank impresses with its hard attack and evocative honky-tonk sound, and the ‘neighbour borrowing’ feature does a good job of artificially extending the round robin implementation for greater realism.

Broad-strokes sound tweaking is made possible by the Timbre, Range, Sample Start and Resonance controls, while Key On/Off, Pedal and Release noises are independently levelled; and the effects implementation is insanely comprehensive, enabling up to eight modules from a roster of 23 (all the Kontakt staples, essentially) to be inserted into each mic channel (Close, Mid, Far and Mix), as well as the Master out. It’s this that elevates The Tack Piano above being only… well, a strikingly realistic tacked piano – there’s so much processing onboard that it positively invites being turned into something else entirely. It looks gorgeous, too, which is a welcome bonus in any Kontakt library.

Extra Bonus - Free PianoVerb Plugin from PSP

Of course there are more ways to use a piano than just to play it. An old technique is to use a piano string’s natural tendency to resonate in response to sounds made around it as a reverb effect. To do this for real take the front off an upright piano (or lift the lid on a grand), put something heavy on the sustain pedal and make a loud noise. If you don’t have an acoustic piano then you could download the free PianoVerb plugin from PSP. It’s free and available in VST, AU and AAX.

Have we overlooked your favourite ebony/ivory-based oddity? Let us know in the comments…