The Arrival of Piano Perfection

Our flagship piano instrument is not just any piano. Eighty Eight Ensemble 2 is an exceptional recreation of the Steinway 9-foot CD 327 grand piano. Meticulously sampled and expertly voiced, Eighty Eight Ensemble 2 provides every composer, pianist, and musician the opportunity to infuse their compositions, recordings, and performances with the breathtaking realism of this truly world-class grand piano. The recording philosophy employed in creating Eighty Eight Ensemble 2 was based on using a simple signal chain, the finest A/D converters, and exceptional microphone preamps. The result is some 1500 sample recordings, with 16 dynamic levels captured and preserved for every key.

Personal Touch

Even with all this painstaking attention to accuracy, Eighty Eight Ensemble 2 provides plenty of opportunities to customize the sound to match the project—or your taste. The four-band EQ allows the timbre of the sound to be easily refined. An improved limiter offers enhanced dynamic control. Even the level of the sustain pedal and hammer release elements that help define the character of the piano can be individually controlled. Eighty Eight Ensemble 2 also adds a new robust reverb section. The high-frequency damping and room size parameters can add just the right ambience to your performance.

Ensemble Extras

As the name implies, there is more to Eighty Eight Ensemble 2 than piano. Combination patches come in two flavors. Layered combinations, or Pads, add a second instrument that sounds along with the piano. These layered sounds include strings, synth pads, and choral pads. Split Combinations, or Combis, introduce a second sound—or even a third—played in a specified range of keys. Setting a lower split adds a bass sound—such as bass guitar—playing below the piano. Setting an upper split adds a solo accompaniment instrument playing above the piano. Solo sounds include flute, clarinet, acoustic guitar, etc. Combis can have both an upper and lower split. The zones, or range of keys where each instrument will play, can abut or overlap as you desire. The velocity response can be set to make the most of your keyboard and playing style.

Turn and Learn

In addition to the onscreen controls, Eighty Eight Ensemble features a brilliant MIDI Learn Mode. Simply adjusting a parameter and then touching an external MIDI control creates a link between the two. This intuitive MIDI mapping system allows Eighty Eight Ensemble to quickly integrate with your favorite MIDI hardware controller. In fact, Eighty Eight Ensemble can save and recall your MIDI Learn presets and use them with any patch, so you only need to create them once.

Finders, Keepers

Eighty Eight Ensemble features an integrated patch browser that makes it easy to store, sort, and find exactly the sound you are looking for. Patch attributes such as Class, Genre, Character—and of course, Name—allow your sounds to be stored in a musically meaningful way, as opposed to just indexed as numbers. Any and all attributes can be removed or re-assigned as your sound collection grows. Best of all, Eighty Eight Ensemble comes with over 100 professionally programmed sounds to get you started. Each one can be endlessly tweaked and modified to rapidly build your customized Eighty Eight Ensemble sound collection. So get started now!

Features:

Steinway 9’ CD 327 grand piano sample source

Meticulously sampled and expertly voiced

Over 11 GB of premium content

16 velocity levels per note; over 1500 samples

52 Solo Piano presets

35 Combination patches with layered pad sounds

16 Key Split Combis with bass/and or solo instruments

Pedal and Release element controls

Adjustable Limiter

4-band EQ

Variable Reverb

Fine tune and transpose controls

7 Velocity curves

MIDI Learn controller mapping

Integrated Patch Browser stores by attribute

32- and 64-bit VST and AU support

RTAS and AAX Support

System Requirements

PC:

Windows 8

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Home Premium, Profession, or Ultimate

Minimum Dual Core 2 GHz, Intel Core i5 or i7 recommended

Minimum RAM 2GB, 4GB or more recommended

25 Gigabytes free hard drive space (Download and Installation)

A VST, RTAS (Pro Tools 10) or AAX (Pro Tools 11) compatible host application

Internet Access (Download and Authorization)

A FREE iLok account & manager is required for authorisation of this software - no iLok USB key is required

MAC:

OS X 10.8 to macOS 10.14 (10.15 Catalina not yet supported)

Core 2 Duo Processor or later; Core i5 or i7 recommended

Minimum RAM 2GB, 4GB or more recommended

25 Gigabytes free hard drive space (Download and Installation)

A VST, AU, RTAS (Pro Tools 10) or AAX (Pro Tools 11) compatible host application

Internet Access (Download and Authorization)

A FREE iLok account & manager is required for authorisation of this software - no iLok USB key is required

macOS 10.15 Catalina is not yet compatible

Please be aware this product features a very large, high-quality sample library, so a high-speed broadband internet connection is required to download this product.