After a bit of a wait, what’s perhaps the ultimate free piano sample library, the Salamander Grand Piano (that’s a direct download link, so don’t click it unless you mean it!) is available! One of the guys on the linux-audio-user spent I’d-hate-to-think-how-long recording every note on a Yamaha C5 grand at 16 different volume levels with a pair of stereo mics, and the result — all 1.9GB of it — sounds lovely.

Getting it running, however, is a bit fiddly right now. Due partly to its heft, it’s distributed in SFZ format, instead of the more common GigaSample “.GIG” format. Linuxsampler supports SFZ in CVS, but it’s buggy, and the instrument needs to be set up just right to load without crashing Linuxsampler. Once you’ve installed Linuxsampler from CVS — a bit of effort, but fairly straightforward, especially since it comes with Debian package scripts — follow these steps, in order, to get the Salamander up and running:

1. Launch Linuxsampler and the Fantasia GUI as usual — so far, so good!
2. Create a new sampler channel in the middle of the window. Click the “GIG engine” text in your new channel, and select the “SFZ engine” option
   
3. Set up your MIDI and audio devices on the right — I use ALSA for MIDI and JACK for audio, but you can use whatever you prefer here.
4. Click on the “OPTIONS” button on your sampler channel, and select your newly-created MIDI input and audio output. Your window should now look like this:
   
5. Click the “Load Instrument…” link on your sampler channel and load the “SalamanderGrandPiano.sfz” file

If you follow those steps in order, and cross your fingers, you should have a working Salamander Grand Piano setup! Once you have a working setup, make sure you export it to a file (Actions/Export/Sampler Configuration…); you’ll then be able to fire up your new piano next time by using that export (with the Actions/Run Script…) option.

Software-wise, I used Specimen for the melodic samples, Hydrogen for the drum samples, and seq24 for sequencing, before recording and mixing in Ardour. I’ve also uploaded my Hydrogen kit in case anyone’s curious.

It’s obviously very different to the beat-driven video-game-esque tracks I’ve posted so far, but hopefully it’ll find some fans!

mp3 / vorbis / flac: 7 minutes 22 seconds

Most importantly, though, I actually did something productive musically. Until 2009, the best I’d managed since high school was a couple of minutes of generic techno, but in 2009 I produced two complete tracks, both of which I’m still pretty happy with. My dalliances with music in the past have usually ended in frustration, but this year, through a combination of new hardware, much-improved software (mad props to the Ardour guys), and perseverance, I got over the hump. I now feel like I have the tools I need to make whatever I decide to make, and perhaps most importantly, my desire to make music is just as strong as it was a year ago.

I’m usually not one to set hard goals, but if there’s something I’d like to make this year, it’s a proper song — lyrics, singing, and all of that good stuff.

In other news, I got an awesome new studio toy on the weekend — I replaced my Singstar mic with a Rode NT1-A condenser mic. While I’ve only had a brief chance to play with it, it sounds very clean and clear, so it’s a revelation compared to the hissy, muddy mess that I got with my old mic. It also came with a shock-mount and pop shield, so it looks très professional in my mic stand:

mp3 / vorbis / flac: 3 minutes 8 seconds