VSL Special Keyboards

VSL Special Keyboards

The big Vienna Instruments Collections are the most powerful sample-based orchestral virtual instruments ever created. The collections, organized in the categories of Strings, Winds, Percussion & Keyboards, and Voices, offer the most complete playing techniques and articulations of all instruments, enabling you to create sonic results of the highest caliber and utmost authenticity. You can purchase them as VSL Instruments Bundles for a reduced bundle price.

Based on the Standard Libraries the FULL Libraries include additional instruments and articulations.

Distinguished Sounds Par Excellence

The 8 GB collection Special Keyboards offers a state-of-the-art approach to capturing exceptional, unfamiliar but also classical sounds that shouldnt be missing on any sound designers or composers workstation

The harpsichord (German: Cembalo) has a famously bright sound, rich in overtones. Typically a Baroque instrument, the harpsichord has played a minimal role in classical and romantic music. In modern literature, however, it has been rediscovered by a broad range of musicians, and is also used poignantly and effectively in film and TV music. In our own Silent Stage, the following single notes and repetition performances of a two manual harpsichord were recorded: 8 register solo, 8 double, and tutti (a combination of two 8 registers and one 4 register).

The harmonium is a free-reed instrument, meaning that air streaming past reeds of different lengths causes them to vibrate. Unlike organ pipes, the harmoniums reeds produce more disharmonic overtones, creating a unique undulating sound.

The prepared piano is a technique that became known to a wider public around 1940 and is primarily associated with the innovative composer, John Cage, who inserted objects such as erasers, nails, wire and paper between a pianos strings causing them to produce additional tones, harmonics, or percussive sounds that are sometimes reminiscent of Indonesian Gamelan music. Our team also “treated” the Bösendorfer grand piano with their bare hands (e.g., glissandos over the strings) and with wood mallets in order to get a multitude of creative sounds and colors.

There are no Standard and Extended Library options, as in other Vienna Instruments collections; the Special Keyboards Standard Library includes the full sets of samples along with the software instrument, featuring our exclusive Vienna Instruments engine.

Requirements
Your purchase of any VSL library entitles you to download the free Vienna Instruments Player software that includes the Vienna Ensemble mixing host.
MINIMUM
• PC Windows 7 (latest Service Pack, 32/64-bit), Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2
• Mac OS X 10.8 (latest update), Intel Core 2 Duo
• 2 GB RAM (4 GB recommended)
• ViennaKey (Vienna Symphonic Library USB protection device) or other USB eLicenser (e.g., from Steinberg or Arturia)
• eLicenser Control Center software (get the latest version from www.eLicenser.net)
• free hard drive space according to This Library Size Chart

Other configurations might work but are not actively supported.

RECOMMENDED
• PC Windows 7 (latest Service Pack, 64-bit), Intel i5/i7/Xeon
• Mac OS X 10.8 (latest update), i5/i7/Xeon
• Fast separate hard drive (7200 rpm or faster)
• AU/VST/AAX Native/RTAS compatible host (also works stand-alone)
• RTAS version requires Pro Tools 7.3 or higher
• 88 key master keyboard

•     Please notice: To use the "Extended Library" you need to have the corresponding "Standard Library" already registred in your account."Standard Library" plus "Extended Library" result in a "Full Version"

Product activation:
Vienna Instruments require the ViennaKey!
This USB protection device by eLicenser (by Steinberg, formerly Syncrosoft) is not included in the box of any collection, it is a separate item you have to get additionally. So you’ll have to order at least one ViennaKey with your first purchase. It will be put inside the shopping basket automatically but can be deleted if not required. Customers who order the complete SYMPHONIC CUBE will get one ViennaKey for free (not shown in the basket). If you already own another eLicenser USB protection device (e.g., from Steinberg or Arturia), you can use it for the VIENNA INSTRUMENTS, too. Each dongle can store up to 100 product licenses.
Additionally an internet connection on any computer is required to authorize a VSL product.

Shipping costs are calculated at time of checkout by our shopping cart, based on the weight of your order and the method of shipment.