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There’s only one of these pianos in the world. Now anyone with a laptop can play it.
Nils Frahm’s vertical concert grand, a 4.5-meter piano that exists in exactly one place, is now a software instrument. Native Instruments released Vertikal, a Kontakt 8 library recorded in Saal 3, Frahm’s studio inside Berlin’s Funkhaus complex.
The piano’s strings run up to 3.9 meters long, which gives its notes an unusually long sustain and a dense set of overtones. It was recorded in the room where it lives, so Saal 3’s acoustics are baked into the samples.
Vertikal was made by Galaxy Instruments, the Kontakt piano specialists behind The Giant, Una Corda, and Noire. Noire was also recorded in Saal 3, on Frahm’s custom-intonated Yamaha grand, so this is the team’s second time capturing an instrument from that room.
The library comes in pure, felt, and felt-plus-cotton versions. The felt preparation is closely tied to Frahm’s own sound. For his 2011 album Felt, he laid felt over his piano’s strings to dampen it for late-night playing, then kept it because he liked how it sounded. Vertikal also ships with Particles 2.0, an updated version of Noire’s generative engine, which spins played chords into evolving patterns and adds polyphonic aftertouch support.
Frahm framed the release as a way to share an instrument few musicians will ever touch. “It will be democratized in a way, and I really like that,” he said in a statement.
Frahm took over Saal 3 in 2016 and turned the former chamber music hall into his personal studio. In 2015 he founded Piano Day, held each year on the 88th day of the year, and the vertical grand was among its earliest dream projects.
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