Piano Colors: Experimental Grand Piano Instrument by Native Instruments

The library centers on grand piano samples captured with extended playing techniques rather than standard keyboard performance. Native Instruments says the strings and body of the instrument were prepared and played in highly unusual ways, which yields resonances, harmonics and overtones that are hard to get from a regular piano.

The modulation layer is the main tool for shaping these sources. Motion, the Arpeggiator and the extended Particles engine change the sound in real time, so a single held chord can become an expressive timbre, a rhythmic pattern or a slowly shifting pad.

Piano Colors runs inside Kontakt, so it fits into a standard Kontakt-based production setup. Layers and engines can each be adjusted separately.

On a KOMPLETE KONTROL keyboard, the expression knob is mapped to the mod wheel, which gives direct physical control over the modulation features during playing.