Verticale: Kontakt Upright Piano Instrument by Sonora Cinematic

Verticale offers three mic positions, each a stereo pair. The room pair uses AKG C414 microphones, and the spot mics are an AEA N22 active ribbon pair and a Neumann K184 small diaphragm condenser pair. You can switch between mics in the interface or route each to its own channel to mix them separately in your DAW.

The developer suggests blending the cassette signal with the microphones to create new textures. Because the mic positions sit side by side in one instrument, you can shape the piano's character from bright and close to more distant and airy without loading a second patch.

The cassette signal is made by passing the samples through an old 4-track cassette recorder set to record at high speed, then playing the tape back at minimum speed. The result is pitch-shifted and warped, giving a lo-fi character.

Two sends feed reverb and delay, each with multiple modes. A Color control works like a tilt EQ, darker and fuller toward the left and thinner and brighter toward the right. A Sync toggle switches delay between tempo-synced values and milliseconds. The Cassette section adds Crunch for tape saturation and Lo-Fi, a macro controlling bit depth and sample rate reduction. Selecting mono adds further vintage character.