The CEUS system, built into the Bösendorfer Imperial at the factory, facilitates sample recording because its finely calibrated, tireless mechanism precisely repeats all articulations, including dynamics and pedaling. (The CEUS system is described in more detail in “Buying an Electronic Player-Piano System,” elsewhere in this publication.) But the Vienna Imperial sampling sessions were different - in this case, the musician was Bösendorfer’s CEUS electronic player-piano system. For most instrumental recordings, the studio will serve as home for an individual musician or ensemble for anywhere from six to twelve months of grueling precision and repetition. The Silent Stage recording environment is designed and equipped specifically for recording samples. With the exception of the Vienna Concert House Organ (pipe organs being notoriously difficult to move), all sample recording is done in VSL’s purpose-built studio, the Silent Stage.
Their 80 software packages cover solo instruments - 2,496 samples of a piccolo, for example - and ensembles of every description, all the way up to the imposing 792,953-sample Symphonic Cube, delivered on 29 DVDs for $12,460. VSL’s “library” consists of digital samples of instruments ranging from finger cymbals to this article’s subject, the Bösendorfer model 290 Imperial Concert Grand. The story of Vienna Imperial is actually several stories: Bösendorfer, its CEUS electronic player-piano system, and Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL). In this review we’ll look at the high-end sample package, Vienna Imperial, by Vienna Symphonic Library. In the last issue we explored an entry-level sample package, Garritan Authorized Steinway Basic Version, and a mid-priced physical modeling package, Pianoteq.