Dr. Tape Piano

The Piano is a physical model: every key has a felt hammer, one to three strings, dampers and a soundboard, and nothing is sampled. Play softly and the hammer sinks into the string for a round tone; strike hard and the felt stiffens and the note bites. Hold the sustain pedal and the unplayed strings ring with what you play. Because the sound is calculated as you play, each control changes the instrument itself, not a recording of one.

When to use it

Use it wherever a real piano would go: a solo part, chords under a vocal, or a sketch you want to hear with real touch before deciding on anything else. The presets range from a concert grand to compact and upright pianos; start there and adjust the hammer and lid to the mix.

Controls

Hammer

Hardness is the felt: soft for a warmer, longer contact, hard for brightness that grows with velocity. Weight sets how much energy a strike pushes into the string. Strike point moves where the hammer lands; harmonics with a node at that point disappear, which changes the colour more than the pitch. Velocity curve bends your keyboard’s response: positive makes ordinary playing louder and brighter, negative keeps the top for the hardest strikes, and fortissimo stays the same either way. Knock adds the thud of hammer and keybed heard through the soundboard.

Strings

Stiffness stretches the upper partials sharp, from a perfectly harmonic string at zero to the bell-like top of a small piano. Unison detunes the two or three strings of each note, which gives the slow beating and the quieter after-sound. Decay scales how long undamped strings ring; Brightness sets how long the top end survives; After-sound is the bridge coupling that makes a struck note fall in two stages, the prompt sound first and the singing tail after.

Soundboard

Body chooses the soundboard’s resonant colour, Size moves its support lower or higher, Soundboard sets how deep those resonances are, and Lid is how much high frequency reaches the listener, from closed to fully open.

Pedal and action

Pedal resonance is the halo of sympathetic strings while the pedal is down. Damper is how quickly a released string falls silent; bass strings take longer. Mechanics adds the small noises of dampers and key release.

Output

Width spreads the keyboard across the stereo field from the player’s seat, bass left and treble right. Output trims the level.

Tips

• Draw sustain in the piano roll’s pedal lane or play it from a pedal on your MIDI keyboard; the model treats both the same way, and notes released as the pedal lifts are damped exactly then.
• If your keyboard feels quiet, raise Velocity curve before touching Output: the loud end stays where it is and the rest comes up.
• Repeated notes restrike the same ringing strings rather than starting fresh, so fast repetition stays natural.