New York, NY (Top40 Charts) MakeMusic, Inc., creators of Garritan virtual instruments, announced today the release of Garritan Abbey Road Studios CFX Lite. This new instrument offers a compact, downloadable subset of the spectacular Garritan Abbey Road Studios CFX Concert Grand virtual piano at an affordable price.
The original CFX virtual instrument was created by placing Yamaha's flagship CFX Concert Grand piano in Abbey Road Studios' historic Studio One. There it was recorded by renowned engineers, blending the latest technology with legendary equipment and acoustics.
"When we set out to make a more accessible version of the CFX Concert Grand, we didn't want it to be 'watered-down' in any way," said Fred Flowerday, MakeMusic senior vice president of product strategy. "Instead of making any compromise in sonic quality, we provided a single, classic microphone perspective in all of its richness and depth."
Where the full CFX offers close and ambient mic placement for three perspectives (Classic, Contemporary, and Player), CFX Lite offers simply the close-mic'd Classic perspective, provided in all of its full-bandwidth, remarkable grandeur. The result is a truly incredible piano, suitable for nearly any system or budget.
The CFX Lite retains the expressive detail of the original by providing the full power of the Close Classic mic perspective, created to capture the natural tonal character, clarity and nuance of the CFX. All 20 layers of detail from the original CFX are represented, including separate sample sets for pedals-up, sustain pedal down and soft pedaling.
The CFX Lite also adds pedaling and other features not found in the original CFX Concert Grand. These include partial and re-pedaling functionality plus more than 20 additional impulses captured from Abbey Road Studios' legendary outboard reverb equipment.
"I really love the Lite version of the Abbey Road CFX," said Mirek Stiles, head of audio products at Abbey Road Studios. "It's great having the Abbey Road engineers' favourite mic array from the original CFX release, with the same beautiful tones of the CFX in the most famous recording studio in the world, but in a more accessible, downloadable package."
The CFX Lite includes the powerful ARIA player, and is designed to be a perfect addition to music notation-based programs, like Finale, as well as to all sequencers and digital audio work stations. It is also equally at home in live usage as it is in a studio setting.
"The CFX Lite carries on the Garritan tradition of democratizing music making," said Gary Garritan, MakeMusic director of instrumental sciences. "Not everyone can own Yamaha's flagship grand piano or book studio time at Abbey Road Studios. But today, nearly anyone can reap the benefits this remarkable piano and legendary world-class studio have to offer."
The CFX Lite virtual instrument is only available as a download, and retails for $79.95. Audio samples, video and additional information can be found at Garritan.com. Those who purchase the CFX Lite and wish to upgrade to the full CFX Concert Grand can do so for just $99.95.
MakeMusic's Garritan and Finale products are exclusively distributed through Alfred
Music in North America, India, Australia and New Zealand and are available through music resellers worldwide.
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About MakeMusic, Inc.
MakeMusic®, Inc. is a world leader in music technology whose mission is to develop and market solutions that transform how music is composed, taught, learned, and performed. For more than 25 years, Finale® has been the industry standard in music notation software, enabling musicians worldwide to create, edit, audition, print, and publish musical scores. MakeMusic's SmartMusic® interactive music learning software transforms the way students practice. With an online library of thousands of band, orchestra, and vocal pieces, students practice with background accompaniment and receive immediate feedback on their performance. Teachers leverage SmartMusic to individualize instruction and document the progress of every student. MakeMusic is also the creator of Garritan® sound libraries, providing state-of-the-art virtual instruments with the playback quality of a live performance, and MusicXML™, the internet-friendly way to publish musical scores, distribute interactive sheet music, and share music notation with a wide variety of software programs. Additional information can be found at www.makemusic.com.
About Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is the most famous recording studios in the world and a global music icon. Home to countless landmark recordings and pioneering advances in recording technology, the legendary studio complex has a phenomenal history spanning over 80 years, encompassing celebrated work by many of the world's most famous recording artists including The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Frank Ocean, Florence + The Machine, Radiohead, Oasis, Kanye West,
Lady Gaga and Adele. Since the score for Raiders of the Lost Ark was recorded at the studios in 1980, Abbey Road has developed into one of the world's premier locations for movie scoring. Blockbuster films such as The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The King's Speech and Skyfall feature scores recorded there, while recent projects include the Oscar-winning score to Gravity. Additionally, a number of high-profile video games such as Halo 5 and Call of Duty have recorded in-game music at Abbey Road Studios. The Studios house a number of state of the art mastering suites. Recent projects mastered or re-mastered by Abbey Road's award-winning engineers include music from Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Queen, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, New Order, Mary J. Blige. Abbey Road Studios also offers online mixing and mastering, audio products for professional and home studio music producers, live concert recording, archiving and video services. The Studios also host a select number of special events each year. Abbey Road recently launched Abbey Road Red, Europe's only music-focused technology incubator which supports the endeavours of entrepreneurs, research and developers. Abbey Road
Institute recently began offering vocational diplomas in music production and audio engineering to students at the studio complex in London and state of the art facilities in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Munich, Melbourne and Sydney.
About the Yamaha CFX Concert Grand Piano
The Yamaha CFX is the culmination of almost 20 years of development and intense evaluations by many of the world's most talented piano designers, artists and technicians. From the outset Yamaha technicians deconstructed the traditional concert grand concept and began rebuilding it from the ground up. Every aspect of traditional piano design was questioned, evaluated, improved and relentlessly tested. Once the design was nearing completion, multiple prototypes endured thousands of hours of secret testing at concert halls across the globe. The revolutionary instrument CFX is entirely hand-built with all materials meticulously selected and refined to ensure unprecedented music performance in the most demanding of situations. The CFX is truly one of the finest pianos ever created. Additional information can be found at www.cfseries.com.
