The course
Cinematic Piano Course
A beautiful piano sound is just the beginning. Learn to write, arrange and finish emotional piano music for trailers, adverts and television.
View the course →Headroom Piano
A free grand piano from Bengt Nilsson, played in SFZ player.
The Headroom Piano is a Yamaha C3 grand recorded by film composer Bengt Nilsson at Headroom Recordings in Karlstad, Sweden, in 2002. It was captured with close and ambient microphones in a 120 m² room, so it carries a fair amount of natural space. It has five velocity layers. The original is a Kontakt instrument. The SFZ version is a community remap that keeps both mic positions, each with its own level, pan, width and EQ. The room sound suits reflective film and TV cues. At about 156 MB it is small. The remap uses ARIA extensions, so it is best played in sforzando.
Worth knowing: A community SFZ remap of the original Kontakt instrument. It plays properly only in sforzando or another ARIA-based player.
Get Headroom Piano from Bengt Nilsson →More free grand pianos
- Writing for trailers, adverts and TV
- Arpeggio patterns that make plain chords cinematic
- Making MIDI piano sound played
- Light orchestration with strings
- A quick mix and master for each track