Mercury

User's Guide
Table of contents
1. Welcome 3
1.1. Metropolis Studios 3
1.2. Fazioli 3
1.3. The Survey 3
2. The Library 4
2.1. Recording session 4
2.2. Features 4
3. GUI 5
3.1. Main 5
3.2. Mixer 6
3.3. Effects 6
3.3.1. Metropolis Plates 6
3.3.2. Compressor 6
3.3.3. EQ 6
3.3.4. Chorus 6
3.4. Settings 7
3.4.1. Round Robin 7
3.4.2. Velocity Curve 7
3.4.3. Lid 8
3.4.4. Noises 8
3.4.5. Sound 8
3.5. General Tips 10
4. Credits 10
5. EULA (End User License Agreement) 11

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1. Welcome
Thank you for purchasing MERCURY, a virtual piano that features the Fazioli Grand
Piano recorded at Metropolis Studios in London.
Recorded by Grammy Award winning Paul Norris using world class microphones and
preamps, with the smallest detail taken into account. MERCURY runs in Kontakt Player 5.

1.1. Metropolis Studios

Metropolis Studios opened in 1989 located at The Power House in London. It consists of
four recording /mixing studios and four production rooms, and is the biggest independent
recording facility in Europe.
Studio A is the largest of the two tracking rooms. The 60-square-metre control room
houses an SSL 9072 J series console. It is considered to be Metropolis' ideal room for
tracking or mixing.
Big names like Adele, Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling
Stones, Paul McCartney, Celine Dion, Robbie Williams, Lady Gaga or John Legend have
recorded, mixed and/or mastered some of their works at Metropolis.

1.2. Fazioli
Fazioli Pianoforti is a high-end maker of hand-built pianos based in Sacile, Italy. Fazioli
produces about 100 pianos a year from its single factory. The cost of these pianos ranges
from $100,000 to $300,000.
MERCURY features a Fazioli F228. It's very similar in its dynamics and mechanical
characteristics to the concert grand F278. A deep powerful bass makes this piano excellent
for medium-size concert halls. Only slightly smaller than a full concert gran, its richness in
timbre makes it an ideal instrument for chamber music or solo repertoire.
Dimensions:
100 x 155 x 228 cm

1.3. The Survey

When everything was booked to fly to London and record the piano I did a survey
between all the members of the newsletter. I asked what they were expecting in a new
piano library, what they liked of existing libraries and what they thought that there was
missing too. It was a very enriching experience for me, I learned a lot of things. Things that
I thought they were in a specific way it turned out to be the opposite! Thank you all who
took the time to answer the questions.
I did everything you wanted in terms of velocity layers, round robin, microphone positions,
script features and overall sound. Unfortunately, I had one problem: the player perspective.
I brought a Neumann KU100 binaural microphone to the recording session in order to
capture the player perspective, but it wasn't placed correctly and I didn't noticed it until a
couple of hours later. Then, in the editing process I decided to leave those samples out as
they sounded very much alike the mid position.
Every single one of you wished me luck on this project and showed me lots of love, I really
appreciate it. Thank you, guys!

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2. The Library

2.1. Recording session

MERCURY was recorded at Metropoli's Studio A using 5 microphone perspectives:
• Ultraclose.
• Close.
• Mono.
• Mid.
• Far.
The ultraclose is the default one. X/Y configuration placed right above the hammers for a
modern direct sound. Mono compatible.
The close one was a spaced pair placed right at the edge of the lid. Intended for a classical
sound, very delicate and sweet sounding.
The mono perspective was placed at the end of the tail, intended to be used for a more
retro / vintage sound.
Mid is a X/Y in the middle of the room, with the piano placed at one end of it.
Far is a spaced pair at the end of the room to get a wider stereo image and to capture the
reflections of the room.

This is a relation of each microphone model and the preamp used.

• Ultraclose: Sennheiser MKH40 / API 512
• Close: Neumann KM84 / NEVE 1081
• Mono: Coles 4038 / Meris 440
• Mid: Neumann U87 Fig. 8 / Prism MMA-4
• Far: Telefunken AK47 / Prism MMA-4

Metropolis Studios have a very nice pair of EMT140 plate reverbs, Valve and Solid State
versions. I recorded various impulse responses of each one and they are ready to be used in
the library.

2.2. Features
MERCURY offers supreme sound quality, and the features couldn't be less than that, so I
made a script that lets you control any single parameter that you may wish.
• Full microphone mixer with purge/load controls for each microphone, mono /
solo, volume, width / pan, stereo inversion, phase shift and output selection for
mixing the different channels in your DAW.
• Normal mixing and the new "Position Enhanced" mixing.
• Effects page with the Metropolis Plate reverbs, a compressor, a Tilt style EQ with
selectable center frequency and LP and HP filters and a chorus effect.
• Settings page with selectable number of round robins + extended repetitions for up
to 12 non-repeating samples, velocity curve control with manual controls and
custom editing table, 3 lid positions, key on / off, release samples, sympathetic
resonance and pedal noises. Timbre, dynamic range, low enhancer, sample start
offset knobs. Per-note temperament and overall tuning. Optional velocity layer
morphing for a seamless transition between layers.
• Complete support for piano pedals: sustain, half pedaling, sostenuto and soft pedal
(una corda).
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 • 8 velocity layers and 4 true round robin for each articulation, not just for the
sustain samples.
• Beautiful and evocative 3D rendered GUI for the best user experience and
inspiration.

3. GUI

3.1. Main
This is the main view that will appear when you first load the library. From the menu bar
you can select the different pages.

• HQ: it turns on and off the AET Filter that morphs the velocity layers. It sounds
better with it, but it's very CPU hungry. It can increase it by a 20% or more, so
handle with care! I personally play without the HQ mode, and only engage it before
rendering.
• Animation: the button on the right is an on/off switch for the camera animation.
When you select a page the camera will pan through the studio to show the other
side of it, where you'll see an EMT140. This animation can quickly become
annoying or it can make you feel a bit dizzy, hence the switch.

3.2. Mixer
In this page you can mix the different microphones in any way you want.
From top to bottom:
• Name of the channel for position: ultraclose, close, mono, mid and far.
• Load/Purge: This purges and loads the corresponding samples from RAM. Very
useful to lower the voices, CPU and RAM consumption. Use it whenever you can.
• MUTE/SOLO: Works like any other mixer.
• Volume fader.
• Width / Pan: on stereo channels this knob gradually converts it to mono (full left)
or stereo (full right). On the Mono channel this is a standard pan knob.
• Stereo inversion: Flips the channels, useful for if you want to change the position
of the low and high notes. By default the low notes will be on the left and high
notes will be on the right, like if you were sitting on the piano bench.
• Phase shift: The recording is extremely accurate in terms of phase response, it has
no phase issues but in case you need it you can use this phase switch.
• Output selector: With this menu you can select a different Kontakt output to be
linked with a channel of your DAW. In order to do that you have to configure new
outputs in Kontakt (if you haven't). After that you'll need to restart Kontakt. Then,
insert Kontakt as a Multioutput plugin in your DAW. Finally, configure each
microphone to the Kontakt output that you want.
• Normal - Position Enhanced: this is a new way of dealing with microphone
mixing. When activating the Position Enhanced switch a new slider will appear.
While you drag this slider the values of the faders will morph from the close
positions to the far ones gradually. It's a very simple and intuitive way of finding
the sweet spot for your mix.

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3.3. Effects
MERCURY comes with 4 DSP effects oriented to piano mixing.

3.3.1. Metropolis Plates

The EMT140 is the most iconic plate reverb. There are 2 of them in Metropolis Studios:
Valve and Solid State. I captured impulse responses for each of them to be used in the
library, just like if you were recording there. You can tweak these settings:
• Plate selector: switch between the Valve or Solid State one.
• Pre Delay: sets the amount of time that the reverb will be delayed in relation to the
dry signal.
• High Pass: high pass filter on the impulse, doesn't affect the dry signal.
• Low Pass: low pass filter on the impulse, doesn't affect the dry signal.
• Wet: effect amount.
• Time selector: I sampled each plate with 3 time settings (short, mid and long).

3.3.2. Compressor
Compressor effect, from the ones available in Kontakt I chose the "Pro" one since I think
it's the one that best suits this piano. Available settings:
• Threshold: dB value from which the compressor takes effect.
• Ratio: amount of compression to be applied.
• Attack: attack time in milliseconds from which the compressor starts.
• Release: release time in milliseconds from which the compressor stops.
• Output: make up gain in dB to compensate for the loss of gain in the compression
process.

3.3.3. EQ
This EQ module combines two filters and a Tilt style EQ with a frequency crossover
selector.
• High Pass: 4 pole high pass filter.
• Low Pass: 4 pole low pass filter.
• Tilt EQ: when turned to the right it boosts the high frequencies and cuts the low
ones. When turned to the left it cuts the high frequencies and boosts the low one.
• Center: it sets the crossover frequency, or the breakpoint that separates the low
from the high band.

3.3.4. Chorus
It's my personal favorite effect for a piano. I implemented at first a natural doubler that
played 3 voices at a time, panning each one of them in the stereo field, which resulted in a
very rich sound but it was very CPU demanding as each note triggered 3 notes instead of 1.
Then I inserted the chorus effect, and the result was not so different, so it has been
implemented as one of the effects for MERCURY. Presenting these parameters:
• Depth: amount of detuning for each delay line (or voice).
• Speed: speed in Hz that for the LFO that detunes the signals.
• Stereo: also called "phase", sets how much spread the voices are in the stereo field.
• Wet: amount in dBs of the chorus effect applied to the main dry signal.

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3.4. Settings
3.4.1. Round Robin
Round Robin, also known as 'repetitions per key', is a technique to avoid the so-called
"machine-gun effect". When a musician plays an instrument, he/she doesn't play the exact
same note twice. Even if he/she tries it very hard, the results won't never be exactly the
same. In samples, if we had no round robin, you would play the same sample over and
over, creating an artificial sounding instrument. In theory, the bigger number of round
robins (variations) the better and more natural the overall sound will be.
Piano libraries, even the big names, usually don't have any round robins at all. Some of
them only have 2 variations. MERCURY offers 4 round robins per key and per velocity.
But a 'fake' round robin option is also included. What is fake round robin?
Also known as 'neighbour borrowing', it's a dedicated script that cycles over a counter and
alternates between the real note that you played, a note below and note above. Let's say, for
example, that you play the note E3. The first time it will play the corresponding E3 sample.
The second time it will play D#3 and tune it 1 semitone up. The third time it will play F3
and tune it 1 semitone down. That, combined with real round robin repetitions, is a very
powerful method to create variation to the instrument. But there's one problem, piano keys
sound very different from one to another, that's why you may get inconsistency.

You can find this elements in this section:

• Label: displays the total amount of round robin (real round robin * optional 3x
fake round robin).
• Selector: in order to keep the sample pool at the minimum possible, you can select
the number of round robins you want and the samples will be loaded and purged
automatically based on if you need them or not. That way you can make a fully
loaded patch or a lite one.
• Neighbour Borrowing: fake round robin switch. If the led is on, the extended
round robins will be added.

3.4.2. Velocity Curve

By default, the velocity curve is linear, meaning that the velocity you play is the velocity
that will be taken internally to process the midi notes. But maybe you want to change it so
the library plays soft even if you play hard in your keyboard, or viceversa. Or simply you
want to match you playing style to the MERCURY response. This velocity curve will
remap your notes to the whatever output you want.
• Display: in this little display you can see how the velocity curve looks. This display
is not editable.
• Min: sets the minimum velocity value.
• Max: sets the maximum velocity value.
• Curve: applies logarithmic or exponential functions to the curve. Very useful to
create realistic and natural curves that match your playing style.
• Edit: this little button shows the modal window for a bigger editable display.
• Big display: this display is editable, you can draw your own curve and modify each
velocity independently. Tip: use right click + dragging to create a line between the
click point to the release point.
• Close: closes the modal window.
Note: in order to reset the values you just have to click on either the min, max or curve
knobs.

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3.4.3. Lid
MERCURY was recorded with the lid fully opened for a maximum clarity sound, but you
can select any of the 3 lid positions:
• Open: as it was recorded.
• Mid: lid at the middle positions, giving a bit more low end and a bit more highs.
• Close: lid fully closed with boosted low and high end, and cut mid tones. Very dark
sound.

3.4.5. Noises
A piano library without these would be sterile. This is the section that brings life to it, a lot
of people refers to it as 'character'.
• Key on: volume of the hammer hitting the strings.
• Key off: volume of the key being release, the hammer returning to the off
position.
• Release: the resonances that occur when releasing the keys. MERCURY uses an
intelligent time and key-position based system to determine what release sample to
play. It's not the same releasing a key 0.3 seconds after or 3.5 seconds after, the
release samples won't be the same. This sets the overall volume of the release
samples.
• Reso: it stands for 'Resonance' and sets the amount of sympathetic resonance that
occur when the sustain pedal is down, when all strings vibrate as a sympathetic
response to the sound waves
• Pedal: controls the volume of the pedal noises that are triggered with every pedal:
sustain (CC64), soft pedal or una corda (CC67) and the sostenuto pedal (CC66).
Intermediate values on the sustain pedal will trigger the 'half-pedaling' script.

3.4.6. Sound
In this section you can tweak those aspects that are not standard in piano libraries, but that
are very important in order to make a unique and distinctive sound. The tools provided
here can create a completely new sound for the piano, very hard to replicate with other
techniques.
• Timbre: this knob switches the root numbers of the samples up or down and
retunes them to the original note. It goes from -12 to +12, 0 being the middle and
default value (i.e. no effect). The sonic difference is very distinctive, going from a
thin sound almost like a pianola to a mellow and dark evocative timbre.
• Range: it stands for 'dynamic range'. All samples were normalized to 0dB, then
the velocity curve directly affects the volume of each sample. This knobs sets how
much the velocity affects it. At 0% all samples will be played at 0dB, at 100% a full
volume scale will be applied with the lowest samples silent.
• Low enhancer: this is a way of giving body low end to the piano in a very
transparent way. It's not an EQ, it's a replica of a sub-kick microphone placed
below the piano.
• Sample start: one of the most repeated petitions in the survey was to leave the
pre-roll sound of the finger pressing the key while the hammer is about to hit the
string and the damper is lift. So, the samples have something around 25ms of pre-
roll. That amount is bigger the farther you get from the piano (i.e. mid and far
positions). This knob offset the start position of the samples in milliseconds.
• Temperament: this is the general tuning of the piano. It was originally recorded
at 440hz.

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 • Edit: opens a modal window that displays a table with the 12 notes. You can
detune each note independently of the others in order to create a custom piano
tuning.
• Close: closes the modal window.

3.5. General tips

There are a few tips that will ease your workflow:

Control + click on Windows, or Command + click on Mac on any control will revert it to
the default value.

You can see each value in the messages bar while you tweak the parameters.

If you hold shift while dragging a control it will trigger the fine-tune mode.

Hovering on any control or parameter will display the help message. If you don't see it,
make sure you have the info panel activated on Kontakt's top menu.

If you hear any kind of distortion, turn down Kontakt's main volume slider.

**Expert mode (don't tweak if you don't know what you're doing):
- Alt+click on the animation switch shows or hides the release velocity curve. Top one
affects keys below number 48. Bottom one affects keys from 48 to 70.
- Alt+click on the HQ switch shows or hides the release velocity curve of the keys above
number 70.
- Tweak if necessary, it will change how time affects the velocity of the release samples.

4. Credits

Produced by: Wavesfactory

Recording engineer: Paul B. Norris
Assistant engineer: Ben Zushi-Rhodes
Piano tuning: Pearson Piano Tuning
Design: Natali Gera, Jesús Ginard
3D rendering: Voger Design
Editing: Soundemote, Elan Hickler
Programming: Jesús Ginard
KSP Programming: Jesús Ginard
Making of: Ricky Merino
Website: http://www.wavesfactory.com
Special thanks: Virginia Bordal, Marnie Keening, Metropolis Studios, David Hurst,
Tapsa Kuusniemi, Dan Zank, Torley, Blake Robinson, Tobias Menguser, Rembert
Gantke, Tomeu Guiscafrè, Marina Caldentey, Miquel Àngel Mestre, Joan Servera, Joan
Font, Pere Josep Sastre, Joan Galmés, Esperança Albertí, Marta Obrador, Xisca Prohens,
Sebastià Fons, Toni Llabres, Rafa Rodriguez, Mandy Fenoll, Sandra Mayol, Juanan Cruz,
Dani Canyellas, Gearslutz, KVR Audio, Piano World forum and every single one of you
who answered the survey.

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All product, company, artist and/or trademark names belong to their respective owners,
which are in no way associated or affiliated with Wavesfactory. They are used solely to
give more information about the library.

4. End User License Agreement

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relying on The Software or using The Software’s source code.

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