Soniccouture – The Canterbury Suitcase

The Canterbury Suitcase redefines what detail and expression means in a virtual electric piano.

Back in June of 2012 we were recording Grand Marimba at Canterbury Music in Toronto.  Studio owner Jeremy Darby was showing us his collection of vintage instruments, and let us try his Suitcase 88.

We knew immediately it was one of the most beautifully maintained and best sounding Suitcases we’d ever played.

In the summer of 2016 we went back into Canterbury to sample it, and with the invaluable help of Adam King and Robbie Grunwald we got an amazing, authentic and dynamic sound. We recorded three different signals, the line-out, the tightly close mic’d speaker cabinet, and natural room ambience.

MAIN PANEL

• LINE, MIC, ROOM CHANNELS WITH SOLO / MUTE
• BASS, TREBLE CONTROLS
• TREMOLO CONTROL

The front panel is the centre of the EP sound: the faders give control over the main line output of the suitcase, as well as the stereo close speaker mics, and the ambient room mic pair. Each channel can be routed to a seperate DAW output if desired. The bass and treble controls of the original keyboard are closely modelled, as is the tremolo, which can be sync’d to DAW tempo if desired.

VOICING PANEL

• 1ST, 2ND, 3RD HARMONIC CONTROLS
• FILTER WITH VELOCITY (LPF, BPF, HPF etc) PER CHANNEL

This panel allows you to dive deeper into shaping your sound. Each fader channel has its own dedicated filters with velocity mod., and the 3 harmonic controls allow subtle adjustments to the electro-mechanical response.

OPTIONS PANEL

• KEY-OFF, PEDAL NOISE, SCALING CONTROL
• VELOCITY SETUP CONTROLS

Fine tuning the reponse of the EP is crucial for getting the right feel for your playing. Pedal noise and key-off sounds can be adjusted to taste, and fine adjustments can be made to the top end scaling. The Velocity section allows precise adjustment of the reposnse curve to make sure  it plays exactly how you need it to with your own keyboard controller.

TUNING PANEL

• 50 PRESET SCALES
• PER NOTE + OCTAVE CUSTOM TUNING
• SAVE + LOAD USER PRESETS

The Tuning panel offers powerful control over scales and individual notes. Choose from over 50 preset scales including pentatonics, African, Chinese & Mesopotamian setups, or create your own unique micro-tuning.

EFFECTS PANEL

• MODULAR INSERT FX CHAIN
• 16 EFFECT TYPES
• CONVOLUTION REVERB PROCESSOR

A completely user configurable FX chain: choose from 16 different effects in 6 insert slots – in any order you like. The Space processor offers everything from straight rooms and halls to ambient convolution effects.

RECORDING THE SUITCASE

THE INSTRUMENT

CLOSE + SOUNDFIELD ROOM MICS

ROBBIE GRUNWALD

INTERNAL

TINES

MIC PLACEMENTS

THE NEVE DESK

KONTAKT PLAYER COMPATIBLE

This is a Kontakt Player instrument. This means that you do not need to own the full version of NI Kontakt to use it. It will run as a plug-in instrument in any VST/AU/RTAS/AAX/WASAPI,compatible host program or DAW eg: Cubase, Logic, Ableton Live, DP, Reaper, Pro-Tools. No extra purchase necessary.

System Requirements:

Windows 7 or higher (latest Service Pack, 32/64 Bit), Intel Core Duo or AMD AthlonTM 64 X2, 4 GB RAM (6 GB RAM recommended)

Mac: OS X 10.10 or higher, Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM

Requires KONTAKT 5 or KONTAKT 5 PLAYER version 5.6.8 or later

Instrument Details
Original instrument: Suitcase 88 1976, Canterbury Studios, Toronto.
Channels: Line out Speaker cabinet mics: AKG414 pair with brass C12 capsules Room mics: Soundfield MKV at mid distance Fully configurable velocity sensitive filter on each channel: filter types include HPF, LPF, LP Ladder, BPF, Phaser, Notch, Peak.
Library specifications: 24 bit 48 kHz sampling. over 11,000 samples 21 to 25 velocity levels per note, with intelligent round robin key-off & pedal release samples Tuning preset library with user micro-tuning function 1st, 2nd, 3rd Harmonic voicing adjustment Velocity curve setup Custom effects insert chain Custom IR reverb processor with Soniccouture IR library