Though the Korg Kronos comes with some excellent acoustic pianos, you can never have too many acoustic piano options, am I right? Below find a variety of free/public domain piano sample libraries that I’ve brought over into Kronos format. Some of these are excellent. Several are fairly ambient and might work best for recording vs. live performance.
I would like to thank Bigcat Instruments for providing the Iowa and London pianos in Kontakt format which allowed for easier conversion into the Kronos. Please support Bigcat Instrument
Piano in 162
This is an amazingly detailed, beautiful piano library. It features all notes sampled, for full duration, with both damper pedal up and down. It also includes ambient or room samples. The library is quite large and is in fact split into three KSC files.
Purgatory Creek Soundware worked out a special arrangement with Ivy Audio in order to provide this in Korg Kronos format. Ivy Audio retains all rights to ownership of the samples. Note also that although Piano in 162 is provided free of charge, any repackaging or modification of the library for redistribution is prohibited.
If you enjoy and use this piano I highly encourage you to donate at the Ivy Audio website: https://ivyaudio.com/Piano-in-162
Updated for the Nautilus
Salamander Piano
The Salamander Piano is based on a Yamaha C5 grand and was created by Alexander Holmfeel. It contains 16 velocity layers, sampled at full duration. Every third note is sampled. Again an excellent and highly useful library.
This library is made available through the creative commons license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/
Updated for the Nautilus
Iowa Piano
The samples in this collection were created by the University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios. It is based on a Steinway Grand. Every note was sampled, at full duration over three velocities. The library has a wonderful ambient quality. It was placed in the Public Domain. More information can be found here:http://theremin.music.uiowa.edu/MISpiano.html
Updated for the Nautilus
London Upright
KungKrill sampled his parent’s Skerratt London Upright Piano. He says “You are allowed to do whatever you want with the samples.” It is a simple single velocity sampling but I tried to make it as dynamic as possible using filtering on the Kronos. It is a very nice example of an ambient upright. More info can be found here.
Updated for the Nautilus
Albacore Piano
The Albacore is a sampling of a hybrid (acoustic/electronic) piano. It contains seven velocity layers for full duration. This was done by Purgatory Creek Soundware.
Creative Commons License
Attribution + Noncommercial + NoDerivatives
Updated for the Nautilus
Tongol Piano
NEW! New sampling of a hybrid (acoustic/electronic) piano with a more direct sound. It contains eight velocity layers for full duration. This was done by Purgatory Creek Soundware.
Creative Commons License
Attribution + Noncommercial + NoDerivatives
