Editorial

The making-of: how each instrument was found, recorded and put back together. And some opinions about mixing.

An RCA OP-6 tube preamp from Nils Frahm's studio, sampled for the Brut saturation plugin. — A distortion you can play

Cotton laid between the hammers and strings of a 1970s Scandinavian upright, the preparation behind the Lekko felt piano plugin. — Mixing felt pianos

A SELA passive equalizer with just two knobs, sampled for the Kolor EQ plugin. — Embracing the old ways

Sönke Düwer of Ensemble Du Verre. — The Process: Ensemble Du Verre

A Hohner Basset bass synthesizer, sampled for the Nisko plugin. — If you only get one

Holding up the 1963 Hohner Basset bass synthesizer in the studio, the instrument sampled for the Nisko sub bass plugin. — Recording Nisko: one thing, all the way down

A FODU tube equalizer built in Poland in the 1950s, sampled for the Kolor EQ plugin. — The units nobody made famous

Karlheinz Stockhausen at the WDR studio using the Albiswerk filter bank. Photo by Heinz Karnine, East News / AKG Images. — Hype aside, nobody builds a filter bank like this any more

A KINAP passive equalizer built for a Soviet film-sound studio, sampled for the Kolor EQ plugin. — Modelling can do things I can't

The Yamaha CP80: two strings per key and no soundboard, miked up close instead of taken off its pickup, for the Bardzo stage piano plugin. — Recording Bardzo: a stage piano, recorded the wrong way round

A close-up of the Jenco celeste mechanism during the Helenko sampling sessions. — Recording Helenko: keeping the imperfections in

Nils Frahm - Felt, album cover — The felt piano started as a way to keep the neighbours happy

The Blisko Viola interface, showing the Flageolet Tremolo and Sul Tasto Sustains patches with the Players, Mixer and Cascade controls. — Creating string textures that move

The front panel of the Maihak W49 Hörspielverzerrer, one of the few 1950s filters built for electronic music. — The filter behind Stockhausen's Kontakte

Playing a Hohner Pianet T by a window, the 1970s electric piano recorded for the Ciemno plugin. — Recording Ciemno: when sampling is an interpretation

Marta Zalewska recording close-miked string textures for the Blisko strings library. — Recording Blisko: strings under a microscope

A 1960s Hohner Guitaret, the rare tine instrument recorded for the Jasno plugin. — Recording Jasno: more than one trick

Cotton laid between the hammers and the strings of the 1970s Scandinavian upright behind Lekko. — Recording Lekko: the softest piano I could find

This is Felt Instruments, a plugin label bringing instruments that time forgot to a new generation of musicians and composers.