North 7 Vintage Keys

Overview

Four pristinely maintained classic vintage keyboards from the 1960s and 1970s performed by a session giant and recorded by a top London-based engineer through a sumptuous signal path to give a truly 'Spitfire' take on electric pianos. Deep and pristinely crafted samples by our Spitfire engineers were then exhaustively tested by keyboard players for the most realistic response.

North 7 Vintage Keys is presented in Spitfire's incredibly popular eDNA engine, to provide you with the potential to take these classic signals from the 20th Century and warp them into the 21st. With a host of presets designed by our own in-house funkateer, Christian Henson, these offer a mere glimpse at the potential of this collaboration.

Characterful, vibey and like no other vintage library of this type, North 7 Vintage Keys offers you the scope to take these classics and make them your own.

Background

After years of experimenting, researching and soul searching, Spitfire finally turns its hand to the well trodden path of vintage electric pianos, organs and other curiosities. "Could we make a difference?" we asked ourselves. By simply applying the Spitfire ethos to how we record everything else, with affluent abandon, we felt we could.

Spitfire are proud to announce the beginning of what we hope will be a beautiful union. N7 studios and productions are based in the new immense music industry hub; Tileyard Studios in Kings Cross, London, the largest of its kind in Europe. Among this melting pot of innovation and experience sits producer and engineer Simon Changer (Bjork, David Gray, Jamiroquai, Finlay Quaye) not only a talented force in his own right but an engineering magpie, who has built a studio from the finest fragments and polished jewels scattered citywide after the decimation of the London studio scene. Welcome to N7 studios.

This was our first port of call for the finest, but most pristinely maintained unique signal paths in London today. A long time collaborator of Simon and partner in the North 7 Vintage Keys project is Sean Hargreaves (Ella Eyre, Natalie Imbruglia, Michael Buble, Alison Moyet, Trevor Horn) a keyboard wizard and producer, but no lesser Magpie than Simon. For Sean has one of the most pristinely maintained collections of classic keyboard instruments that we know of.

We charged them with the task of creating the definitive collection of classic work-horse 1960s and 70s keyboards; The 'Spitfire Electric Piano', a not-for-the-superstitious 'Electric Clavichord', a Stage Piano, and the rare Electric Keyboard Bass (made famous by Ray Manzarek of The Doors in the absence of a full time bassist) this one dating back to 1962 with a serial number of 000463!

Key Stats

• 21806 Samples
• 24.9 GB Uncompressed .WAV
• 16.4 GB disk space required
• 32.8 GB disk space required during install

Features

• 4 Vintage titans sampled "the Spitfire way".
• Rare but pristinely maintained instruments.
• Sumptuous vintage and hi-end signal paths.
• Performed by session giant - Sean Hargreaves.
• Recorded by in-demand engineer - Simon Changer
• Deep sampled for ultimate character and realism with multiple round robins and dynamic layers.
• Tested exhaustively with session players for realistic response.
• Presented in Spitfire's eDNA interface, instantly tweakable.
• Over 100 presets designed by Christian Henson
• Bass keyboard section "alone worth price of entry".