The Canterbury Suitcase

The best sounding sampled EP you'll ever play

The Canterbury Suitcase redefines what detail and expression means in a virtual electric piano. Back in June of 2012 Soniccouture were recording Grand Marimba at Canterbury Music in Toronto.  Studio owner Jeremy Darby was showing them his collection of vintage instruments, and let them try his Rhodes Suitcase 88.  

They knew immediately it was one of the most beautifully maintained and best sounding Suitcases they ever played. In the summer of 2016 Soniccouture went back into Canterbury to sample it, and with the invaluable help of Adam King and Robbie Grunwald they got an amazing, authentic and dynamic sound.

Soniccouture recorded three different signals, the line-out, the tightly close mic’d speaker cabinet, and natural room ambience. That was just the beginning. After several months of painstaking editing, they finally had what they feel is the best sampled Rhodes available.

The Kontakt Instrument

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. 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.

Instrument Details

Original instrument: Rhodes 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.
• 16 GB library (8 GB with Kontakt NCW compression)
• 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

Kontakt Player + NKS compatible. Requires Kontakt 5.6.8