Recording - June 2021 - 16

-Review by Paul Vnuk Jr.

Spitfire Audio

Mrs Mills Piano
Channel your inner Beatle with
a little help from this friend
Mrs Mills Piano from Spitfire Audio is part of its new
Originals series. This inaugural offering was created in
partnership with Abbey Road Studios to offer rare and
classic instruments from its hallowed halls, available as
virtual instruments at a very attractive price.

Meet Mrs Mills

Mrs Mills is a 1905 Steinway Vertegrand upright purchased
by EMI in 1931 and still in use today. It's famous for showing
up on Beatles classics: 'Penny Lane', 'With a Little Help from My
Friends', Lady Madonna', 'She's a Woman', 'Rocky Raccoon',
and 'I Want to Tell You'. It's named after Gladys Mills, a British
performer of the 60s and 70s who tickled its ivories on such
notable ditties as 'Popcorn', 'Bubbling Over', 'I Was Queen
Victoria's Chambermaid', 'Mrs Mills Hoe-Down Party' and
other toe-tappers.

It's tacky

Mrs Mills Piano features a bright, metallic and slightly chorused
sound. This is due to EMI engineer Stuart Eltham, who in the
1950s had a Steinway technician harden the hammers with
lacquer and gently de-tune some of the strings to give the piano
a purposeful old-timey, vintage, tack piano character, which it
retains to this day.

Close, Room and Vintage

Mrs Mills Piano gives you a choice of three basic sonic choices:
'Close' (close recorded with a pair of 1960s Neumann U67
tube mics); 'Room', (captured at a distance with a spaced array of Schoeps MK2H mics), and 'Vintage', which goes all-in
on the classic Beatles era sound, using a single, centered, up
close AKG D19 through a REDD.47 valve mic pre and captured on a vintage Studer J37 tape machine.
Close yields a tight stereo spread, providing the illusion of
sitting right in the middle at the keyboard. Room is impressively
wide and three-dimensional, and Vintage is the opposite, with
a warm, tight, centered sound that retains its depth like a classic mono recording should.
Each of these can be used on their own or blended, and the
phase accuracy of the blend is so coherent that pushing all
three faders to full simultaneously sounds lush, full and fantastic.
16 RECORDING June 2021

Mechanical noise, effects and more

Four additional parameters: Reverb-blends in one of the
famed studio's 50s-era plate reverbs with a 2.5s decay; Tightness-cuts into the note, controlling both the tightness of the
sound as well as how much mechanical noise of the piano is
heard; Hammers-controls the level of the hammer hitting the
strings, altering the depth of the performance, and Pedal-controls how much foot pedal noise is present in the performance.
Performance-based controls include Expression, which adjusts the overall playing technique, and Dynamics, which reduces the difference between loud and soft notes. Finally, a
large control dial offers further detailed control over the Reverb, Tightness, Hammers and Pedal parameters, perfect for
automation or live tweaking.
As always with Spitfire instruments, you can tweak the plugin
for best performance with your DAW, and store and recall presets with ease.
The 4.52GB package loads as a standalone, NKS-compatible VSTi rather than as a Kontakt instrument.

In use

While Mrs Mills does exhibit a percussive, chorused, upright
piano sound, it has a well-maintained, high-quality class to its
tone. This is not your typical clanky barroom piano that has fallen
into disrepair. Despite its obvious and famous signature, I was
impressed with its versatility and how quickly you can seat it into
a track with just a few simple controls. I recently produced a song
where the artist wanted a 1960s doo-wop / Phil Spector sound,
and the mono vintage setting with just a hint of room for depth did
the trick. The convolution plate reverb is gorgeous, dimensional,
and blends well with any of the settings.

Wrap-up

Two years ago, I was lucky to experience the real deal in
person. As a Beatles fanatic of the highest order, I am delighted
to add Mrs Mills Piano to my VSTi arsenal, and at this price,
even if you're not a Beatles fan, it's still a unique-sounding and
inspiring addition to any virtual piano locker.
Price: $29
More From: spitfireaudio.com

http://www.spitfireaudio.com

Recording - June 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - June 2021