Noire Instrument Review. This is an unprompted and user based review for Noire by Native Instruments. I have spent the better part of my professional career as first and foremost, a piano player. It was the instrument that I started on, the instrument that allowed me to artistically explore all sides of the emotional spectrum. It has and will always be, my “first love” when it comes to music and composition itself.
Background
There are likely more virtual pianos/sampled pianos/piano based instruments than any other in keyboard based electronic music. We own some of the best of them including Una Corda, The Giant, The Gentleman, etc. Yes, they are all Native Instruments distributed products, but they all serve a unique and special purpose.
As absolutely amazing sounding and inspiring as these instruments are, (believe me they are), nothing prepared me for my ultimate reaction to Noire.
I listened to the demos, watched the video and had a reaction that was “interesting, but why another sampled piano instrument.”
All of our setups now center around Komplete Kontrol and Maschine Studio so it made sense to give it a go.
But nothing could have prepared me for what happened. All of a sudden, that first love, came back with all the passion of a thousand suns. I started playing the instrument and six hours went by as fast as six minutes. My hands and wrists ached from playing and I loved every minute. There is no other explanation other than to say this is THE PIANO to have. Let me proceed to tell you why.
How The Instrument Was Created
This magnificent instrument was the “baby” of Nils From. He spend years sourcing out the “ultimate piano” in the real world and he finally got his hands on it.
I will not spoil the narrative, Nils takes his time to explain exactly how he acquired this instrument and that is a love story on its own. It is also worth watching the video to learn in dtail how the nuances of the instrument were captured. This is not a project about commerce ultimately, it really was a labor of love and you can genuinely hear it in his voice when he talks about it.
Main Interface
First thoughts about the interface? Really clean and uncluttered. There are dozens of presets to flip through, from the experimental to the clean, so find something that really jolts you and start playing. Just be prepared to lose hours and hours and hours of time through sheer pleasure.
