Changes the tone colour or timbre from soft (left) to hard (right) by readjusting the sample mapping. It's a dynamic way of mapping, while balancing the volume differences between softer and harder samples. As a result of turning the 'Colour' knob to the right, you will hear the piano sound 'harder', crispier, and with 'more attack'. Turning it to the left it'll sound 'warmer', 'softer' and with less 'attack'.

Compresses (left) or expands (right) the piano's dynamic range, while keeping the overall volume constant.

Controls the signal amout being sent to the reverb unit, that is the amount of reverb.

Controls the volume of the selected Pad sound.

Increases or decreases the virtual size of the chosen room type.

Pressing the 'Sustain Pedal' on a piano raises all the dampers at once, enabling all strings to resonate sympathetically. This adds a much fuller, deeper and less distinct sound to the note. The 'Resonances' knob adjusts the volume of these string resonances, when the sustain pedal is down.

The lid of a grand piano reflects the radiating higher frequencies from the soundboard, while the lower frequencies are radiated symmetrically. Closing the lid leads to a duller sound as the high frequencies cannot radiate as effectively. You can choose between open, half open and closed lid.

Let‘s you choose different kind of Piano Presets for different kinds of music styles (Style Presets) or effect sounds (‘Playing with Pads’ and ‘Warped Pianos’).

Allows you to select different tunings. The default tuning is ‚stretched‘, which is the way the piano was tuned for sampling. Stretched tuning accomodates the natural inharmonicity of metal strings. This inharmonicity “stretches” harmonics beyond their theoretical frequencies. Solving this dilemma involves some stretching of the higher notes upward and the lower notes downward from their theoretical frequencies. The amount of stretching depends on the length of the string, thus the size of the piano. You can also choose ‘equal’ for an equal tuning or different historical tunings.

Select the Pad preset you want to play.

Activates or deactivates the Pad Machine.

Enables Repedalling: if the sustain pedal is depressed during note release, the „remaining“ sound sustains.

Enables the use of a continuous sustain pedal for ’half-pedalling’. On an piano you can decide how far the dampers are lifted from the strings by controlling how far down you press the pedal. This affects the release time and the amount of resonance. When unchecked, a continuous sustain pedal is transformed into a switch. For half-pedalling you need a special continuous sustain pedal, which outputs midi values from 1-127 instead of an on/off command.

Enables the silent key function: very low velocities result in no sound.

Loads the Una Corda samples, which are triggered when pressing the left pedal. Pressing the so called ’Una Corda’ or ’soft pedal’ shifts all keys slightly to the right so that the hammer strikes a string less. Having fewer strings hit per note creates a more ‚hollow’ timbre.

The way the samples in Galaxy Pianos are panned are with the bass notes on the left and the treble on the right, corresponding to the listening position of the player. Using the ‚Listening Position’ button swaps left and right and in this way switching to the listening position of the audience.

Controls the amout of pre delay before the actual IR reverb starts.

Selects the Impulse Response File. When loading the Galaxy Steinway 5.1 in surround, there will be 5 additional IRs in the presets, which are sampled in 5.0 .

Activates or deactivates the Pad Machine.

On/Off for the Convolution Reverb. A convolution reverb uses Impulse Responses of real acoustic spaces to simulate the acoustics of those rooms. These IRs are a bit like the room’s ‚fingerprint’. A convolution reverb is unbeatable in quality and realism when it comes to simulating real acoustic spaces like concert halls, churches or studio rooms.

Loads and enables release samples. When hitting a key, the damper leaves the string. When releasing the key, the damper comes down to the string again. The energy generated by a loudly vibrating piano string, especially by the longer more powerful bass strings, can’t be stopped by the small felt damper right away. So the sound just sort of ‘dies away’, which takes some time especially in the low strings. This is represented by the release samples.

Loads and enables hammer noise samples. When releasing a key, the hammer returns to its rest. This noise, which happens along with the Release Sample, is called ‘Hammer Noise’.

Loads and enables pedal noise samples. Because the pedals in a grand piano are such strong mechanisms, they transfer a lot of energy to the whole piano body and the soundboard, resulting in some low frequency resonance. When using a continuous sustain pedal, the volume of the pedal-, damper- and stringnoises depends on the speed, the pedal is pressed.

Loads and enables damper noise samples. The Damper Pedal raises all dampers from the strings at once when pressed and drops them back on the strings when released. Both result in a short ‘Damper Noise’. Dynamically playable with a continuous sustain pedal.

Loads and enables string noise samples. When the dampers leave the strings after pressing the damper pedal, each damper pulls its corresponding string a little bit, resulting in vibration of each string with its resonance frequency. Dynamically playable with a continuous sustain pedal.

Loads and enables overtones. After hitting a key, the corresponding strings may resonate at their fundamental or overtone frequencies when other strings are triggered. These overtones add ’liveliness’ to the sound. This is also known as 'Sympathetic String Resonance‘.

Stretches (right) or shrinks (left) the stereo field. The mid position corresponds to the stereo width of the original recording, left position to mono, turning it to the right enhances the stereo width.

Transposes the piano in half-tones via MIDI-Transpose up to 3 octaves.

Tunes the piano in cents within +/- 50cents.

Lets you select the basic pitch, also often called ‚Concert Pitch‘, from 436 - 444 Hz.