Wurlitzer Electric Piano plugin preset for Decent Sampler (Midnight Wurli)Benjamin Dehli

Midnight Wurli is a sampled Wurlitzer 200A electric piano instrument that focuses on capturing the character of the instrument played softly at low volume. It uses two signal sources: the direct line out from the Wurlitzer and a contact microphone attached to the instrument. The contact microphone captures the mechanical noises, such as key clicks, release sounds, and pedal movements which results in a more intimate, close-up sound.

The instrument includes both tonal samples and mechanical noise samples. It also features built-in effects including tremolo, tape echo, room reverb, and multiple amplifier impulse responses. Each key includes velocity-based round robins to enhance realism.

Instrument Preset - Midnight Wurli: Full version of the instrument with 36 samples per key. 18 note-on samples and 18 release samples per key. Round robin samples per velocity group to avoid repetition. Includes mechanical noises (release and damper). Includes all six impulse responses (four amplifiers, one echo, and one room reverb). 28 damper pedal samples.

Instrument Preset - Midnight Wurli (Lite): A lightweight version of the instrument designed for lower CPU and RAM usage. Contains a single sample per velocity group for each key (no round robin). Impulse responses (amplifiers, echo, room) are disabled. Still includes basic mechanical sounds but with simplified behavior.

Proximity: Crossfades between the direct line out and contact microphone audio. Turning the knob toward "Close" emphasizes the contact mic (mechanical sounds). Turning toward "Distant" emphasizes the clean line out signal. Affects the balance of both tonal and mechanical elements.

Mechanics - Release: Controls the volume of the key release noise. The audio is affected by the current setting of the Proximity knob. Represents the subtle mechanical sound of a key returning after being released.

Mechanics - Damper: Controls the volume of the damper (sustain pedal) noise. Includes pedal down and pedal up samples. Also influenced by the Proximity setting.

Tremolo: Controls the depth of the built-in tremolo effect, which is named vibrato on the original Wurlitzer 200A. Tremolo is applied after sample playback and before amplifier, tape echo and room reverb, emulating the original instrument’s modulation circuit.

Amplifier: Selects one of five amplifier settings: Direct (bypasses all amp simulation), American (Fender Twin Reverb), British (Vox AC15H1TV), Japanese (Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus) and Norwegian (Tandberg Model 2 T). All amplifier impulse responses were recorded with a Shure SM57 and a Royer R-121 microphone.

Echo: Blends in a tape echo impulse response with a slapback delay characteristic. Positioned before the amplifier in the signal chain.

Room: Adds stereo room reverb via an impulse response. Positioned after the amplifier in the signal chain.

Volume: Master volume control for the entire instrument. Applied after all effects in the signal path.

Equipment used: Wurlitzer 200A, Hairball Audio FET/RACK Revision D, DIY Recording Equipment G Bus VCA Compressor, Handsome Audio Zulu, Fender Twin Reverb, Vox AC15H1TV, Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus, Tandberg Model 2 T, Fulltone Tube Tape Echo and Chase Bliss Audio & Meris CXM 1978.

Technical specification:

Samples: Sample rate: 48 kHz, Bit depth: 24 bit, Channels: 1 (mono), Number of files: 2332, File size: 1.20 GB.

Impulse responses (Amplifiers): Sample rate: 48 kHz, Bit depth: 24 bit, Channels: 1 (mono), Number of files: 4, File size: 356.00 KB.

Impulse responses (Effects): Sample rate: 48 kHz, Bit depth: 24 bit, Channels: 2 (stereo), Number of files: 2, File size: 481.00 KB.