Instruments

Piano

This piano has the perfect amount of character, like an old but loved and well looked after piano that sits at a relatives house that you can’t help but play every time you walk past. It is inspiring to play and unbelievably real.

• Piano Pedal Up
• Piano Pedal Down

Strings (3.0.2.2.1)

Kept small and recorded close and never playing too loud, so that you can achieve an emotionally epic sound, but never lose the intimacy of the playing.

• Legato
• Long
• Long Flautando
• Long Viol
• Brushed
• Short Rounded
• Chimes

Guitar

The sounds range from a really authentic sounding picked guitar, to some more complex techniques which have created some rich and haunting pads and swells, all performed by Keaton on his trademark telecaster and re-amped inside the beautiful Church Studios.

• Swells
• Shimmers
• Harmonics
• Plucked Bends
• Plucks

Contrabass clarinet

An achingly soft and beautiful contrabass, with the perfect amount of breath without losing the tone. a perfect deep bed to build from, or soft section to play rumbling chords.

• Long
• Stab
• Air

Tubax

An incredibly warm, smokey and characterful Tubax, contrabass in register, but with the tones and warmth of a saxophone) the subtle breaths captured, the soft shifts in tone, and at the louder dynamic- guttural growls and snarling drones.

• Long
• Stab
• Air

Mics & mixes

• Signals
• Mix 1
• Tape
• Close
• Mid
• Far
• Ribbon
• Listener
• Player
• Pedal

Heirloom is perfectly poised to express emotions that are hard to put into words, capturing the contemplation of complex existential feelings, the human condition and the passing of time.

The quality of the performances captured is pure and expansive in character, lending themselves to enhanced emotive scoring. This expansive character provides endless inspiration, via sounds that will slot into any composer’s signature sound palette and compliment without taking over.

Heirloom has a strong sense of home comforts, with a beguiling familiarity that allows the composer to feel comfortable using the sounds in a stripped back setting. Beautiful raw woodwinds, delicate strings, an inspiring piano, rich guitar tones and textures - these were all selected by Keaton Henson to hone in on that humanity, the subtle artefacts of these kinds of recordings.

All musicians know that recording studios are sacred spaces. The Church is quite literally so, a beautiful, old place of worship in north London, whose stone walls and stained glass have for 170 years reverberated with the sound of prayers and some of the greatest music ever made. To record at Church Studios today is to play a part in music history that has included Adele, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, Florence + the Machine and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Now Keaton Henson (Supernova, Six Lethargies, as well as 7 acclaimed solo albums) continues that lineage by acting as a medium between the decades of musicality shared there and Spitfire Audio — shaped through his own artistic lens and reverence for the beauty in imperfections.