35 years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the abandoned pianos of the nearby city of Pripyat can be played once more. Composer and audio designer Vlad Savin made many trips into Chernobyl's Exclusion Zone over several years to discover and record as many pianos as he could find to create a sample library that can be used by composers for their audio projects. As the founder of Strix Instruments, Vlad was recording samples in the Exclusion Zone for an audio project when he discovered one of Pripyat's many pianos. He says the sound from hitting the keys made him realize they would never be heard again. Over the 100 visits to Pripyat, he and his team recorded 20 different pianos in various conditions. Many were missing their lower strings, which had been stolen for the metal, but they still had functioning sustain pedals. Vlad overlaid the samples he recorded to create a single unique voice. Vlad and the team also recorded the sounds of the spaces in Pripyat and other areas of the
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