Plenty of software developers have claimed to capture the character of a historic studio in plugin form, from Waves' Abbey Road Collection to Universal Audio's Sound City Studios and Ocean Way Studios plugins.
The latest studio to have its magic distilled in software is the storied Strawberry Studios, a legendary recording space housed in Le Château d’Hérouville, an 18th-century château located in rural France. Spitfire Audio's latest instrument, Château Piano, samples a 1901 Steinway B piano from Strawberry Studios that can be heard on some of the most iconic albums of the 1970s.
The world's first residential recording studio, Strawberry Studios opened its doors in 1962, before becoming one of the era's most sought-after studio spaces in the following decade. Playing host to a jaw-dropping list of names that included Elton John, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie and Iggy Pop, the studio has since been dubbed "France's Abbey Road".
Making up the mythology surrounding Le Château d’Hérouville are some fascinating tales: the place is rumoured to be haunted by the ghost of Frédéric Chopin, and Bowie, Tony Visconti and Brian Eno are said to have experienced a brush with the supernatural while recording Low at Strawberry Studios in 1976.
Elton John has a particularly strong connection to the Château, having recorded three of his best-loved early albums there, even naming one in its honour: Honky Château. The studio's Steinway B grand piano can be heard on many of Elton's most famous tunes, including Crocodile Rock, Rocket Man and Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road.
After Strawberry Studios closed in 1985, the château spent several decades in disrepair, before being purchased in 2015 by musicians and sound engineers Jean Taxis and Thierry Garacino. The pair have since restored the studio, and its Steinway B grand piano, to their former glory, and Le Château d’Hérouville reopened in 2020.
In developing Château Piano, Spitfire Audio has meticulously sampled the studio's Steinway B in the studio's historic "George Sand" live room with a collection of valve and condenser microphones, including a pair of vintage Neumann U67s in the same position as Elton John's original recordings.
Eight individual signals can be blended in the plugin's UI, recorded using multiple mic placements and effects treatments, and Château Piano features a number of onboard digital effects spanning high- and low-pass filters, chorus, flanger and reverb, alongside a selection of 37 presets.
"They all told us, if they had made this record elsewhere, it wouldn't have been the same. They wouldn't have written these arrangements – it was the Château that inspired them," said studio owner Thierry Garacino in a press release. "You play three chords and straight away… that’s the sound of Elton John."
Available now and priced at an introductory discount of £103/$127, Spitfire Audio's Château Piano is compatible with macOS and Windows.
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