Kelly Moran on prepared pianos, the Prophet 12, and why compression is overratedSince studying piano and electronic music from a young age, Kelly Moran’s journey has seen her perfect the art of preparing pianos — placing objects on the strings to radically alter the sonic character of the instrument. A series of experimental releases helped her get signed to the legendary Warp imprint, and then the pandemic intervened, leading her to rethink her approach to creating tracks.

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On her new album Don’t Trust Mirrors, Kelly Moran transforms her prepared piano recordings into hypnotic, loop-driven compositions, blended with rich analogue synthesis. We discuss her unconventional approach to processing, why she sampled every note of her piano into a VST, and why she barely uses compression.
Hi Kelly! Can you tell us about the trajectory of your career to this point? How did you get started in music?
I started playing piano when I was six and subsequently picked up string bass, guitar, clarinet, oboe and singing. I began writing my own music as a teenager and got Logic so I could record and produce. I studied composition, piano and electronic music in college, thinking I would eventually become a professor, then spent my postgrad years as a piano accompanist for ballet dancers, opera singers and classical instrumentalists. I put out some experimental prepared piano records in 2016 and 2017 that got some attention, which led to me getting signed to Warp in 2018. Since then, I’ve been making more records, touring, writing music for other artists, scoring and trying not to lose my mind in the chaos of the music industry.
Don’t Trust Mirrors has just come out on Warp Records. You started writing this in 2019, pre-lockdown. How did that time shape the direction of the album?
In 2019, I was very interested in writing prepared piano music, but I wanted to make it more loop-based and repetitive since my prior album, Ultraviolet, had been very loose and improvisatory. That was the initial goal, but the album ended up spiralling in a few different directions from there. I started writing this music on my childhood piano at my mom’s house in 2019, but when I moved back to the city, I ended up working on a lot of the synth parts at my apartment in Brooklyn.
Prophet 12. Image: Press
You are known for your use of a prepared piano, but can you give us some insight into what exactly that is?
It’s a technique where you put objects between the piano strings to alter the sound of the instrument. It allows you to be creative because you can draw out a new tone from the instrument depending on how you prepare it, so it can be a very personal way of altering the sound of the piano. I like to use metal screws, but you can also use rubber, wood, plastic and other materials. Anyone who attempts this technique should do some research first to make sure they’re not going to hurt the piano with what they put inside it!
Piano preparations. Image: Press
The album’s title track is truly mesmerising. Can you tell us about how you approach layering such different rhythms and textures?
Prepared piano can be a tricky texture to work with, and it takes time to find sounds that will complement it since the preparations make the “attack” of the piano so sharp and you don’t want to use sounds that will clash with that sharpness. For Don’t Trust Mirrors I stuck mainly to sub bass and altering the acoustic piano sounds. My friend, the artist Bibio, added guitar and synth textures to the end of the track. He used textures that complemented the piano so well.
The whole album sounds incredibly natural and organic. How much do you process your sound as opposed to just letting the character of the instruments shine through?
I’m pretty minimal when it comes to putting effects on the prepared piano because it is already so rich sonically; usually, I just play around with delays and reverbs to enhance it! But the other major thing is I employ a ton of EQ — when you prepare a piano, you are triggering different harmonics and overtones, and you don’t necessarily want all of them present, so I always have a few different EQ cuts on each prepared piano stem to get rid of any unwanted resonances.
DTM EQ. Image: Press
I loved playing around with delay to add more rhythm to my prepared piano patterns – the sharp attack of the piano creates some delightful textures.

I honestly love a lot of the built-in effects in Logic, especially the delays. I use Delay Designer all the time and just adjust the parameters by ear to make it sound the way I want it to.
I try to be careful about selecting the sounds that surround the piano so they enhance each other and don’t fight on the frequency spectrum. The preparation consists of already processing the sound of the piano, so I try to be very delicate when handling these tones!
Tell us a bit about your studio workflow and the process of starting to build a track.
Usually, I just sit at the piano and improvise until my hands start playing something that feels or sounds good, then I record it and build off that. I have a pair of Rode NT5s that I’ve used to record all my piano music since college.
Rode NT5 mics on piano. Image: Press
You’ve toured extensively and will be headed back on the road in support of the new album. How is your live show constructed, both from a performance and a gear point of view?
I sampled every note of my prepared piano into a VST so I could recreate the sound on a MIDI keyboard onstage when I play. Since most venues don’t let you prepare the piano, this allows me to recreate the sound of my prepared piano and mix it live in a way that sounds faithful to the album. I play it through Kontakt, and I’m always editing it to make it more dynamically sensitive. For shows where I can’t play or prepare a grand piano, I use my VST as my primary performance medium, but I also mix it with some other sounds to make it more dynamic and interesting.
What’s your latest gear or plugin purchase?
I recently bought Particle Reverb by Kentaro, and it was worth every penny. It’s an amazing granular reverb plugin; I use it all the time now.
Here’s my prepared piano instrument in Kontakt with Particle Reverb:
Kelly’s prepared piano instrument in Kontakt with Particle Reverb, photo by press
What’s the best free plugin you own, and why do you love it?
Buffer Override by Destroy FX. I downloaded it for free when I was 18 and still use it all the time. This screenshot is taken from the session for my track Above the Vapours.
Buffer Override. Image: Press
What’s been the biggest investment in your studio setup?
It’s definitely my Prophet 12 synthesizer. I’m not a big gear person, so I invested in something that I know I’d be able to explore for many years and not get tired of. It’s the only synth I own, and I can’t imagine needing another synth for a long time since I can do so much with it.
Prophet 12. Image: Press
The other piece of gear that’s been truly helpful for me in the past year has been the RME Babyface. It’s super lightweight and portable, which makes it easy to bring on tour. I’ve only had it a year, but it looks like it’s been through war since some sound guys felt the need to duct tape XLR cables to it at one of my shows!
RME Babyface. Image: Press
Do you have a dream piece of gear?
I’d love to own my own Yamaha Disklavier someday, but for now, I’m very lucky that I get to go to the Yamaha studios in NYC to use theirs. My dream piano costs over $100,000, so let’s manifest that one day I’ll be rich enough to buy one for myself!
What’s a music production myth you think needs debunking?
I’ve gone most of my life without ever using compression on anything. I think it’s overrated. Perhaps it’s because I am classically trained and try to be sensitive with dynamics when I am performing, so I can’t imagine squishing them with an algorithm in post.
Listen to Kelly Moran’s Don’t Trust Mirrors
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