Topic by Ecaroh

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Topic: E-pianos

If there are surprisingly few options for modeled acoustic pianos (PTQ, V-piano and maybe some other) situation is same with E-pianos.

I have to admit that for me this PTQ Electric piano Add-on is not a real solution for E-piano. I have Lounge Lizard 3 which I'm quite satisfied with. This instrument has the same great playability like PTQ and chance to modify the sound but (like PTQ) it has little bit of artificiality in its sound. I probably wouldn't put Lounge Lizard on my record. With E-pianos there's not only the basic sound that has to be good but also effects (tremolo, phazer, wah) and amp simulation. For example a good, warm tubelike distortion seems very difficult to model. So task for a programmer is far from simple.

With this post I would like to know if there are some good software solutions for E-pianos (modeled or sampled).  From Modartt company I'd like to know if they are still developing their E-pianos. Motu has their "Electric Keys" which sounds quite interesting but like many sample libraries it can be disappointment.

Last edited by Ecaroh (19-12-2009 17:09)

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Reply by EvilDragon

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Re: E-pianos

Have you tried GSi Mr. Ray mkII?

LL3 is flexible, but its interface is sluggish and preset changs are slow. Overall, the way AA do their preset changing interfaces annoys me.

And yeah, the sound is far from real EPs.

Last edited by EvilDragon (19-12-2009 17:23)
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Reply by Ecaroh

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Re: E-pianos

EvilDragon wrote:

Have you tried GSi Mr. Ray mkII?

LL3 is flexible, but its interface is sluggish and preset changs are slow. Overall, the way AA do their preset changing interfaces annoys me.

And yeah, the sound is far from real EPs.

Let's see. I tested Mr. Ray one or two years ago and I remember that I wasn't very convinced but I'll give it a another chance very soon. Still I have to admit that to my ears LL3 sounds better than those demo MP3's (in fact I was more interested in GSi's Hammond).

Last edited by Ecaroh (19-12-2009 18:20)

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Reply by EvilDragon

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Re: E-pianos

True, GSi VB3 is currently the best Hammond emulation available.

Hard work and guts!

Reply by FreddyJ

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Re: E-pianos

I've been using Native Instruments "Elektrik Piano" which has worked well for me.  I've also tried the PTQ add-on demo and I think it sounds pretty good-- I especially like the the fact that there's no huge sample file to deal with.  I know what you mean about a warm tubed amp sound, though!  I know there are plug-ins to emulate the effect of a tube amp, but I haven't tried any.  I wonder if WAVES makes anything like that?

I haven't tried GSi's "Mr. Ray," but I was on their website earlier and I noticed that they are allowing free downloads of their Wurlitzer E. Piano emulation "Mr. Tramp2."  I haven't tried either one, so I can't give you an opinion regarding how they sound.  I hope this helps.

Reply by skip

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Re: E-pianos

I've tried GSi's electric pianos, and think they are very good indeed.  However, I think Pianoteq is even better.
I also own LL3 and I prefer Pianoteq to this as well.

Greg.

Reply by olepro

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Re: E-pianos

About Lounge Lizard, i really enjoy to tweak and play this great instrument.
Maybe it is not a perfect copy of an E-piano but damn it sounds great in it's own way and i have been using this on A-LOT of tracks with great results.

I feel (nearly) :-) the same way about Pianoteq.
It's ALIVE when i'm pressing the keys...

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Reply by Piet De Ridder

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Re: E-pianos

There are many plugins that do 'tube saturation', but most of them promise more than they are capable of delivering. There are few really good ones though, a.o:
(1) URS Saturator
(2) SPL's Twin Tube
(3) SoundToys 'Decapacitator' (not released yet, but knowing SoundToys' usual quality and the fact that the saturation algorithm in their existing plugins is very good, it's highly unlikely that their 'Decapacitator' will disappoint. (SoundToys also has truly excellent chorus and phaser plugins, both effects which are also indispensable for recreating some of those timeless e-piano sounds)

If you have an UAD-2 card, there's also the virtual Fatso Sr./Jr., which produces a pretty amazing sound.

Cheaper solutions are provided by companies such as Voxengo (really good), Nomad, WaveArts, etc. ...

And if a convincing e-piano sound is really important, than it also makes A LOT of sense to either invest in a real amplifier (and the necessary recording equipment) or in some really good amplification software, such as the packages from Softtube ('AmpRoom'), Peavey ('ReValver III') and AudioEase ('Speakerphone').

_

Reply by johnrule

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Re: E-pianos

I just did a comparison the other day between several modeled electric pianos and Pianoteq was the best in my opinion...purchased it yesterday.

If you want to add some cabinet effects and distortion try this from Voxengo (free):

Boogex

It seems geared toward guitar, but you can certainly use it for whatever you want. You can select different cabinets from the pop-up at the bottom of the window...


And this EQ adds some harmonic character (also free from Voxengo):

Overtone EQ


Now, for really enhancing the sound you might want to try their "Warmifier" (not free):

Warmifier

It does "classic valve warming"...

Remember, only the Pianoteq version allows 5 mic placement with other unique features...it was a no brainer for me.

JR

Last edited by johnrule (20-12-2009 15:57)

Reply by Ecaroh

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Re: E-pianos

I ran a test with GSi's Mr.Ray Mk II and I must say I'm littlebit amazed to read that people here say it's better than LL3 or best E-piano software. If so then we have very different kind concept of e-piano...?

Of course there's allways a matter of taste but in my opinion you cannot really compare Mr.Ray to LL3. (Same goes with PTQ's e-pianos ADD-on) Mr.Ray (at least all those presets in Demo version) had not many parametres, so there's not much to do, it has no standalone prog. But the most critical things about it are these: basic sound was far from Rhodes (which it tried to emulate) and playing it with different velocities gave no real response in sound which should be one of the main things with modeled instruments. With LL3 you can really have different qualities in every velocity step. Sound is not perfect (quite good anyway) but like PTQ, it is an expressive instrument.

P.S: GSi's B3 was quite good anyway.

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Reply by johnrule

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Re: E-pianos

I just tried the LL3 demo...very nice!

However, there is no sympathetic resonance (that I heard anyway), detailed hammer noise adjustment, key noise adjustment, etc. I was able to quickly tweak a preset in Pianoteq to sound like any of the presets in LL3. I had to use some external FX like phaser and the others I mentioned above, but Pianoteq had more character in terms of the fundamental sound (especially in the upper register). I suppose if you are not into tweaking then LL3 would be the way to go. The presets in LL3 were very appealing.

I have to agree that the electric piano presets in Pianoteq are very basic and unimpressive; I can see how someone might be put off when comparing products. Modartt is a little out of touch when it comes to their presets (in my humble opinion of course)...they also seem to have a fixation for providing presets for the way an instrument sounds in a room. I don't need a piano that sounds like I am standing three feet away, I need something that has presence...I will add the FX that I need.

However, the presets they provide are much appreciated of course!

JR

Reply by skip

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Re: E-pianos

johnrule wrote:

I have to agree that the electric piano presets in Pianoteq are very basic and unimpressive;

I agree that they are "basic", however I think they are highly *authentic* reproductions of the unprocessed instruments.  Just btw, for the Rhodes, I *prefer* the older, mellower sound, to the modern sound that has more bite and tine noise, and I think Pianoteq is producing this old sound very nicely.

Greg.

Reply by Ecaroh

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Re: E-pianos

Still I'd like to know if there are any other interesting products for E-piano.

Right now these are my favourite ones (including hardware) with some comments:

Clavia's Nord Stage / Electro 3. Very well sampled Rhodes (MkI, MkII, MkV), Wurly & Clav. But maybe the best thing is Clavia's amp & effects simulation. However Clavia is using fatar keyboard and that's not very high quality. There are some other things with Nord which I'm not satisfied.

Roland's Supernatural Series Electric Piano (ARX-02 card). This one is using some kind of modeling technology (they don't say if there are some sampling included) and instrument is very playable and responsive. Sound is little bit artificial and Roland has some problems with their amp modeling (they cannot provide a warm tube drive for example).

Lounge Lizard 3. I like the expressiveness and tone quality of the product.  It really has parameters to deal with and also many good effects. It's also very CPU effective (no problems with latency or anything). With tweaking I can get a sound which is very close to Clavia's sampled Rhodes (which corresponds to my experience to real Rhodes sound).

I don't own this Native Instrument's Elektrik Piano but I've tested it. Basic sound was quite OK but there was not much to do to it (with effects or anything). The software is quite old and company is not developing (or even selling) it anymore, am I right?

P.S: Still no comments about Motu's Electric Keys..?

Last edited by Ecaroh (21-12-2009 07:11)

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Reply by Michael H

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Re: E-pianos

What I like most about the PTeq EP's is that they take no additional processing power with my mobile system.

In a live playing situation it's pretty unlikely that there would be a call for both acoustic piano and electric piano at the same time. So I've set up Cantabile Lite as the VST host, and I can run Pianoteq plus Native instruments B4 at the same time. When I need the EP's, they're just a program change away, nice and simple.

Michael

Reply by berghs.kedjan

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Re: E-pianos

I play the electric piano instrument thats inside of Logic Studio and I like it, I haven't played to many others but I think it's OK!

http://www.youtube.com/user/berghskedjan

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Reply by olepro

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Re: E-pianos

There is allso this one !
http://www.devine-machine.com/index.php...mp;lang=en

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Reply by Ecaroh

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Re: E-pianos

olepro wrote:

There is allso this one !
http://www.devine-machine.com/index.php...mp;lang=en

I did a quick test of OTR88 with my PC and here some first impressions:

+ Nice and intuitive layout
+ Per-key editing
+ Quite warm sound

- This "warm" sound seems to be little "weak" (this is difficult to put into words) compared to LL3 for example. I can imagine that in gig situation this sound can be difficult to mix and make it sound powerful.
- It seems to be CPU demanding. In my PC I didn't get a low latency performance without "crackles". Same setup is running PTQ without problems. (In fact I use my Mac Book for real things, PC is more testing device)
- There were not so many basic Rhodes sounds (was this the most difficult thing for them to make?) and more "strange things"
- I am not sure about their effects: For example there was no this "warm drive" sound I've been searching for.
- Price 229euros

BUT: As I said, this was just a first impression. Maybe I didn't do right things and listened to wrong presets. Anyway this CPU cost is maybe too much for my setup.

P.S: I use my Clavia's Nord's sampled Rhodes sound as kind of a reference: These sounds (MkI, MkII, MkV) are very close to sound what I would call "basic rhodes sound". In my opinion a good modelling software should be able to provide something close to that.

Last edited by Ecaroh (25-12-2009 22:34)

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