Tuesday, February 26, 2019

e-Instruments Session Keys Electric Pianos [Exciting Deep] Review | Reviewer's Revival

e-Instruments Session Keys Electric Pianos Review | Reviewer's Revival

e-Instruments Session Keys Electric R Review

 


The suspects under Reviewer Revival’s microscopic scrutiny this time ‘round is a trio of vintage-y, cool e-piano emulations smartly formulated in familiar Kontakt sample form. Throughout this article we’ll be investigating two Rhodes variants (suitcase and stage) as well as a faithful representation of a proverbial ‘king-of-the-reeds’ -- the Wurlitzer 200A. What’s more, each one of these sample libraries comes with two distinctly processed variants – a “Studio” bank and a “Live” bank.

​Let’s face it; there is no shortage of e-piano emulations on the market – many of them actually being quite remarkable. So why is it worth pondering over yet another developer’s entries into the fray? Other than acknowledging that they sound superb, it’s due to their extended features and interesting sample-morphing differentia.


For those who might be acquainted with “Session Horns (Pro)” and “Session Strings (Pro)” - badged as Native Instruments products – e-Instruments’ self-branded “Session Keys” series of highly playable electric pianos will not come across as unheard-of-strangers. In fairness to software giant, “Native Instruments”, the aforementioned strings & horns libraries’ product pages do cite e-Instruments as the actual creators. As a matter of fact, it’s because of the company’s partnership with Native Instruments that e-Instruments gained ground as a relatively new developer at that time.

It’s fair to say that e-Instruments have certainly proven themselves to be top-tier sampling experts since 2010, weaving a pedigree of interest and notability. Enticingly so, their commendable “Session Keys” series of electric pianos are very fairly priced. Each one costs but $79 (USD) / €79 apiece. If at all possible, I do recommend that Canadian customers purchase using US funds. Even though the current exchange rate of USD to CAD (at the time of this publication) would result in an amount of $105 (CAD), for some reason e-Instruments’ online store charges a hefty $129 (CAD).


 

Saturday, February 9, 2019

ESI U22 XT [Exciting, Deep] Review | Reviewer's Revival

ESI U22 XT Review | Reviewer's Revival

ESI U22XT



Get outta here!

Do you really expect me to believe that an audio interface costing only $110 (USD) / $147 (CAD) is worth looking at, let alone actually being enticing enough to try out? That’s ridiculous, right? After all, I’m not a young padawan recordist who’s easily impressed with the cheapest box that my monthly allowance can afford. I've been a professional musician and audio producer for bla bla years . . . started with a 16 track Tascam .  . bla bla.

Ok, ok. I’m just teasing – God bless the younger folks who want to get into recording and music producing – we all had to start somewhere. As a matter of fact, yours truly was only 13 years of age when I “bounced” my first three mono tracks down to a single track; making room for three more ‘live’ tracks on my father’s Phillips 4-track reel-to-reel recorder (circa 1973). For those of you whom are of the millennial generation or even younger - the iGen youngsters - you are seriously more blessed than you might realize. Old guys like me didn’t have nifty contraptions such as: snappy i5 or i7 laptops, multi-track DAW software, and portable audio interfaces when we started out. If I would've had access to a decent laptop, a good-sounding, low latency audio-interface and a FREE bundled starter DAW, I’d have been totally stoked!

Well guess what? This article is devoted to just such a scenario.

ESI’s entry point USB 2.0 audio-interface is prime example of when NOT to judge a book by its orange-y/copper cover. This tidy-looking little box is equally at home in both MAC and Windows setups and like most devices in its class; it features 2-In/2-Out I/O. Expected appointments, such as 48v phantom power and Mic/Line/Instrument connectivity, are at the ready. This sound card delivers an acceptable bit depth and sampling rate, coming in at a maximum of 24bit/96 KHz.

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

GG-Audio Blue3 v2 [Exciting, Deep] Review | Reviewer's Revival

GG-Audio Blue3 v2 Review | Reviewer's Revival



If you’ve been following along with Reviewer’s Revival since a while, you know that I’m a huge Hammond organ aficionado. That said, I’m always excited at the prospect of reviewing any newcomer to the specialized niche of tonewheel organ emulation. Early in 2017, such a newcomer was introduced to us by independent developer, Ray (just Ray); founder and owner of GG-Audio.

Early adoption of GG-Audio’s “Blue3” wasn’t as accelerated as hoped for. For one thing, the naming convention is not dissimilar to Rob Papen’s favored soft synth, “Blue 2”. Another plausible conjecture was the unexpected default color scheme used by “Blue3” – you guessed it: blue.


Overall, I assess Blue3 v2 to be solid prospect for anyone in need of a good quality tonewheel organ VI (Virtual Instrument). I know many of us have long held GSI’s “VB3” in high regard, considering it to be the de facto standard where modelled tonewheel emulations are concerned. However, Blue3 v2 is a worthy contender and is poised to offer itself as a fit challenger.

Priced moderately at $99 (USD), Blue3 won’t break anyone’s bank account, but neither can it be considered a cheap, ‘No brainer’ deal.  However, Blue3 v2 does not emulate a single organ – rather, it distinctly models five different tonewheel organs; as well as boasting exquisite, high resolution/retina-ready graphics (resizable, to boot). This VI produces good quality Hammond tones and a convincing rotating speaker (Leslie®) experience. Taking these laudable factors into view, Blue3 v2 rapidly appreciates in value.

Let’s flip those Run and Start switches shall we . . .



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