Native Instruments has introduced Electric Keys, featuring a pair of new electric piano virtual instruments.
Electric Keys includes emulations of two classic electric pianos. Here’s what they have to say about them:
- Electric Keys – Phoenix captures the sound of a true icon – one of the world’s most influential and recognised electric pianos. With a vast spectrum of sounds, from melodious, bell-like textures to rich, warming harmonies and even distorted, barking tones, Phoenix delivers diverse retro timbres.
- Electric Keys – Diamond immortalizes a very rare, original electric piano from 1967. Beyond its sparkling exterior lie real felt piano hammers, producing a unique and mellow tone similar to a vibraphone.
Features:
- A versatile pair of electric piano emulations
- Pure, authentic tones ranging from warm and mellow to bright and barking
- Customize your sound with a classic array of controls, preamps, and creative effects
Pricing and Availability:
Electric Keys Phoenix and Diamond are individually priced $99 USD each, while the Tines Duo bundle of both is $149 USD.
There are quite a few good libraries out there for E.P. so it’s not like NI is addressing some void in the market.
I don’t doubt NI can make a really good one (or two in this case). I like the interesting additional sound components. The choices they made for how to sample it and give it lots of flexibility. That demo is pretty great.
The E.P. is such a beautiful sound. I never get tired of it. I really like how chords sound on a really nice Rhodes.
Pianoteq some of this versatility. It would be cool to hear some comparisons.
Pianoteq is far superior in absolutely every way
These NI pianos are almost 20 Gb in size and limited to the quality and number of samples taken. Usually 6-10 velocity layers in a sampled instrument. No way for important intricacies like sympathetic resonance to be accounted for
None of these limitations with Pianoteq – and is less than 100 Mb in size
No question Pianoteq is expressive, versatile, flexible and just all-in-all wonderful. My interest in a comparison is just to see how well a sort of “normal” E.P. in PT sounds next to a sampled one.
On the subject, I got a bunch of sampled ones for a very reasonable price from Purgatory Creek Soundware. Amazing value. Between PT and that, I’m all set.
“The E.P. is such a beautiful sound. I never get tired of it. I really like how chords sound on a really nice Rhodes.“
+1
Most times my go to instrument to get stuff started.
Yea, me too. I love just pulling up a rhodes kind of sound and just staring to make chord progressions.
Some silly responses here.
Native Instruments *didn’t* make these instruments… Galaxy Instruments did. Galaxy, which has made Noire, Piano Colors, Una Corda and others for NI over the years, all of which are very, very good and innovate libraries that are priced low compared to the market. Noire, in particular, is what drew me away from Pianoteq for my everyday playing… it is a truly remarkable instrument.
Pianoteq is *not* better in every way. While some like the Pianoteq EPs, most do not… I find the EP models in particular to be weak and unusable as someone that has spent a lot of time playing and mixing real Rhodes instruments. They also do not feature good preamp and speaker/room/mic modeling or IRs as are imncluded here. As for the size of the sample library — 20GB is the norm. I have a 99GB grand piano library, too. And sampled pianos do not need more than 4-7 velocity layers… that’s not how sampling works well with these instruments. Too many layers diminishes the quality of the result.
Anyway, these look very good — good enough that I’m considering checking them out even though I have Keyscape and the Rhodes mk8 plugins.