Propellerhead has released the Radical Piano Rack Extension for Reason.
Here’s what they have to say about Radical Piano:
With Radical Piano you can do things that are otherwise impossible.
Do you wish your close mic’d grand piano sounded just a little bit more like a vintage mono upright piano? Use the microphone blend to create a hybrid sound. Route audio, like a vocal, through the jacks on the back of Radical Piano to hear it resonate the strings as if you had recorded piano and vocals together live, in the same room. What if with the turn of a knob you could transform the tonal characteristics of your piano, shifting from a soft intimate performance to a bright aggressive instrument that will cut through your mix? We’ve got that knob and it’s called “Character.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6faPgZRuARM
Features:
- Three pianos: Home Grand, Deluxe Grand, and Upright
- Choose a blend of vintage mono, ambience, floor, jazz and close mics
- Go from horror movie soundtrack to sharp cut-through-the-mix piano with the Subdued and Agitated Character settings
- Adjustable velocity response puts you in control of the performance — play quietly or with exaggerated dynamics
- Set the amount of resonance, and key and pedal noises you want for a natural or surgically clean sound
- The built-in EQ, reverb and compressor lets you tweak your sound further to sit perfectly in the mix
- Tons of preset sounds included — Pianos for every situation and every song
Radical Piano is available now for $99.99.
Very nice, with a PROPER demo that shows you the more detailed nuance it has to offer. Now, how many people will actually hook it up and play anything like solo piano with it? Is someone devoted to Reason really in need of a detailed piano plug? How many dance-oriented players have any actual piano skills to bring to the party? Last, how many piano-centered people will turn to Reason for such an intimate instrument? I’m all for the new Racks in general, as they have seemed well-designed so far. As a pianist, I’m simply curious to see how the market takes to this one. It feels too “big” for the environment, although I am perfectly ready to have a good player prove me wrong.
I think that reason might be to late with rack extensions. It would be nice if all manufactures would bring out their (vst) plugins in rack extensions format. A new platform means a new market, so why not.
But somehow reason seems to stay in the dark. Partly because of their sequencer i think wich is ok, but not really very good.
10 years ago reason was unprecedented. endless samples and synthesizers, and all programmed very wel. It is still one of the most stable softsynths i know.
But the main thing is that their synths do not really develop anymore. I hope there will come many rack extensions that blow our minds and ears. If not i am afraid that reason will dissappear slowly.
The best £75 I ever spent. There are no other plugins out there that can get the level of detail this thing can.
Since Reason 7 I use no other DAW’s. My question is how much better is Radical Piano than the already amazing NN-XT patches?
Year 2016 and still using Reason 4…
Why?
Just because I made a Steinway with a Combinator nesting six NNXT inside.
Two of these six NNXT are the main pianos with 10 groups of zones each (based on Steinway D and other foreigner samples), one of these main NNXT for upper pedal (normal bright sound) and the other one for the pressed pedal (Una Corda), interchanged by the “soft pedal”. The Una Corda level is adjusted Via rotary of the Combinator.
And the other 4 NNXT are for hammer FX (one NNXT for hammers hit and the other NNXT for hammers release) One group two NNXT dedicated for normal piano and the other group of two dedicated for Una Corda.
Endless polyphony (99 each group of zones) and adjustable balancing via Mixer sliders, and each module with its own Mclass Equalizer.
This is an unbeatable piano, and nothing (not even Pianoteq, Ivory2, Alicia Keys, etc…) can beat my strong, dirty and imperfect piano.
I play it and I feel the wood and the metal in front of my eyes, “in the face”.
It supports half pedaling also.
Dynamics from whisper to hurt.
The Higher keys are woody and dirty and are surrounded by an unpredictable and deep hammer murmuring in a ramshackle mechanism, the lower notes are thick and you can see the corda.
Sometimes the piano seems to ask for a technician so desperately… it can be sweet and grotesque at the same time…
It’s alive, and it knows me… I MADE IT so imperfect…