29 thoughts on “Neo-Soul Keys Studio For iPad”

1. The price is not $20 but $200.

   1. You’re seeing the Mac OS version which is $200.

      But this iOS version is $20.

      Fortunately, they are offering a free version to try out, then you unlock only the instruments you need at $7 each ($10 for the suitcase), or get the whole shebang for $20.

      That’s good, because you wouldn’t necessarily need to have the entire 11 GB if you didn’t need all those keyboards (Suitcase, Stage, Wurli, Dyno, EX5).

      1. great thing to see if you would like the program

      2. Thanks for clarifying my misunderstanding

2. IAP model. Makes sense kind of. 20 bucks for all of them isn’t bad and it sounds great.

3. 11 GB is a big ask for most people’s devices. Hard to tell from this video if it’s good or not.

   For example, we can’t tell how much of that ridiculous key noise is from his controller and how much is from the instrument.

   I should hope it would have velocity layers! I wonder how many layers for 11 GB. It’s probably better than what IK has in their sampler.

   1. I don’t like sample based recreations. I think they’re somewhat clumsy with their giant elephant footprints. I can’t afford 11gb for a few digital pianos.

4. WAY too much talking. All we want to hear is the sound of the pianos.

   1. There is clearly a reason for so much talking and so little demonstration of the sound of the pianos.

5. terrible intro video like we dont know what music is or how we can tap into a piano. Cant comment on the product but not excited about it so far.

6. I’ve had music apps since iPad V1. I find it difficult to integrate into my studio. I have neo soul keys on my mac, so this is just not for me. But who is it for? I often ask myself how many people are using an iPad as the core of a musical working environment.

   1. I don’t enjoy using an iPad very much for music making….an app like this makes sense to me as a sort of dedicated electric-keys module that just happens to run on an iPad.

      1. Okay, sure. It’s a dedicated electric piano for your iPad (although I’m sure there are others)…… but what do you do with it? You need a number of dedicated peripherals to integrate it into the larger world, unless you simply plug your head phones in and doodle away. But even then you need a suitable keyboard and some form of compatible connection.

         1. A USBMIDI cable, MIDI controller and stereo headphone cable are you’d need to gig with this. Ok, a keyboard stand and a speaker. That’s just to say, it’s no more than required to use a laptop live and the iPad is smaller/lighter. Also… cheaper, considering the software prices. 🙂

            1. Do you do this? Or are we speaking hypotheticals? I can say that I have some really nice apps like Animoog on my ipad pro, but the effort to remove it from my bedside where I use it for dozens of non musical purposes is too much hassle to install it temporarily in the studio. If I could, I’d own two ipads and incorporate one I to my studio setup. I thought I would use it and bought irig keys and irig midi etc, but it’s time consuming and often frustrating just getting everything synced up.

   2. I’m using a workstation synth on live gigs. And if there is ever some category of sound I can’t load samples for, I might consider using something on my iPad. Getting the iPad to connect and produce sound isn’t too tricky.

      That said, I don’t ever do it. I try to avoid it at all costs. I don’t even want to read charts on my stupid iPad. But that’s me.

   3. I exclusively use my iPad as the centre of my music making. I’m not against the desktop environment, just never connected with it for music making. There are many iOS musicians that use iPads as the core of there set-up, only use iPads, or a combination of iOS and desktop workflow. The community has seen rapid growth as evidenced by the almost 8000 members of the FB iPad Musicians group. There are many, many piano apps and as mentioned an 11GB install is more than most folks would want.

      1. Bingo, the 11gb is over the top and unnecessary with apps like Module and etc. my iPad is the center of my studio too and has been for years, it’s so flexible and the sounds are pretty great. People are often shocked that my tracks are made on my iPad. Only thing that gets done on the desktop is mastering. I’ve produced for tv, social media ads, kickstarter ads and etc all with an iPad as the core of my set up. With the iconnect midi bringing in hardware is a cinch. Anyway I’ll be taking s pass on this application as it’s size is way too much. Module has been just fine for me when I need pianos.

      2. No ipad could replace my studio set up. Just contemplating interacting with tiny touch screen knob to control 14 outboard keyboards, my two UA Apollo’s, 5 external hard drives, a rack of USB modules, Maschine, Faderport 8, Aira mixer, 5 pairs of monitors and many things I’ve forgotten. So when your iPad can do this, let’s talk.

         1. No one was talking about replacing our studio environment with an ipad. I have a largely bigger studio than the one you describe and have integrated 3 ipads.
            An ipad 1 controlling a mixer and two (ipad 4 and ipad pro) attached to my daw with iconnectivity stuff.
            I see them as great studio tools… very powerful ones if you ask me

         2. Alternate perspective, I have no need for all of that and am easily able to integrate my hardware with my iPad using my IConnect AudioPlus4. Music production is a very personal process and different workflows appeal to different folks. My point in my previous post is that having an iPad Pro as the centre of my set-up works for me and may work for others but not all. The same applies to an extensive desktop set-up which has no appeal to me.

   4. i do o/

7. I hope they’ve included a way to delete sample sets you don’t use because at $20 for the app, space is the only factor for anyone who wants these sounds.

   Considering how much folks have paid in the past for sample libraries of any one of the included instruments, I don’t get how anyone could kvetch about 20-30 bucks.

8. Looks like 3.87 gig download. That is a large download but not 11 gig. I have to say it sounds great and I know this is not an app that will be abandoned with bugs ? still needing to be worked out. The price is fine and honestly a good deal. The question is do I need another electric piano app? Do I really want an app this nice on my iPad. I think I’m gonna have to get a bigger and better iPad before I decide.

9. This guy LOVES to hear himself talk. You don’t see Dave Smith or Eric Persing rambling on for 30 minutes when they introduce a product. They let the product do the talking.

10. It’s 11gb compressed to 4 gb. So it’s four gb on your iPad?

11. It may be a 3.87 GB download (zipped) that unzips when installed. So I suspect it will take up 11 GB once installed.

    Someone who buys it can confirm.

    If they did full long notes (no loops), release samples, and more than 3 velocity layers; if they sampled every note or every other note, you’re going to see large numbers of long samples. They could have gotten around it by using compressed files (like high-rate mp3s or other). They may even have used stereo samples (though I’m not sure why they would do that). It’s really hard to say.

    This is just a sample player. But getting all the other features right, drive, velocity response, etc. Even editing the samples, it’s all tedious work, that has to be done right.

    Lounge Lizard & PIanoteq use modeling to get there, and the results are pretty impressive. Too bad, there aren’t iOS versions of those.

12. Guys, you are reading the size the wrong way. The sample size UNCOMPRESSED is 11GB, but the size on the iPad is 4GB. So the actual physical size is 4GB in a lossless format, but the amount of material equates to 11GB.

13. The iPad version might not be suitable for studio environment but would be for some live scenarios, the guy is actually a live musician playing in venues like churches and there is indeed a niche for this type of workflow …. installing a bunch of software instruments on an iPad, turning it into a easy to carry sound module.