Sampleson has introduced Reed106, a modeled electric piano for Mac & Windows that they say is always changing, just like a physical electric piano:
“Every note, every day, every month. Reed106 creates small variations of itself every time you play it (reproducing temperature, humidity, power supply fluctuations in real life). This eliminates one of the most frustrating things in a VST. The boring effect that a virtual instrument generates over time.”
Features:
- Spectral modeled Reed-based Electric Piano.
- Extended range (64 keys).
- Just 45MB.
- No velocity-switching.
- Reverb, Tremolo and Drive FX
- Scalable HD interface.
- MacOS Catalina and Big Sur Ready.
- No extra purchases are needed (like Kontakt, UVI, etc) or any other 3rd. party player.
- Ready to be loaded into major DAWs (Cubase, Logic Pro, GarageBand, Cakewalk, Reaper, BitWig, Nuendo, FL Studio, etc)
- Win 32 & 64 bits VST/Standalone. Mac VST/AU/Standalone versions (No AAX version)
- No online activation is required.
Reed106 Audio Demo:
Pricing and Availability:
Reed106 is available now, with an intro price of $29 USD (normally $49 USD.
There are quite a few nice electric/reed pianos now. I’ve found they all approach the tonal dynamic range a little differently.
The attack of this seems pretty understated, but perhaps that is more authentic. Perhaps in an update they can add a control to add in a little more attack.
To make it real, they should add humidity, temperature, and voltage sensors and mix the performance environment into the result. Randomizing is one thing, but making the sound output reflect real conditions is better – is it not?
(And maybe they could make a few keys stick when the humidity is really high?)
To a point. The two main factors are: A. Will the player notice it and feel it in playing? and B. Will a listener experience something? — even if they don’t necessarily identify what that something is.
Going into temperature & humidity may be overthinking it.
Pianoteq actually kind of gets to this on some ways by letting you do per-note customizing where you can make some notes into “clunkers”.
Seems like a nighmare to record. Want to splice together phrases from 2 different takes? Now you’ve got even more unpredictable (random) variations to deal with.
This is one of those ideas that seems intriguing in theory, but is counterproductive in practicce.
For one, keep all your takes in MIDI until mixdown, and secondly, the variations probably aren’t so dramatic that you couldn’t just cut phrases on a note attack.
One solution for this bit would be to make the random seed explicit.
Generally I think it’s a good idea. The inherent randomness in velocity, breath and MPE are already really useful to make everything naturally more lifelike.
I hate “real” random generators in virtual synths, cause on render you can get a totally different picture. I sometimes end up using Edison and do few takes just to capture that sweet spot – with prerecorded midi. Aparillo is infamous for this.
IMO a pseudorandom generator that uses song position timestamp as a seed should be a standard for “random” stuff for DAW-oriented VST. All and all it’s most likely a simple PRG, as it is not an algorythm for strong encryption. I’m all for unpredictability, but not for electric piano parts for shure.
Software Dev 1: “I can’t seem to get the oscillator algorithm to stabilize. Every time I test it – it sounds different #$%^&!”
Software Dev 2: “No worries! Tell the marketing guys its a feature!”