KVR Audio

gotoxy · Post by **gotoxy** » Mon Sep 04, 2023 10:26 am

hi forum. I'm a rhodes piano sound lover even though I dont own one and never heard one live. So I'm searching the free synths catalog (I'm quite poor) for the ones I like best and fit tests on songs like Twin Peaks theme, How to dissapear completely or Sheep by Pink Floyd.

I'm narrowing to two candidates: a Surge XT patch by Roger Linn called 'Rhodes EP' and the Rhodes preset in Keyzone Classic. Whats your opinion of these? Are they anywhere near the real thing? Any tweaking recommended ? I'm comparing to some Chick Corea footage and both sound ok, maybe Keyzone is got more sustain and reverb... anyway, as a deep noob I would appreciate any opinion, setup advice...

nordickvr · Post by **nordickvr** » Mon Sep 04, 2023 11:14 am

If you already own a full version of NI Kontakt 5.6.8 or newer (not the free Kontack Player one), this one looks quite intersting.
https://eti-roads.com/home_en

gotoxy · Post by **gotoxy** » Mon Sep 04, 2023 11:51 am

ty, but cannot 'invest' into music right now or in the near future unless I balance divorce in the mix

I saw an interesting discussion in reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/c ... des_sound/ with praises to Arturia Stage 73 and (with notable disensions) Pianoteq. I found a free Arturia download but looks clearly illegal since the original is about 150€ on the Arturia site, and I dont want to get into that hole for a whim.

Anyway, there's a legal 20 min free demo at chez Arturia, so I can get a taste of the paid version (wich to my surprise is a phisical model, not samples)

NAD · Post by **NAD** » Mon Sep 04, 2023 12:12 pm

I assume you're referring to the "Rhody EP" patch in Surge? In that case, it sounds nothing like a Rhodes to me, more like a DX7 e-piano. Not that I'm any sort of expert. Don't know about Keyzone Classic but if it's sample based then it probably sounds more like a Rhodes than anything you'd get with a synth like Surge.

gotoxy · Post by **gotoxy** » Mon Sep 04, 2023 12:27 pm

Well, tasted the free Arturia demo and I dont see it so far away from Keyzone and even the Surge patch, wich surely means I dont have an educated enough musical ear. (I'm still in the youtube tutorials phase of "what change was I supposed to hear?" Is sounds totally the same! )

I guess with time and experience I will taste the EQs and the compressions, but I've just learned this last week to tell by ear minor and major chords. A long way ahead, I guess.

emikaela · Post by **emikaela** » Mon Sep 04, 2023 1:03 pm

you could look into pianobook and decent sampler. this one seems pretty good for instance https://www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/matts-fender-rhodes/

xbow · Post by **xbow** » Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:58 am

Some free/cheap recommendations that I can think of:

DPiano-E in Dead Duck's classic instruments. Very lightweight, probably not the most accurate, but I really like the sound.

Key of the 70s is also nice.

The Electric Piano in Spitfire Audio LABS may be worth checking out (LABS is generally very popular, but I'm not a huge fan of this one myself)

Cheap options:
XLN Audio Addictive Keys has the "Mark One" (haven't tried it myself).
AAS Audio Lounge Lizard Session (included in the Session Bundle)

These two are often bundled with hardware and unwanted licenses may end up in the Buy&Sell forum for a few bucks. I also have spare licenses, feel free to send a PM if you're interested.

gotoxy · Post by **gotoxy** » Sat Sep 09, 2023 12:16 pm

Yes, I liked the Dead Duck's e-piano, maybe a favorite, and sounds very similar to lynn's patch, gotta prepare a test with three staples, the intros to Sheep, Everything in its right place and twin peaks theme. ty xbow

Flatwound · Post by **Flatwound** » Sun Jan 21, 2024 10:42 pm

That ETI-roads mentioned above sounds particularly good to me. I also like “Matt’s” on Pianobook.

JO512 · Post by **JO512** » Fri Feb 09, 2024 12:31 pm

One suggestion. It's not quite free, but sometimes almost. I really like AAS's Lounge Lizard, which simulates both Rhodes and Wurly via physical modeling, not sampling. Perhaps Pianoteq's is more realistic. I don't know. But I like the sound of Lounge Lizard quite a lot regardless of its realism. You can push the settings far and get quite different sounds too. It also distorts really nicely. On the AAS site, when not on sale, it is priced at $199. But sometimes you can get it quite cheap during a sale. I once got the whole AAS suite for a low price, don't remember exactly. Right now, I see Lounge Lizard in the KVR buy and sell forum for $33:

viewtopic.php?p=8834547&hilit=lounge+lizard#p8834547

I don't know anything about the seller, so buy at your discretion. I've never personally had any problems buying or selling plugins here, and I've done both many times.

eLawnMust · Post by **eLawnMust** » Fri Feb 09, 2024 4:42 pm

Been lots through the years... I think MAGIX Independence has some of the best but that is $$$. For free I really like some of the patches in E-Mu Proteus VX which comes with the Proteus X Composer v2.0.1.exb which has a number of Rhodes & EPs... Maybe 30-40. Some sound real good too enough that I sampled the output to samples library... It's available on achive.org it's 32bitter windows from 2010 or so-

https://archive.org/details/proteus-vx_202103

Any Rhodes expert out there?