ePiano

I had forgotten about this gem but came across it on my hard drive an hour ago and wow! I remembered what a really wonderful sounding instrument that is.

User Interface: OK, as all mda plugins it's not supposed to be pretty, just work. It uses your host's interface with clearly labeled sliders that give exactly the tone variety you need. I think that approach works well, also the looks of the instrument never go in and out of fashion, it's sort of classic.

Sound: That's the best part. I've played with many epiano emulations (commercial and freeware) and this one is a great competitor. To be fair I'm not sure which of the instruments I've played is the best at faithfully emulating a piano, but regarding pure beauty of sound I think this one is a winner.

Features: This is a one trick pony so don't expect many features. It produces one sound, that is of an electric piano and that's it. It offers some extras like pan/tremolo, detune and overdrive which are more than enough.

Documentation: None, who needs it? It's very simple to use and actually nearly impossible to produce a bad sound.

Presets: Same as "Documentation" section applies here.

Customer Support: I guess it's extinct but I don't need it either. I'm just grateful that the developer gave to the community such a fine instrument.

Value For Money: Are you kidding? It's free!! As unbelievable as that may sound...

Stability: As a rock. Hasn't crashed any of my hosts.

As a conclusion this is one of the best instruments out there. It doesn't do a lot of things but if you need an electric piano you should grab it. These days I own the much hyped MrRay73 Mark II which of course truly deserves it's hype but the mda epiano is a really strong competitor if you also take into account that it's free.

I really like this one, a really nice, very usefull electric piano sound. The user interface is the host's one (slider box, or whatever), but that doesn't matter when you start to play it.

The default sound makes me want to play old Stevie Wonder riffs (Sunshine Of My Life, In the City, etc..), or jazzy II, V, I, progressions. With a bit of tweaking, you can get it to sound a bit like a Wurlitzer, then launch into some Supertramp riffs.

I personaly like to use a piano for coming up with new song ideas, because a good piano is very expressive and you don't get bogged down with the sound (electric or acoustic). This is a great one for that, within half an hour of downloading it, I had written a new tune.

Of course, writing songs on a piano isn't for everyone, and I certainly don't write all my stuff that way. But this really is a great one to have in your VST folder if you like E Piano sounds.

User interface, manual, and customer support aren't really necessary with this one. It does what is expected. However, I wanted to give it a good mark so I've awarded points for those, even though they don't exist.

To sum up, I reckon this is the BEST free electric piano out there. Get it and see.

I love this piano; it's very similar to a Hohner Pianet, but with added tremolo/pan, plus the hardness & tone control.

The GUI is very basic, but eveything is obvious. I've never needed to look for a manual or customer support details, hence the halfway score. The same goes for presets: it's not an issue.

Referring to comments below, I've had no stability problems whatsoever, so I'd recommend trying it out for yourselves.

Great stuff...thanks!

drk_sum / just conspiracy songs upon which the ePiano has been used: deep inside / dilligence / fold / hope for the day / make it happen / vicous / stay by your side. The user interface leaves much to be desired, but the epiano holds its own as a rich sounding, low-CPU way to get really pensive electric tinklebox sounds from your VSTi host. The controls are adequate, and easy to operate. The price and CPU-usage will guarantee a place in my work for the epiano, barring a replacement CPU and a new free epiano.

Not bad, but MDA guys have not beaten their amazing Piano. The structure is the same of Piano, the dynamics and the articulation, are very well represented but, for me, the problem is the samples, there is something that does not work with the attack of the sound, it is, for me, too cold and electronic. If i were a good programmer i would like to "crack" MDA electric piano and to try to put, in his good structure, some samples of a Rhodes Suitcase that i use sometimes.
MDAepiano is decent, helped by a better overdrive and tremolo it works, but in this case i would stick on my very simple patches on Halion, the humble Vsampler or Roland S750 made with a little VCF response on dynamics, adding MDA overdrive and a little Supaphaser, WITH VERY SHORT looped samples, but RESPECTING more the attacks of the original Rhodes.

I also have the same stability problem of the other mac rewiever