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.Read Review

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.Read Review

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!Read Review

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.Read Review

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 rewieverRead Review

Excellent for what it says it does; emulate the Rhodes sound. In that sense it is excellent but perhaps a bit limited. (Certainly not a EPStation)

It sounds good, is simple to use, very stable... Go and Download it.

Could mda please put a front end on this thing, even something as bland as that on the mda piano would be an improvement.Read Review

this is really a great plugin, when it works on my mac. ( with os 9.1 & 9.2.1 also) unfortunatly it causes often crashes (cubase 5.1r1 / 5.0 also) when i load a song. so a have first to open a default song, load it play some notes, and then i can open my arrangment where the plugin is in use. then it works fine and don´t causes crashes anymore. strange, but true.
i won´t compare it with the ev73, but in fact of the low cpu needs it brilliant, has it´s own warm character. i hope mda will fix the problem soon, cause this plugin is on of my favourites.Read Review

This isn't a $100 VSTi or huge multisample, it is a simple electronic piano synth that does a convincing job of emulating the Wurlizer and Rhodes sound, you can get a tine, FM kind of thing but surprisingly the emulations go more toward vintage gear.

My keyboard player from years ago had a Wurlitzer. Within a few minutes I was able to get his sound down with mda ePiano. Again, like other mda synths they are tweakable enough to sit well in almost any mix.

Pros: excellent sound, easy on the processor, works well in mixes, it's free
Cons: an interface would have been nice and worth paying for.

Love the distortion, very creamy. Try it, it's free and most probably given some time playing it will find it's way into one of your recordings.Read Review

I was disappointed with this plugin. It didn't have the tonal variety of the modeled EVP73, and it didn't have the lush sound of the biggagigga Rhodes sample for Gigasampler.

It's not a terrible Rhodes, but it doesn't compare with the best synth and sample Rhodes I've heard.Read Review

someone pleeeeez give MDA a nice GUI for this one.
think of this plugin having a nice rhodes interface, awww, that would be great.

oh, reviewing, yes :-) well i think it is awesome. for some reason, it always seems like the rhodes sample sets with somewhat hard sample transitions are the best sounding at the end of the day, and this is no exception. i especially like the ability to change the characteristics, works really really good.

hating emagic for their restrictive VST support (releasing a crippled EVP) im very thankful that they get their well deserved kick in the a.. from MDA. well done guys :-)

*bows before all freeware developers*Read Review

This thing sounds unbelievable. Warm and lively. My only quibble is that the switch from one sample to another is somewhat abrupt. But in each "register" the sound is great.Read Review

This is one of the few VSTi's I find myself loading up and just playing for hours not realizing where the time went. This instrument provides the warm Rhodes sound, that we all know and love. I was concidering purchasing the EVP77 after being impressed with it at a friends house, but after finding this absolute gem I see no reason to. The EVP77 sounds digital and cold (not to mention overly bright), where this is warm in all the right places. Sure these two instruments generate their sounds in diferent ways where one is trying to create a physical model a Rhodes (EVP), and another is playing off of samples, but the end goal is the same: a good Rhodes sound. And as far as I'm concernced MDA's E-Piano wins hands down. Plus it's free, making this instrument an absolute necessity.Read Review

Well this is lovely - better than my Sonic Implants Rhodes soundfont (which is pretty good).

The only quibble is that I get some weird sample clicking at and around Ab3 with highish velocities (the octave below middle C) - don't know if it's my setup or the ePiano.

mda haven't replied either - but it's bloody free so why should they !

swayzakRead Review

Once again mda has a winner: the ePiano has a wonderful realistic warm sound and actually sounds like an electric piano (I always think it's funny when you say "electric piano" to people these days, they seem to immediately think of that DX7-style bell-sy sounding thing... :-)). The perfect sound for setting "that" mood.

My only "wish-list" item: that it worked polyphonically in Buzz (a lot of VSTi's seem to have this problem for some reason)....Read Review

Another surprise from those crazy guys (or is it just one?) from MDA!
A really good sounding implementation of a Rhodes, with enough parameters
to tweak your sound. As other mentioned, except for the "missing" Wurlitzer,
this one is as good as, if not better than the EVP series from Emagic.
Sound quality is outstanding!
MDA, I admire you for such excellent quality software, especially for free.
Please add a nice GUI, then you have one of the best VSTis out there!
Read Review

I've made a double blind comparision with my excellent GEM Realpiano exp. Rhodes (the best i had ever heard):
well, the MDA sounds more realistic and warmer , though
is lacking the nice "touch related" drive effect that
GEM has.
As a Wurlitzer sound fan I really hope MDA will build
a virtual VSTi Wurly with the same quality:very good.
Thank you to MDA engineers!Read Review

Excactly the Rhodes sound I remember my older brother got from his Rhodes. Not as clear as the Rhodes-samples on my p200, but with this lo-fi sound, it's more authentic. I spend 8 houres straight after downloading, just playing (as I did with the NI B4 to)
This instrument impresses me 1000 times more than the Mda acustic piano.
And, what's even more importan, it's free, and it's a VSTi, without limitations like Emagic's e-pianos.
Download it, and try. It's totally free, and sounds like a real Rhodes ( as I can remember ) If you have a masterkeyboard with piano keys, just close your eyes, and your back in the times when instruments weigths several tons, and everything was real funky.Read Review

This instrument is fantastic - and if you tweak it the number of sounds you can create is very wide. Couple it with some effects and you have one of the funkiest instruments around. For free, which it is, this instrument is astounding. Okay, so the gui isn't glamourous, but it is functional. But the sound.... And the very low CPU. This is going into my default setup, and staying there.Read Review

mda does it again! Thank you for delivering us the EVP73 killer that I wished for. I am SO fed up with Emagic's market manipulation tactics--I direly wanted an electric piano VSTi, would have killed (or PAID) to have an EVP88 because I love Wurly's so much--even kinda wish I had gotten Logic in the first place, just because of its qualities as a sequencer--but I'll be damned if I buy ANY Emagic product now, because of their dogged refusal to make their plug-ins available as unrestricted VSTi's. And now mda has put out this wonderful little freebie--no GUI, no presets, and no documentation, but so easy to understand you don't need any of that, just plug(in) and play! Sounds WONDERFUL, easy to customize with alot of versatility (but still doesn't sound like a Wurlitzer--DAMN!), but all the Fender Rhodes I'm going to need, for FREE! God bless you, mda. And wise up, Emagic.Read Review

I've been playing with this instrument for two days now and I still can't believe that it's free.

The sound is great: It's dynamic and versatile. As I recall (from old jazz recordings) the sound is more like an early Rhodes Suitcase piano than a Stagepiano.

Enough parameters to tweak the sound to your own wishes. It's great for playing chords deep in the mix, but also for solowork this instrument fits perfectly.

If you want to convince yourself of the quality, try downloading one of the thousends available midijazzfiles on the internet and connect the mda epiano to the pianoparts of the song. You will be stunned what this software sounds like when played by a decent pianoplayer.

Try this thing with effects like Blue Phaser and a delay and your takin' off to be the next Herbie Hancock :)

The only thing that has 'bothered' me is that the hammerstrokes are sometimes too loud compared to the pianosound.
Read Review