Adam Monroe Music has released Adam Monroe's Mark 73 Electric Piano for VST, AU and Kontakt. Here's the story in their own words...

Adam Monroe's Mark 73 Electric Piano was sampled from a 1976 Rhodes Mark I Stage Piano. The entire keyboard was wrapped in tinfoil, which virtually eliminated EMI noise. The piano was sampled DI through a Radial Pro 48 DI box, and the signal was routed to a Fender Deluxe Reverb amp, recorded relatively clean through an AEA R84 Ribbon Mic and AEA TRP Preamp.

Each note of the 73 note of the Rhodes Piano was sampled 3 times at 10 velocity layers. Releases where sampled for the DI signal as well as the amped signal, but the amp release notes sounded a bit out of place, so the decision was made to only include DI releases. The sound of the amp can be heard in the amp samples, as a Fender Reverb Deluxe is a noisy amp, even without a signal. The DI samples are relatively clean by comparison.

This particular Rhodes Piano was relatively in-tune, but some post-processing re-pitching was necessary in order to bring every note into a -2 +2 cent variance of equal temperament. The "bass boost" knob of the Rhodes Piano was set to 1 and the volume knob was set to 9. The instrument was left natural sounding, without eq tweaking, although one note was eq'd in order to make it fit with the rest.

The phase of the two signals had to be carefully adjusted by hand for each note, as the amp signal significantly lagged behind the DI signal. The settings on the amp were treble: 5 bass: 5. The amp signal has a slightly more agressive tone, well the DI signal is warmer and fuller. Samples are 16 bit, 44.1 kHz wav files.

Some simple linear distortion was added to the VST and Kontakt versions, as well as some built-in reverb. A smooth button was added to dial back some of the harshness of digital linear distortion. The Kontakt version of Adam Monroe's Mark 73 Electric Piano is cross-platform, and is maintained by Native Instruments, all the programming and effects being done through them. Some simple scripting is done by us. The VST and (future) Audio Unit versions are another beast entirely, and the programming falls entirely on AdamMonroeMusic. The goal in any sample library that is also a VSTi (virtual instrument), is to attempt to match the performance of the Kontakt Player. With this library, we feel like we have done just that.

The VST and Audio Unit versions include updated, high-performance algorithms that have been improving with each new virtual instrument released by Adam Monroe Music. For example, the buffering algorithm is double-buffered and multithreaded, which means that buffering performance is fast, even on slower computers, and even in lower latencies. Voices are held and iterated over in a pure, C-Style array. Memory use is comparable to the Kontakt version - around 390MB . Because of the solid VST AU code base, you can feel confident that the VST version should work just as well as the Kontakt version.

Why develop a VST or Audio Unit version at all? Although a great piece of software, the Full version of Kontakt (required to run 3rd party sample libraries) is expensive. Developing a VST or Audio Unit version that anyone can use does not add significant time to the development of a Rhodes Piano library - most of the time is spent sampling and processing the samples - so it's a real no-brainer.

Audio engineering is a large part of creating a VST or Audio Unit, but the sounds of this Rhodes Piano library have barely been processed. No eq tweaks were made, as the tone can be shaped dramatically by blending between DI and amp signals. Adding distortion, even a small amount, can significantly drive the gain and presence of the signal.

Pricing and Availability:
$25

More information:

• Adam Monroe's Mark 73 Electric Piano

 

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