Advice on Rhodes, Clav and drums plugins on sale

[funkyhammond]

I could use some advice. I really need a good Rhodes VST. The Scarbee sale was mentioned in the Black Friday thread. Lizard Lounge is also on sale. Arturia doesn't look to be. Any recommendations for something that provides good feel/connection to the sound for dynamic live playing? Also, nothing that is a CPU hog just in case any are. I could also use a good Clav that will work well with a keyboard that has a high trigger option.

 

I've also been looking at the sales of drum plugins. I have very little experience with them. I'm looking for a drum plugin where it is easy to create or find particular patterns (like the grid search or tap search I've read about on some of the plugins). I don't care about recording quality but rather ease of use for getting things down quickly to create backing rhythms for composition. The genre will tend to be more on the jazz and fusion end of things and sometimes with odd time signatures. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks

[KuruPrionz]

I can speak a bit to drum plugins, including 2 at the end of my post that are on sale for almost nothing right now. So far, I haven't found any good odd time signature beats. I think you may have to go out into the weeds and build those yourself. 

 

I have IK Multimedia MODO Drum. The sounds are good, the patterns are good for what they are. You may find a few "jazzy" patterns, there are no odd time signatures. 

There is a nice variety of kits, a dozen or so. 

 

Also Native Instruments Studio Drummer, limited number of drum sound options but they sound real. Lots of patterns, you might find some interesting stuff in there. It's pretty old, I got mine in 2010 or so and they've had a few updates. 

 

And NI Drumlab, it's nothing special and I probably would not buy it again, I should have done the demo thing. Live and learn.

AND NI West Africa. I like this, it's part of the Discovery Series, they have six different plugins, you are likely to find some odd time signatures in this collection. 

https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402382191121-Discovery-Series-Is-Now-Spotlight-Collection

 

Yesterday an MPN friend shared this link with me - https://www.airmusictech.com/black-friday

Today I bought Drum Synth 500 and Strike for around $20 for the pair. I haven't used them yet so I can't speak to that but they are worth a look at that price. 

Good luck and let us know what you try and/or get!!!!! 

[funkyhammond]

1 hour ago, KuruPrionz said:

I can speak a bit to drum plugins, including 2 at the end of my post that are on sale for almost nothing right now. So far, I haven't found any good odd time signature beats. I think you may have to go out into the weeds and build those yourself. 

 

 

Thanks. The odd time sig is more of a nice to have in terms of preset patterns. Which is why I'm looking for something that is hopefully easy to use for also quickly entering your own patterns and "humanizing" it with some features like randomness in dynamics/quantization, automatically adding complexity/ghost notes to the pattern, etc. I know some plugins do stuff like that but I have no ideas which ones are considered the best for doing that quickly and easily.

[drawback]

I have a few good Rhodes Vis for Mac and iOS. My pick for best and most versatile is Soniccouture’s Canterbury Rhodes, followed by The Famous E, and then Scarbee. I’ve tried Lounge Lizard and Pianoteq, and find them lacking in the Rhodes dept.

 

Best iOS Rhodes in my opinion is still NeoSoul Keys Studio 2, but Korg Module’s Scarbee add-on is very good, as is VTines. You need patience with Neo Soul to get the grunge out and shape a clean sound, but the basic tones are all there to work with. Very good Fx package as well.
 

Good time to buy as almost everything’s on sale. 

[KuruPrionz]

28 minutes ago, funkyhammond said:

 

Thanks. The odd time sig is more of a nice to have in terms of preset patterns. Which is why I'm looking for something that is hopefully easy to use for also quickly entering your own patterns and "humanizing" it with some features like randomness in dynamics/quantization, automatically adding complexity/ghost notes to the pattern, etc. I know some plugins do stuff like that but I have no ideas which ones are considered the best for doing that quickly and easily.

I get it, I often find what I currently have falls short for me in terms of interesting beats. I wish I had more interesting options, maybe somebody will post some and we'll both learn new things. 😇

 

At the same time, I am constantly learning new things and after realizing that you can stretch or shrink MIDI clips without changing the tone of the instrument it plays, I'm ready for a new game. It should be easy to drop preset MIDI patterns into a DAW and stretch or shrink the clips so you have 3, 5 and 7 beats in the same space where there used to be 4. 

 

Not for everyone, I get it.

 

I'm mostly recording my own material and I've made drum parts a few times with intros, fills, drops, ends etc. I've also experimented with layering different beats and fading them in and out. I recently posted in the Recording forum about stretching and shrinking MIDI and then audio - you can easily get an octave higher and lower and layer them, that's fun. The second post has a clip you can play and the first post explains that process. Pretty simple and it gave me more options but there is more to come.

On the other hand, if you are looking for things you can just hit the "Go" button and start playing, what I'm messing about with is way too much work!!!!

I've got a foot in both worlds, I recently made a backing track that has 3 overlapping drum parts at the same tempo and I played a bass line so I can jam over it. Fun!

[yannis D]

As mentioned:

I like and use Scarbee Rhodes and Wurlie within Mainstage and Korg Module in iOS.

Very easy to use and versatile, good right out of the box

 

[CyberGene]

What would be a good Rhodes plugin that doesn't require Kontakt Player? I'm sick of Kontakt and won't ever install that abomination on my computer again. Currently I'm using the Rhodes sounds in my CP88 when recording Rhodes in Logic and all is good since the CP88 sends clean digital audio through USB but a bit more flexibility with a standalone plugin won't be bad. The one in Logic is OK but I prefer sampled ones. When I last listened to different modeled Rhodes they all sounded too rubbery and synthetic but they may have improved in the last years?

[Stefan011]

Scarbee sounds great out of the box, Canterbury Rhodes is beautiful, but I tend to tweek it more fore some reason.

 

If You want to avoid NI Kontakt, Pianoteq models are very usable if a tad less detailed. 

[CyberGene]

5 minutes ago, Stefan011 said:

If You want to avoid NI Kontakt, Pianoteq models are very usable if a tad less detailed. 

I have Arturia V and the Logic Pro X electric piano (both modeled) but I'm not convinced by these modeled pianos, seems I prefer samples. I have also listened to Lounge Lizard demos and I owned a Numa X piano (also with modeled Rhodes) and to me all modeled Rhodes pianos have some rubbery effect to them.

 

Anyone tried this?

https://www.uvi.net/en/pianos-keyboards/key-suite-electric.html

 

That library seems enormous with 63 different electromechanical instruments sampled (14GB of FLAC samples or 63GB in WAV). I already own VILabs Modern U and UVI Workstation with iLok, so it's OK for me to use that workstation, actually it's a very lean software that I like (in contrast to Kontakt).

[jejefunkyman]

My preferred topic 🙂

Scarbee is also my favorite Rhodes emulation, which I use on iOS through Korg Module.

I also have Neo Soul Keys Studio 2 and VTines.

But as I said already several times on this forum, I don't like the basic tones of NSK2, though I like the concept and the flexibility it offers. 

VTines neither sounds so good to me compared to Scarbee.

Now I'm waiting to try the Pianoteq Rhodes once they will be available on iOS.

The Purgatory Creek EPs I heard through their demos sound good to me, but one need to use Kontakt for playing them.

I wish they would offer it as standalone on PC/Mac and iOS but it doesn't seem to be in their plan.

It's really a pit because once again, I really liked what I heard.

[Al Coda]

6 hours ago, drawback said:

My pick for best and most versatile is Soniccouture’s Canterbury Rhodes, followed by The Famous E, and then Scarbee. I’ve tried Lounge Lizard and Pianoteq, and find them lacking in the Rhodes dept.

 

Yesterday I jumped on Scarbee CEP88s and the Expansion.

NI´s Scarbee content isn´t the same as also Session Keys´ variants didn´t satisfy 100%.

 

Don´t own Canterbury and Famous E,- but Rhodes pianos in Keyscape catched my interest too.

 

I tweaked endless in Lounge Lizard as also in Pianoteq Pro,- and got lost, recognizing I´d need a well maintained real Rhodes side-by-side to do the tweaks note-by-note.

IMO, ASS Lounge Lizard´s as also Pianoteq´s Rhodes presets aren´t realistic at all and need a LOT of user work to be playable the way I remember from my custom modified Fender Rhodes mk I 73 Stage I bought new as 1st owner.

 

Now I hope CEP88s will serve me well and I´ll see today evening after installation.

 

 

A.C.

[Reezekeys]

I use Scarbee in both Kontakt Player on my Mac and in Korg Module on my iPhone & iPad. The Mac version has more bark (likely because of more sample layers) but I'm OK with the iOS version.

 

I also have Famous E and while it's a fantastic product, I don't find myself using it much since the kind of music I do is more old-school funk/r&b and jazz. The Famous E really is the Famous E from L.A. studio fame, the exact rhodes from all those old Al Jarreau records and sessions from the time before the sparkly DX7 rhodes sound took over. It's a different, "purer" and less aggressive rhodes. Having both that and Scarbee seems like a great way to have all your Rhodes bases covered. I believe the Rhodes in Keyscape is one modified by the same guy that did the Famous E Rhodes, and sounds similar.

[funkyhammond]

A lot of votes for Scarbee. That really helps, thanks. I initially got confused when my search brought up both the Scarbee site and the NI site. I'm guessing the NI Scarbee Mark 1 is now an older plugin and the Classic EP-88S on the Scarbee site is the one to get. Any opinions about the Clavinet/Pianet compared to other Clav plugins?

[Reezekeys]

I've heard both the older Scarbee set and the EP-88S, *imo* you'll do fine with either. They might even use the same basic samples. I got the older set on a NI sale for a very reasonable price and have been totally happy with it.

 

If I remember right, the EP-88S has a much fancier UI with a good selection of effects, along with a real-time velocity-to-sample-layer display. This gives you visual feedback to help set the velocity curve that uses all layers. It does sound very similar to the original, imo.

[funkyhammond]

I see some complaints about having to use the Kontakt player. Does it use above average CPU? Does it have issues being used in some DAWs or plugin hosts like Cantabile?

[funkyhammond]

4 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:

along with a real-time velocity-to-sample-layer display. This gives you visual feedback to help set the velocity curve that uses all layers.

 

That's a cool feature. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Reezekeys]

3 minutes ago, funkyhammond said:

I see some complaints about having to use the Kontakt player. Does it use above average CPU? Does it have issues being used in some DAWs or plugin hosts like Cantabile?

 

I believe CPU usage depends on what Kontakt is doing with the samples, not the basic design of the Kontakt player itself. The Scarbee rhodes is more bare-bones in terms of processing needs, and I have no issues whatsoever on my ancient late-2013 MacBook pro running Mojave (and that's with other VIs running at the same time). OTOH I believe the Famous E has more involved scripting going on, and also does its effects differently where some of them use double the # of voices. I've heard some occasional crackling on my rig with big note counts on the famous E.

[Reezekeys]

Also - the Kontakt player has a pref called "multiprocessor support" that lets you assign any number of processor cores to Kontakt (when it's running standalone). The manual says, in not so many words, that this setting is more or less a crapshoot and can either help or hurt depending on what else is running on your computer. You have to experiment to find what works.

[funkyhammond]

2 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:

Also - the Kontakt player has a pref called "multiprocessor support" that lets you assign any number of processor cores to Kontakt (when it's running standalone). The manual says, in not so many words, that this setting is more or less a crapshoot and can either help or hurt depending on what else is running on your computer. You have to experiment to find the setting that works.

 

I'd love it if some manual actually wrote "this setting is more of less a crapshoot". I would respect them just for the honesty and humour.   But I'd be running inside a plugin host or DAW so this is moot anyway.

[adammonroe]

I also think the Scarbee sounds quite good. I also like Acousticsamples VTines. If you need a simple library that plugs directly into your DAW and doesn't cost much, have a look at my Rhodes sample library. It's not the smoothest sound, but a little more natural/raw, and I have programmed Vacuum Tube Sims into it, so it does the distortion/driven sound better than most plugins. But if you need the "smooth" sound, maybe Scarbee.

 

To be honest, if you need to do DSP processing in your plugins, Kontakt is fairly limiting, with only a few built-in effects you can script, so buying libraries that bypass Kontakt isn't a bad idea if you are looking for plugins with unique sound design/distortion/reverb/effects/ect.

 

I also have a Rhodes shootout video on YouTube with all the major players. Scarbee is absent, but I have a separate review video on it as Scarbee was kind enough to send me a copy for review.

 

And also a Rhodes blog.

[CyberGene]

For me the problem with Kontakt is I haven’t purchased it and so I have to use the Kontakt Player instead. The last time I installed it it basically acted as a bloatware and not only came with tons of unwanted samples that I couldn’t remove unless I followed some third-party instructions on the Internet but also installed some agent on my computer that was running all the time. What is more, I had to create a NI account and started receiving marketing emails although I explicitly unmarked all checkboxes. Also, the performance was subpar. Basically Kontakt Player at that time was an aggressive software that was bordering on malware. 

[Reezekeys]

My experience with Kontakt Player is different. I did have to install an app called "Native Access" and create an account. I saw a page with a list of sample packages they offered as free downloads, but I could choose any or none to download; nothing beyond Kontakt Player went onto my computer when I installed it. Native Access is how you validate the serial #s of whatever sound packages you download.

 

The disparity between sample sets that require the full Kontakt and those that run on the free player are well known, at least I thought they were. 3rd-party devs have to pay a license fee to NI in order to have their packages run in the free player. "Welcome to the music business" applies to the software side too, I guess!

 

As far as performance being "subpar", not sure what that means. Subpar how? I probably don't push my Kontakt rig too hard but it seems to be doing fine, as a VI hosted in Bidule in my old Mac laptop.

[CyberGene]

I’m speaking probably 5 or more years ago. I don’t remember well. Regarding performance, it was with the Vintage D piano and low latency. I compared it to another piano at the time with a standalone player, I believe it was Synthogy Ivory. I could never make Vintage D playing glitch free.

 

Maybe they improved everything after so many years. 

[KuruPrionz]

31 minutes ago, CyberGene said:

For me the problem with Kontakt is I haven’t purchased it and so I have to use the Kontakt Player instead. The last time I installed it it basically acted as a bloatware and not only came with tons of unwanted samples that I couldn’t remove unless I followed some third-party instructions on the Internet but also installed some agent on my computer that was running all the time. What is more, I had to create a NI account and started receiving marketing emails although I explicitly unmarked all checkboxes. Also, the performance was subpar. Basically Kontakt Player at that time was an aggressive software that was bordering on malware. 

Are you Mac or PC?

I've had Kontakt Player for a long time and mostly use it to run Studio Drummer (which I've also had for a long time). There's a bunch of stuff on it that I pretty much ignore but now that you mention it I may go in and get rid of it. 

Player has worked fine for me on my old but stable 2014 MacBook Pro running Catalina. 

I've had more problems with SampleTank, that needs trimming down as well. 

[CyberGene]

1 minute ago, KuruPrionz said:

Are you Mac or PC?

Mac. I think it was my MacBook Pro Mid 2010 but my struggles were probably much later than that, I’d say around 2015. It was still a capable machine that I upgraded with a SSD and more (and faster) memory.

 

So, do you think I can install Kontakt Player without it requiring Native Access and additional samples? Also, is it Apple Silicon native? (Is it a Native Instrument? 😀). If so, I may give Scarbee a try then. 

[adammonroe]

Yeah, I personally don't like it much but I have a ton of libraries that use Kontakt. The performance of the player itself is fine, but Native Access is quite a pain for me personally - activating and reinstalling libraries can be a huge hassle...but that's a lot of software companies these days I suppose. Another downside is the backwards-compatibility issue. Newer developers will just build with the newer version of Kontakt and these won't work with older versions of Kontakt, which means you are constantly having to upgrade it - I actually have 2 or 3 versions installed, because upgrading can cause issues with older libraries, or make them impossible to install...and at the end of the day, Kontakt is middleware that doesn't really need to exist. It got the industry pretty far when it was mostly just musicians sampling stuff who didn't know how to program, but more and more, companies are moving away from it. Native Instruments was so early to the game, and so many people associate Kontakt with sampling, that I'm sure it will be around for decades to come. The number of emails I get where I have to explain to users that they don't need Kontakt and can instead load my plugins directly as VST or AU are quite a few.

[KuruPrionz]

10 minutes ago, CyberGene said:

Mac. I think it was my MacBook Pro Mid 2010 but my struggles were probably much later than that, I’d say around 2015. It was still a capable machine that I upgraded with a SSD and more (and faster) memory.

 

So, do you think I can install Kontakt Player without it requiring Native Access and additional samples? Also, is it Apple Silicon native? (Is it a Native Instrument? 😀). If so, I may give Scarbee a try then. 

NI has circled their wagons. You may not even be able to download anything from them without installing Native Access.

In that regard, it is very similar to IK Multimedia's Product Manager software, it is the portal to all their software. 

 

As far as I'm concerned, both NI and IK have been asleep at the wheel regarding updating their softwares to Apple Silicon native. They've both updated a few titles but they have a HUGE backlog of titles that will probably never be updated. 

 

Smaller, more nimble software vendors like Cherry Audio, Eventide/Newfangled and others are way ahead of them in that regard. 

My strategy was to lock my 2014 MacBook Pro at Catalina - the last OS X offering and to add a Mac Mini M1 with 16 gigs of ram for running Apple Silicon only. The Mini rips right along, M1 is so much faster than the older Intel stuff it's amazing. 

 

A .wav file is a .wav file, if I need to use older software I can make a mix of the piece I'm working on as a .wav file, drop it into the DAW on my older laptop and track anything that isn't updated, then export those files as .wav files and drop them back into the M1. 

 

Tedious, I know. The other options are equally unsatisfactory. Eventually I'll transition to just Apple Silicon but that requires buying some different plugins and leaving some things behind forever. I'm in that process now and really loving some of the newest plugins because they have powerful, multiple functions. Eventide Physion 2 and Newfangled Invigorate are recent acquisitions and real game changers because they each can do so many things and are fully M1 compatible. 

 

I knew this was coming a LONG time ago, I started on Adobe Photoshop version 1.07 in 1992, you MIGHT be able to run that on system 9 but more likely system 7.

Long since done and gone, I just use Photoshop Elements 2021 now. 

 

The only thing that never changes is that everything always changes. So it goes...

[drawback]

1 hour ago, adammonroe said:

I also think the Scarbee sounds quite good. I also like Acousticsamples VTines. If you need a simple library that plugs directly into your DAW and doesn't cost much, have a look at my Rhodes sample library. It's not the smoothest sound, but a little more natural/raw, and I have programmed Vacuum Tube Sims into it, so it does the distortion/driven sound better than most plugins. But if you need the "smooth" sound, maybe Scarbee.

 

To be honest, if you need to do DSP processing in your plugins, Kontakt is fairly limiting, with only a few built-in effects you can script, so buying libraries that bypass Kontakt isn't a bad idea if you are looking for plugins with unique sound design/distortion/reverb/effects/ect.

 

I also have a Rhodes shootout video on YouTube with all the major players. Scarbee is absent, but I have a separate review video on it as Scarbee was kind enough to send me a copy for review.

 

And also a Rhodes blog.

I've come across your Rhodes VI info in the past and have appreciated it. However, my favourite package – Canterbury Rhodes – hasn't made it to you so I'm wondering how or why. Canterbury was all the rage on this forum when it came out, but lately it's not even been in the conversation. The basic sample tones are outstanding and virtually any model Rhodes can be accomplished with it. Plus, it works in free Kontakt Player.

[AnotherScott]

I almost broke down and bought Komplete during a special last year, but it needed a new OS than I'd installed, and unlike many companies which will let you download a previous version if you've bought the newest version, there was no way to get a version that would work on my system. But I was also irritated to discover that new versions don't always include some of the older VSTs, so a new version of Komplete isn't necessarily complete. I'm not sure if you can run an old version and new version in tandem, or if someone running a new version simply has to abandon any old favorites that aren't included in the newest version.

[Stokely]

The two I debated were Scarbee ep88 and Soniccouture's Canterbury Suitecase.  I went with the Scarbee strictly because it was cheaper (and I had Kontakt, not sure if it works with player version).  Sounds great but now that I own a couple other Soniccouture libraries I have no doubt that theirs is great too.