Alicia's Keys

[Pianoman JC]

Just picked up Alicia's Keys on sale at Plugin Boutique. It's an older Kontact Instrument but not bad for 13 bucks!

 

 

JC

[ksoper]

Not bad at all!  Alicia's Keys was my go-to for quite a while when it first came out.  I ought to revisit it.  

[Doerfler]

I have zero need for this, but for US $13, I'll probably buy it anyway, just to play around with it and decide I have zero need for this. 

[PianoMan51]

Gigged briefly with Alicia’s Keys when it first came out. One thing I remember is that it was the only piano VST I had that perfectly summed to mono. 
 

Since it was designed for stage use, I assumed that this made it suitable for stereo and mono FOH.

 

Maybe recorded in M/S or in mono with a stereo fx.

[Stokely]

Hmm, that is interesting.  I contemplated adding mainstage to my rig for that very reason, but then discovered that none of the vst pianos I had at the time fared any better in mono than my keyboards did.   Which was "poorly".   Since that time, I've gone to a Nord Stage 3 where the White Grand is....ok....in mono--my big beef is that all patches of any sort on the Nord seem to lose a few db in mono but at least it's pretty consistent and I can easily compensate with a bit more gain.   I don't make life easy by trying to run stereo at some gigs and mono at others, for sure.    Some time that experiment, I got Alicia's Keys as part of Komplete Ultimate.    Currently in "minimalistic" mode (gotta love five minute setups) so probably won't add complexity when things are working ok (and with possibly guitar added on) but I'll keep that in mind.   

[Stefan011]

I am just getting into Mainstage and using Black Grand (1GB) from Sampletekk for jazz gig. AK should be "17 GB of samples, 12 velocity layers per key." Do You think Mackbook Pro 2018 16GB ram can handle this?

 

As Stokley wrote, in mono the subtle differencec tend to disappear.

[Stokely]

My older Macbook is 2016 16GB of ram, it is fine with most Kontakt instruments including AK.  An ssd drive (I use an external one) can make a big difference when loading up larger libraries...huge difference if the library is really big!

Now, some of the newer NI instruments like Straylight and Lores that I have are quite unhappy with that older macbook pro.   Just one instance can cause issues.

[Stefan011]

Thanks! For the price its worth trying 🙂

[Reezekeys]

AK - the library that includes samples of her fingernails hitting the key tops, am I remembering right?

[ElmerJFudd]

A sample library that runs in Kontakt - older or newer doesn’t make much difference.  It’s all in how well it was recorded and how successful they were with the programming so it plays well. Other than that there hasn’t been any leap in technology for making sampled instruments.  A newer computer will be able to perform with higher polyphony and lower latency.  Otherwise, is Alicia’s keys was a good library when made, it’s still good now.  
 

6.9 GB (almost 3,000 individual samples in 12 velocity layers equivalent to 17 GB of uncompressed WAV audio)

 

 The specs say it will work with the free Kontakt player. 
 

“Free KONTAKT PLAYER or KONTAKT”

 

 Just confirm that’s accurate if you don’t own Kontakt! 
 

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys/alicias-keys/

 

 

[Reezekeys]

2 hours ago, Stefan011 said:

I am just getting into Mainstage and using Black Grand (1GB) from Sampletekk for jazz gig. AK should be "17 GB of samples, 12 velocity layers per key." Do You think Mackbook Pro 2018 16GB ram can handle this?

 

Yes, though as has been mentioned you will probably want to have the samples on an SSD if you use an external drive to hold the samples. To expound on a few points - first, ram doesn't matter as much with sampled instruments that stream samples from disk like your Sampletekk. Also, more GBs doesn't necessarily mean a better playing experience. Some libraries will feature samples at different mic positions, separate soft pedal samples, half-pedaling samples, etc.; those will add to the total # of GBs. For playing gigs I only want a close-miked perspective - I have no need for any others. I did mostly jazz gigs for years with a 2013 MacBook Pro using Native Instruments pianos (New York for gigs, New York or Grandeur in the studio). This now 11-year-old Mac (with half the ram of yours - 8GB) did fine with those pianos at a 128 buffer which I found perfectly playable. About two years ago I used Logic's autosampler to create a Logic sampler instrument from the New York piano, much cut down from the original - no release samples, no pedal-down samples, sampled every minor 3rd instead of every semitone, missing the top velocity layer - and imported the resulting 645 MB of samples to my iPad, and am perfectly happy playing this on gigs, where the sonic subtleties we hear in a studio are usually lost. IMO, on a gig the #1 consideration is that the piano responds to your dynamics in a way that feels natural. That's going to depend on the velocity values your controller sends wrt your actual playing dynamics. The number of velocity layers definitely matters; more should be better, but where they switch and how much the timbre of adjacent layers change can play a part. I guess you can tell I've given this topic some thought. Maybe that's because I've been gigging with a laptop playing sampled pianos for 18 years!

[Bobadohshe]

That piano always seems to sit perfectly in a mix. It doesn't matter if it's 15 years old.

[Stefan011]

1 hour ago, Reezekeys said:

 

Yes, though as has been mentioned you will probably want to have the samples on an SSD if you use an external drive to hold the samples. To expound on a few points - first, ram doesn't matter as much with sampled instruments that stream samples from disk like your Sampletekk. Also, more GBs doesn't necessarily mean a better playing experience. Some libraries will feature samples at different mic positions, separate soft pedal samples, half-pedaling samples, etc.; those will add to the total # of GBs. For playing gigs I only want a close-miked perspective - I have no need for any others. I did mostly jazz gigs for years with a 2013 MacBook Pro using Native Instruments pianos (New York for gigs, New York or Grandeur in the studio). This now 11-year-old Mac (with half the ram of yours - 8GB) did fine with those pianos at a 128 buffer which I found perfectly playable. About two years ago I used Logic's autosampler to create a Logic sampler instrument from the New York piano, much cut down from the original - no release samples, no pedal-down samples, sampled every minor 3rd instead of every semitone, missing the top velocity layer - and imported the resulting 645 MB of samples to my iPad, and am perfectly happy playing this on gigs, where the sonic subtleties we hear in a studio are usually lost. IMO, on a gig the #1 consideration is that the piano responds to your dynamics in a way that feels natural. That's going to depend on the velocity values your controller sends wrt your actual playing dynamics. The number of velocity layers definitely matters; more should be better, but where they switch and how much the timbre of adjacent layers change can play a part. I guess you can tell I've given this topic some thought. Maybe that's because I've been gigging with a laptop playing sampled pianos for 18 years!

Great insights! 

 

I am totally newbie to laptop gigging so its very valuable.

 

Btw you get PolyMax synth with AK. Thats pretty generous.

[JoJoB3]

5 hours ago, Bobadohshe said:

That piano always seems to sit perfectly in a mix. It doesn't matter if it's 15 years old.

Yeah, and I'm not sure how much Alicia herself is involved with it here aside from the catchy name but it's an odd piano in the best way. Not for everything but for 'that thing' a solid go to.

[Reezekeys]

8 hours ago, Bobadohshe said:

That piano always seems to sit perfectly in a mix. It doesn't matter if it's 15 years old.

 

It certainly doesn't. As I've said a few times in these pages (and once in this thread!), my piano of choice is NI's "New York" which started life as part of one of the oldest Mac virtual instrument plugins, Akoustik Piano - in 2005, 18 years ago. I have a few newer ones and have played a few others, but none work as well for me on a gig as that one.

 

I do remember playing Alicia's Keys a while ago and I thought it was a very nice piano, a little bright perhaps, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It felt good to play and for $13 it's a total no-brainer if you're shopping for a good virtual piano.

[Stefan011]

3 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

strument plugins, Akoustik Piano - in 2005, 18 years ago. I have a few newer ones and have played a few others, but none work as well for me on

 

Ok, I pulled the trigger and was pleasently surprised. Yes, It is bright but in a pleasent way with a nice body and dynamics. Sounds like it can integrate into mainstage live setting.

 

[BluMunk]

I picked this up... I don't have a deep bench of piano VSTs and figured for $13 why not.

Gotta say, it sounds great out of the box. I'll spend a bit more time with it, but I can absolutely see this becoming my 'default' piano for playing and recording.

[Mighty Motif Max]

I bought this as well! Haven't used it in a recording yet, but at that price, I pretty much had to - it's peanuts lol. I have a number of piano VI's but haven't really found one that I love yet. They all have different aspects that I like or dislike, but none are what I would call a go-to piano. This one is no exception - the tone has a bit of tuning variation I feel like, but also I feel like every Yamaha C3 sample (including Yamaha's own in the YC/CP and Montage expansion set) are that way. I like that type of character for uprights, but not for grands. So far I still prefer the more recent Nord samples for pianos, even though they're not perfect. Part of it might be the interaction between velocity curves on my controllers/keyboards and the piano VI's.

[nursers]

On 2/23/2024 at 1:35 PM, Reezekeys said:

 

It certainly doesn't. As I've said a few times in these pages (and once in this thread!), my piano of choice is NI's "New York" which started life as part of one of the oldest Mac virtual instrument plugins, Akoustik Piano - in 2005, 18 years ago. I have a few newer ones and have played a few others, but none work as well for me on a gig as that one.

I did not know this Rob and it's made my day. I loved Akoustik when I first received a review copy for a magazine I wrote for. I've never really dug into the NI New York settings but will be now!

[Jose EB5AGV]

On 2/23/2024 at 3:35 AM, Reezekeys said:

 

It certainly doesn't. As I've said a few times in these pages (and once in this thread!), my piano of choice is NI's "New York" which started life as part of one of the oldest Mac virtual instrument plugins, Akoustik Piano - in 2005, 18 years ago. I have a few newer ones and have played a few others, but none work as well for me on a gig as that one.

 

This got me interested, as a piano VST hoarder... err, collector 😉

 

I have found this information to install it, and other old ones, using Native Access:

 

https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000936549-Installing-the-Classic-Piano-Collection-with-Native-Access

 

Hope this helps!

 

Jose

 

[Jose EB5AGV]

Hmmmm.... I have been trying to install those libraries and it seems I have got something wrong. I thought those libraries were now freely available but, not, they can only be installed as DEMO. Which I am not sure what it means, but the red DEMO label in KONTAKT tells me they are not going to last forever. Any hint on what DEMO means on these old libraries?

[Doerfler]

5 hours ago, Jose EB5AGV said:

 Any hint on what DEMO means on these old libraries?

Serial numbers need to be pasted into Native Access, then it's no longer a demo 

[Jose EB5AGV]

52 minutes ago, Doerfler said:

Serial numbers need to be pasted into Native Access, then it's no longer a demo 

 

Yes, my fault. I thought they were now free, but are just legacy, so what I posted is the way to install them now, but of course you need a valid serial number.

 

So no joy for me, but hope other people who had them previously can reinstall them.

 

Jose