Soniccouture releases new 88-key Rhodes Stage (1976)

[mhschmieder]

Yet another Rhodes library... but after regretting my switch to the new proprietary standalone version of Neo-Soul Keys, and resisting the new one from Scarbee, this one seems to be "the one".

Besides, as an Episcopalian, how can I resist a product name like "The Canterbury Suitcase"?

http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products ... 20IT%20NOW

The demos are out-of-this-world. Lately, I have mostly been using the somewhat recent UVI Tines Collection as it is quite good overall and covers later Rhodes models that tend to be preferred by jazzers -- so I am using a lot of that on my jazz album as I like those warmer/cleaner tones.

This one, though, is the best one I've heard yet, in terms of 70's grit vs. the later 80's Rhodes sounds. I like both, but for different purposes.

The library is 30% off until 21 August. Pretty sure I'm going to buy this one.

[Gravity Jim]

I'm an EP VI fanatic, and will buy this during the 30% off thing. It looks to be super cool.

[David Polich]

Yours truly did some of the presets, including "Dave's Dyno Rhodes" and "Straight Line Out",
along with the "Rhodes is Unplugged" preset in the "Experimental" bank.

Yes it really is a great Rhodes...easily on par with any of the Rhodes models in Keyscape, and far cheaper than Keyscape. Warm and "squishy" sounding, as great Suitcase Rhodes pianos were.

I highly recommend this product.

[waxman]

Yours truly did some of the presets, including "Dave's Dyno Rhodes" and "Straight Line Out",
along with the "Rhodes is Unplugged" preset in the "Experimental" bank.

Yes it really is a great Rhodes...easily on par with any of the Rhodes models in Keyscape, and far cheaper than Keyscape. Warm and "squishy" sounding, as great Suitcase Rhodes pianos were.

I highly recommend this product.

I highly recommend everyone send Dave a thousand bucks..

[labman]

I highly recommend everyone send Dave a thousand bucks..

and cookies!

[mhschmieder]

Having used the Soniccouture Clav a bit more last night, I'm pretty convinced that once that vendor does an instrument, it's game over (exception being piano, of course, which none of us will likely ever be 100% satisfied with until we reach the next plane of existence).

Their vibraphone is miraculous, but difficult to work with -- just like the real thing. Every time I try another vendor's "easier to use" vibes library, I'm reminded that there are no shortcuts to getting a realistic vibe sound!

I don't use pre-80's Rhodes sounds much anymore, but I definitely plan to grab this library before the sale ends. Nothing else comes close to its realism. It's the only one where I keep thinking I'm listening to the actual original and wondering when the sample library will kick in for comparison.

[JMVideo]

Whoa....I was expecting to be unimpressed, but this sounds really good! Much better than Keyscape imo, which is a little too clean for my tastes. Must... resist... the urge to purchase... *sigh*

[Gravity Jim]

This is the bomb dot com. I've been doing an A/B comparison to Waves' Electric 88 (which sounds pretty darn good), and I think SC's Canterbury Suitcase just buries it. Super nice, not too many blankety-blank parameter controls: just using a real Rhodes.

[mhschmieder]

Game over.

This is The One!

Every note lives and breathes, and phrases sound cohesive and organic.

I only had time to try it on a few songs after my rehearsal last night, but I imagine by this weekend I will have replaced every Rhodes track on every active project with this library.

Up until now, I have struggled to get Rhodes to sit in the mix, or even sit atop it without drowning or muddying other instruments. This is a very flexible instrument and may well cover my Mark V needs as well.

[mongoose]

Holy heck, this thing is a glorious beast! Really fun to play. I haven't spent much time with real-world Rhodeses (Rhodi? Rhodsae?), so I can't speak to "authenticity" here, but even if this sounded nothing like the real deal (I expect it does, though) it would be a great instrument.

[daniel.sneed]

Woaw! Great and vibrant sound, to say the least.

Does the price listed (149 €) include the 30% off?
Or do you have to set any discount code?

[Gravity Jim]

You do need to enter a discount code, which is in the link provided above.

[mhschmieder]

As of this weekend, this library has kicked ALL of my other Rhodes libraries to the curb forever.

This one lives and breathes likes the real thing. So much more life to it, at ANY setting.

Does anyone know if anything reacts to CC1? I couldn't find that info in the manual or the GUI.

[daniel.sneed]

Thanks, Jim. Got it.

Well, to my fingers and ears, this Rhodes is a living instrument.
Great job!

IMHO, introductory price is just right. Could not resist.

[mhschmieder]

I was able to use Kontakt's own MIDI Learn feature to assign CC1 to the Tremolo Depth (Intensity) knob, but this appears to have already been programmed into some of the presets as well, unless my change is now global for all instances of Kontakt (I haven't used this feature much as I generally don't like hidden settings that aren't published in the GUI on each use).

EDIT: Nevermind; I used to do this more often before my eyes got worse and I stopped having such an easy time of reading GUI's in so many of my plug-ins. It's just that I typically didn't use MIDI Learn and instead used the MIDI Automation page (which I forgot was there). The settings to cross over presets, so those don't wipe the automation settings, which I thought they did.

It's too bad that Tremolo Rate can't be directly controlled, but I guess they emulate that indirectly via the drop-list for the pulse styles. Maybe that's how it was actually implemented anyway in the original Rhodes Suitcases, but I don't think I'd want a CC range of 1-127 to control a drop-list of eight or so choices; not intuitive enough as the patterns aren't necessarily progressively related.