M-Audio Premium Electric Pianos And Premium Vintage Keyboards

The second is a Dyno-modded Suitcase (see “Myths and Facts” on page 42) kept in pristine condition at New York’s famous Avatar Studios. Each instrument is predictable and evenly balanced, both in terms of velocity response and the proportions of tine to tone bar across the keyboard. Play sustained chords in the treble range, and you’re in Mr. Rogers’ ’hood. Lay into some walking bass octaves with the same sound, and you’re in Mr. Wonder’s. The Avatar Rhodes gives you a bonus: separate presets for various close-miked, room-miked, and direct-recorded versions, as well as various combinations so you can blend the signals like an engineer.

I didn’t care as much for either of the offerings in Premium Vintage Keyboards. The Wurly (a 214, which is internally like the 200 but with a beefier speaker system) also offers choices of miked, direct, and blended versions, but I never heard quite enough sustain from any of them. Trying to compensate by tweaking the envelopes in my soft samplers (Kontakt and EXS24) only made it sound more synthetic. Also, there was a jazz guitar-like quality to the tone that, while pleasant, isn’t what I’d call realistic. The Clavinet is on the beefy and bassy side, but it’s got enough raw material that you can approximate the tonal variations of the real thing with a good EQ plug-in. The problem with the Clav is the attack: It’s just not snappy enough. You don’t notice it if you just play a note or two, but get into some staccato key-slapping, and it feels like you’re playing a harpsichord.

INSTRUMENTS
Premium Electric Pianos: Rhodes Janus Stage Mk I, “Dyno” Rhodes Suitcase. Premium Vintage Keyboards: Wurlitzer  214, Hohner Clavinet D6.

PREVIOUSLY REVIEWED
No.

SAMPLER FORMATS
EXS24, Kontakt, HALion, Mach Five, Reason NN-XT.

PROS
Playable, balanced, versatile Rhodes sounds. Widest range of formats.

CONS
Wurly and Clav samples aren’t fully authentic.

BOTTOM LINE
Premuim Electric Pianos is a worthy addition to any soft sampler’s patch list, but Premium Vintage Keyboards isn’t so     premium.