MOTU Electric Keys - Universal electric keyboard instrument

Comments:

I play with a jazz quartet at local restaurants/pubs/coffee houses. I use Synthogy Ivory for most of my piano needs, but I was looking for a good Rhodes sound, and it was between this and Native Instruments. The Motu seemed simpler to use for my purposes. For home use, I run Electric Keys on a Power Mac with 8 core processor, 16 GB memory and 1 TB raid. I use Logic Pro as the DAW. I followed the instructions for installation, then proceeded to copy the five sound bank disks to the hard drive. Be prepared to spend at least 1 1/2 hours copying, which is normal. The software ships with an iLok key, which must be used to run the software. Once you have the software up and running, however, you can remove the iLok with no ill effects. Every time you reload Electric Keys, you will need the iLok inserted into the USB slot. I already had an iLok for Synthogy Ivory, and it was a piece of cake to transfer both licenses onto a single iLok key. After installing the upgrade, the standalone application ran perfectly. I was able to load the combi presets or load banks individually. There are two channels, so that you can pan one hard left and insert a different patch into the second bank, panning it hard right. The stereo imaging sounds great, especially with slow phasing. With PreSonus Firepod (3 years old), latency is low enough that I can play this on a gig using a MacBook laptop. When I tried to use this with Logic Pro, however, I had problems. The plugin would crash every time I would try to load it within Logic Pro. I tried everything I could think of, but couldn't resolve the problem. When I tried to contact customer support, the phone was busy, and there was no call service to put me on hold. It was a little annoying having to keep dialing the number, but once I got through, their tech support was simply AWESOME! I have rarely encountered tech support that is more efficient at what they do. Turns out I had to trash the preference file for electric keys and run the upgrade again. Works perfectly now, and I am extremely happy. A couple of weaknesses: MOTU stays true to the original range of each instrument, so on an 88 key keyboard, you will encounter dead notes. I mean, I get it, but it is a bit annoying unless you have trained yourself on the original keyboards. I last played a Fender Rhodes 25 years ago! Also, some of the pitches are off in the sampling. For example, if you have the 1979 Rhodes Full in the first bank and the 1979 Rhodes Light in the second, the A below middle C is a bit jarring due to intonation problems. That said, this was a purchase I can easily recommend to my fellow musicians. I am picky when it comes to sounds, and this has satisfied my craving.

Comments:

No other collection of vintage keyboards comes close to this, from the samples to the original effects used on each keyboard/organ, it's a must have for any producer or keyboard player.