It’s a tough time for the music tech industry like so many industries. But there are beautiful products coming from independent developers – indie, boutique shops crafting musical instruments in code. The folks at Devine Machine, makers of the likes of Guru and Lucifer, unloaded three big announcements overnight – enough to make you think there’s some obscure trade show going on at the end of March no one told you about.

Here’s the capsule view of why they matter:

OTR-88: A modeled electric piano

The beautiful thing about electric pianos like the Rhodes is that they’re really electromechanical instruments – amplified, yes, but entirely organic in the way they produce sound. OTR-88 is not the first attempt, as the developers imply, to use physical modeling techniques to try to reproduce those properties. Applied Acoustics’ Lounge Lizard, for instance, (available in Ableton Suite as Electric) follows similar lines. (Native Instruments’ Electric Piano and Digidesign’s Velvet have modeling approaches of their own, but also make use of samples.)

But OTR-88 does appear to go further. Tine movements are modeled in 3D. There are elaborate models of pickup interaction and velocity response. Herbie Hancock was consulted on the design. And you can adjust keys on a per-key basis. That should appeal to sound designers and electric piano aficionados alike. You can thank new physical modeling research by Efflam Le Bivic, one of Devine’s two developers.

I’m really eager to play this one.

OTR-88 Electric Piano

Krishna 1.5: Samples to Synthesis

The Krishna synth instantly earned respect for its “Frame Synthesis” approach, which makes it atypically easy to turn recorded samples into oscillators – a hybrid approach that threatens to end forever the synthesis versus sampling debate. 1.5 has a rebuilt engine, more LFO and ADSR routing destinations, and this tasty-sounding feature:

‘Snap to harmonics’ option for the filter : each note will instantiate a filter to resonate to its own harmonic.

Krishna Synth

One Shot Recorder

OSR is a terrific-looking little tool that’s designed to grab sounds while you play them. Set a threshold, record, and OSR spits out ready-to-use samples. That makes setting up a quick sampling or multisampling session — times when you may have a whole mess of samples to record — much easier. The new release now supports standalone and more pg-in formats, has a decay control, automatic sample reordering, and a pretty new UI.

One Shot Recorder (OSR) Sample Capture

OSR looks like the dream tool for a big multisample creation. Sometimes you may just want to grab some quick, beat-synced samples. Not new, but related, Live Sync Recorder is a tempo-synced VST. Turn it on, and it just rolls, slicing up your audio into one or two bar loops.

I actually can’t believe I didn’t know about this – I expect to put this to use very, very soon.

Live Sync Recorder Free

If you like that, there’s a fancier version, too.

Native Instruments has tweaked their Elektrik Piano, finally adding Universal Binary support for Intel Macs. Unlike the Vokator and Spektral Delay updates, though, there are some new features for everyone to enjoy. The samples are the same, but everything else has gotten an update:

1. Kontakt 2 Engine: EP now supports the excellent KONTAKT sampling engine. I’ve talked to several sound designers who feel this really is the best sampling engine around, so it’ll be great spending some time with the reworked EP to see how it performs.
2. New Models: New impulse-response room and cabinet simulations.
3. Mod FX: The mod wheel now controls new tremolo effects (A200, MK1, MK2), and wah (E7), and the E7 adds a “sound” knob that cycles through parameters, plus a damper mechanism model (via the sustain pedal).
4. Performance settings: Set dynamic range and randomize velocity, volume, and pitch. I still generally prefer modeling these components to randomizing them with recorded samples, but I’m interested to see how this works — and even how abusing it could create some new hybrid presets.
5. New voice allocation: Reduces CPU usage and, says NI, better models mechanical instruments.
6. 16 new presets: 16 new “authentic instruments” presets have been designed around the new modeling features.

That’s the good news. The bad news is, the new engine will mean losing your old presets and performance settings, so you will have to rework those. Fortunately, it’s an affordable update with lots of stuff inside (just about EP 2.0, really), at EUR/USD 25 (if you registered before 9/12/06) and free otherwise.

Waldorf’s Zarenbourg electric piano was on display at their NAMM booth. Beholding its grand, future-retro design, you’ll immediately wonder: are there tines and pickups under the Zarenbourg’s hood, or a digital sound engine?

The answer, alas, is the latter, which will be appreciated by keyboardists who value the ability to use multiple built-in sounds and effects along with an editor librarian in VST and Audio Units.

There are also several bold color schemes for the Zarenbourg’s shell, including a huge Union Jack flag, so you can keep your Zarenbourg coordinated with your Mini. The large, flat top also lends itself nicely to holding another keyboard and/or computer setup.

The Zarenbourg is scheduled to ship in May for around $5k MSRP.

Waldorf Music (en)

Ed.: It’s a tough NAMM show for the Zarenbourg: Waldorf’s electric piano has to face up to the real Rhodes moniker. Odds are, I think, the new Waldorf synths may fare better buzz-wise. I see an electromechanical vs. simulated electric piano smackdown in the future. The winners: lovers of electric pianos. The losers: anyone wanting an electric piano with the Canadian flag will need to get a custom paint job. Though I betcha you’ll be one-of-a-kind. -PK

Just when you thought electric piano samples had reached the pinnacle of authenticity, complete with sticky key sound and power supply hum, the real Rhodes electric piano is staging a comeback.

Using the original electromechanical method of sound reproduction based on the Mark V and updated with a gorgeous chassis design, the introduction of the new Rhodes means you’ll no longer have to search for a rare used one of questionable condition and price.

Several models were on display at NAMM, some of which sported USB and MIDI ports so you can even…trigger electric piano samples. Wow!

A new foldable metal stand was shown, as well as a beefy stand with built-in stereo amplification.

Don’t delete your Rhodes samples just yet, however. The new Rhodes is still somewhat a work in progress, but is scheduled to ship in time to make your Thanksgiving a happy one indeed. Pricing should be in the $2-5k range.

More at www.rhodespiano.com

Ed.: Retro? I say timeless. That’s better than physical modeling / emulation. We’ll naturally follow up on this story after the show. Technically not digital, it’s true, but that’s never stopped us before — and where would we be without the Rhodes? I want a red one. -PK