Best Electric Piano sound in the FA?

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stevel
Posts: 520
Joined: 07:08, 17 May 2015

Best Electric Piano sound in the FA?

Post by stevel »

Ok, I realize there's no "best" and that there are of course many many different types of Electric Pianos - the Rhodes, Wurlitzers, and Hohners alone come in plenty of varieties as we can see by the number of patches we're given.

But what I'm looking for is the "more authentic" sounding patches we have been given.

If you're familiar with real EPs, or at least really good modelled ones from respected EP emulators like Nord or VSTs, can you give me suggestions as to which on the FA are "most authentic" sounding?

I have all the Exps and I know one is dedicated to EPs but I don't have that one installed (and maybe it's there) but I have EXP 02 in right now which has a number of choices as well.

I know it's a tall order, but even a "try this one for 'Your My Best Friend' " or "try this one for 'Riders on the Storm' " would be helpful for jumping off points.

TIA
Joe P
Posts: 159
Joined: 21:44, 20 November 2014

Re: Best Electric Piano sound in the FA?

Post by Joe P »

Hey Steve,

Funny, I asked the same thing a while ago about Wurlis but it went nowhere!

For Rhodes I like '81 Tine for rock, it has a harder attack and barks nice.

For Wurlis I like Vibrato Reed for a standard type of use (country, Americana, rock) and Dirty Reed for that Pink Floyd hard, nasal sound.

For Steely Dan I use Phaser Dyno of course, with the phaser dialed back a bit.

For all of them, the amp sim you use can be really important and they all have to be tweaked to taste, but I think they sound great!

For Riders, I think I used '76 Pure with tremolo (I was in a Doors Trib) because I remember thinking the sound I was trying to make was from around '70 - 6 years before the '76 Pure sound. :-)

Regards,
Joe
Paul99
Posts: 117
Joined: 18:05, 23 June 2017

Re: Best Electric Piano sound in the FA?

Post by Paul99 »

Hehe....I guess it's about the same problem as with the organs. That are not bad at all, but when you need that specific sound, it's usually not there. I have the EXP02 installed and it is not much more variety then the onboard sounds, at least to me it is not.

But....I learned a nice trick today on this forum:using the IFX in stead of the compressor and then select for example 39 GtrAmp Sim and tweak that. For me it is in the art of the distorted/overdrive range where the nice Electric Pianos and Organs shine. So pick a nice sounding El piano and experiment.

The Wurly's are rather good from themselves, but I gues the can benefit also from the IFX trick.

Hope this will help a bit Steve!Oh,, BTW for a Rotary pedal like the Neo Ventilator or te he GSI Burn and I happen to hear a demo on Youtube from a guy who played a Fender Rhodes sound with it: it sounded amazing!So that could be an option for you?

Paul
stevel
Posts: 520
Joined: 07:08, 17 May 2015

Re: Best Electric Piano sound in the FA?

Post by stevel »

Thanks Joe and Paul,

Yeah, it's kind of a tough situation.

I'm going to try out the amp sim idea because I also didn't realize you could put it inline on just one part until I saw that post the other day.

I just loaded in Exp 4 and 5 - Pianos and EPs - because I also wanted to look for a Piano sound. The EXP 4 Premier piano is great sounding, but still isn't quite there. Like many of the sounds though, I had hoped the EXP versions were better than the internal (which I do think the Exp 2 does quite well). But there's basically only one "real" piano in Exp 4, and the rest are various padded and effected versions and so on - just subtle differences.

I'm not sure the EPs in 05 are any better than stock and Exp 2, but a couple did strike me as inspiring.

I guess the SN sounds are fabulous, but Uncanny Valley - almost hyper realistic - I don't hear that amount of click and bell in most recordings. But I'm going to go back and try to compare some tonight.

Thanks again.
locojohn
Posts: 26
Joined: 13:42, 17 June 2017

Re: Best Electric Piano sound in the FA?

Post by locojohn »

stevel wrote:I guess the SN sounds are fabulous, but Uncanny Valley - almost hyper realistic - I don't hear that amount of click and bell in most recordings. But I'm going to go back and try to compare some tonight.
Sorry, do you mind sharing info which of the presets do you find hyper realistic, I'd like to check them out!

Andrejs
stevel
Posts: 520
Joined: 07:08, 17 May 2015

Re: Best Electric Piano sound in the FA?

Post by stevel »

locojohn wrote:
stevel wrote:I guess the SN sounds are fabulous, but Uncanny Valley - almost hyper realistic - I don't hear that amount of click and bell in most recordings. But I'm going to go back and try to compare some tonight.
Sorry, do you mind sharing info which of the presets do you find hyper realistic, I'd like to check them out!

Andrejs
Well, most of them. But don't confuse that with meaning "actual realistic".

In the early days of sample-based sounds, a lot of Classical Guitar patches had (and many still do) "string squeak".

On classical guitar - and acoustic and sometimes electric, as you play, if you move your fingers between positions (sliding up and down the frets) you'll get a "squeak" or "scrape" noise - sometimes almost a really high pitch.

It's actually considered poor technique in the Classical world, but it became so prevalent amongst "unschooled" players we heard on countless pop recordings that had that squeak in it. In fact, if you listen closely to a lot of recordings where an acoustic guitar plays in the background, a lot of times all you hear is the "karrang" of the pick strum, the squeaks between shifts, and any "thump" the body might have - but the actual guitar notes are barely discernible!

It's a suspension of disbelief thing - synth makers found out that if they couldn't make the sound itself any more realistic, they could add in - and over do - these "artifacts" of playing.

So you get mad, over the top, "hyped up" parts of the sound that you really don't normally hear when playing or listening to a recording of the instrument, so the patches sound that much more "real" to us - or "hyper real" if you like.

Guitar with the squeaks is a great example.

Fingerboard on an acoustic (Rockabilly) "slap bass" goes over the top usually.

In the Electric Pianos, it seems to be the bell-like part of the sound and the "click" or tine noise (which I believe they've made editable so it's possible to dial it back, but the defualt setting is a bit high to my thinking).

With Piano, it's the "clang" of a note when hit hard - that onsets way too soon at velocities it really shouldn't.

I don't know if you've noticed, but with the SN drums, they've got snare noise in a lot of the toms and kick - which happens with a real kit but it makes it impossible to isolate individual drum sounds. All the floor toms have this weird over-ring on them.

I can't really compare the EPs and Organs to real versions of the instruments so maybe I'm wrong and when you sit down at a Rhodes it sounds exactly like what we hear from the FA's SN sounds.

But again, when I listen to them on recording, that's not what I'm hearing - which is why I asked for examples because maybe I'm just not listening to the right things.
bennyseven
Posts: 699
Joined: 18:01, 19 April 2014
Location: Germany

Re: Best Electric Piano sound in the FA?

Post by bennyseven »

maybe the videos from Woody Piano Shack will help to find out about the FAs SN instruments . There are several IMO well commented sound tests, all without effects. Just plain Super Natural tones.

https://youtu.be/MnHwesUeDZc
stevel
Posts: 520
Joined: 07:08, 17 May 2015

Re: Best Electric Piano sound in the FA?

Post by stevel »

bennyseven wrote:maybe the videos from Woody Piano Shack will help to find out about the FAs SN instruments . There are several IMO well commented sound tests, all without effects. Just plain Super Natural tones.

https://youtu.be/MnHwesUeDZc
I love his videos. I had watched a bunch of others but not seen these.

Thanks
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