e-Instruments Session Keys Electric Pianos [Deep] Review

e-Instruments Session Keys Electric R, S, W [Deep] Review

Session Keys Electric R "Live" | Click to Zoom (new page)

The suspects under Reviewer Revival’s microscopic scrutiny this time ‘round is a trio of vintage-y, cool e-piano emulations smartly formulated in familiar Kontakt sample form. Throughout this article we’ll be investigating two Rhodes variants (suitcase and stage) as well as a faithful representation of a proverbial ‘king-of-the-reeds’ -- the Wurlitzer 200A. What’s more, each one of these sample libraries comes with two distinctly processed variants – a “Studio” bank and a “Live” bank.

​Let’s face it; there is no shortage of e-piano emulations on the market – many of them actually being quite remarkable. So why is it worth pondering over yet another developer’s entries into the fray? Other than acknowledging that they sound superb, it’s due to their extended features and interesting sample-morphing differentia.

For those who might be acquainted with “Session Horns (Pro)” and “Session Strings (Pro)” - badged as Native Instruments products – e-Instruments’ self-branded “Session Keys” series of highly playable electric pianos will not come across as unheard-of-strangers. In fairness to software giant, “Native Instruments”, the aforementioned strings & horns libraries’ product pages do cite e-Instruments as the actual creators. As a matter of fact, it’s because of the company’s partnership with Native Instruments that e-Instruments gained ground as a relatively new developer at that time.

It’s fair to say that e-Instruments have certainly proven themselves to be top-tier sampling experts since 2010, weaving a pedigree of interest and notability. Enticingly so, their commendable “Session Keys” series of electric pianos are very fairly priced. Each one costs but $79 (USD) / €79 apiece. If at all possible, I do recommend that Canadian customers purchase using US funds. Even though the current exchange rate of USD to CAD (at the time of this publication) would result in an amount of $105 (CAD), for some reason e-Instruments’ online store charges a hefty $129 (CAD).
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