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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I first heard of Germany’s e-Instruments in 2010, shortly after the company had debuted their unique, niche-carving sample library, “Session Strings”. “Session Strings Pro” followed about a year after; “Session Horns” rounded the corner of succession in 2013, and its “Pro” big brother came along a number of months later still. As noted above, the Strings and Horns libraries were sold directly by Native Instruments. All of these sample libraries were very good sonically, but what really helped them stand out from the crowd were their unique ‘Animator’ features.

​In essence, the ‘Animator’ is to e-Instrument’s Kontakt libraries what Toontrack’s song constructor is to their EZdrummer line. It’s the ability to finagle horn (or strings) parts in your musical project by using intelligently composed, predefined phrases – minus the muss n’ fuss of creating said musical parts by one’s self. Alternatively, you can use the ‘Animator’ to play rhythmic patterns while you hold down solid chords. Of course, these have their limitations, but used sensibly, the ‘Animator’ feature could help you generate convincing musical parts quickly and easily.

Following suit, e-Instrument’s “Session Keys” host similar tech; that’s right, the ‘Animator’ is onboard and ready to serve in new and exciting ways. Session Keys “R” and “S” each assemble over 400 nifty musical phrases/patterns, categorized in 40 different song styles and grooves. They are further broken down into various song sections (eg. Chorus 1 & 2, bridge, verse, intro, ending and et cetera). Session Keys “W” increases the tally to greater than 440 ‘animated’ phrases.

Taking things ever deeper into the land of simplicity, e-Instruments have also craftily crafted a non-keyboardist’s dream-come-true accoutrement named: “Smart Chord”.

Got one finger?
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Know what key your song is in?

Very good, Tatoo, you can now play piano while you enjoy your musical adventure -- here, on Fantasy-Keys Island.”

We’ll get the low down about “Smart Chord” a little later – I promise. *Wink.

Making the Session Keys series even more engaging for creative types, is e-Instruments’ unique sample morphing technology, “Pentamorphing”. Briefly described, this is a means of making the instrument literally morph between differing sample types by way of a five-point ‘puck’ – hence the name, “Pentamorph”.

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Installation and Storage Requirements:
 
Purchasing any of e-Instruments’ Session Keys is a straight-forward, painless process. Immediately following a successful transaction, you’ll receive a serial number by way of email. Insofar as these are Kontakt sample libraries, the serial number(s) must be activated and managed through Native Instrument’s “Native Access”. Once activated on any given MAC OS or Windows system, no further activation checks are necessary, barring an OS upgrade or a system HDD/SDD (harddisk/solidstate drive) replacement.

These are extensively sampled libraries; therefore, they do consume moderate amounts of storage space. On my 1 TB SSD m.2 drive, Session “W” takes up 4.17 GB, Session “R” uses 5.23 GB, and requiring the most room of the three, Session “S” munches a healthy 9.19 GB. It’s safe to assume that you can divide those numbers evenly in half for each sample set: Live and Studio respectively.

​As of December, 2018, e-instruments' customers can now enjoy a convenient User Account Area on the company's web site. From here, any serial number registered to your account will be listed and made available for retrieval. You won't actually be accessing the library files themselves; rather, you'll first download a 5 MB download manager that's specifically configured for your personal account, and the particular library you're intending to download. To be honest, I quite like this methodology over some other sample producers' download managers.

e-instruemnts' download manager - Click to Zoom

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Visual Design:

For the most part, all of e-Instruments’ Kontakt GUIs (Graphical User Interface) are presented in tasteful, subdued color tones, eliciting a calm, easy-going vibe. Where many of today’s virtual instruments visually come across with a strong degree of hyped expression, the Session Keys “Studio” line evokes a relaxed, inviting experience. Personally, I really dig this about the VIs’ presentation – it beckons one to play, experiment and enjoy the product(s) at one’s leisure -- as though you were in a premium studio absolutely free of scheduling or budgetary constraints.

On the other hand, trotting over to the “Live” side brings out a cool, happy live gig feel – both sonically and visually. Still, the Live sets’ graphical textures and hues remain laid-back and unhurried looking.

Each of the e-pianos’ UIs share common appointments, making for easy-peasy navigation, once you’ve become familiar with any one of the three. Along the bottom there are two main tabs: Animator and Piano. For now, let’s stay on the piano tab since the goodies found on Animator’s page will be illuminated a little farther along our Session Keys journey.

Click to Zoom (new page)

​In the upper left section we find a list of wide-ranging presets under the menu item, “Sounds”. Directly below, you’ll see two tabs: ‘Tonality’ and ‘Effects’. Clicking on either of these tabs reveals their respective panels.

​Under Tonality we’re granted user-control over such things as: resonance volume, tines volume & position, a basic envelope shaper, noise levels (pedal, keys & release samples) and a volume control specific to the instrument’s Reverse samples (more about this later).

As one would expect, the Effects panel houses a nicely out-fitted selection of bread n’ butter FX – with a few cubes of extra butter, I might add. Herein you’ll note common sound processing ingredients à la: Tremelo/Pan, Chorus, Phase, Amp sim, Compression, Delay and Reverb. Unlike some Kontakt fodder I’ve endured, the controls respond to mouse movements with a pleasant, even-weighted feel. Convenient hotkey gestures such as Ctrl + Click to reset a knob to its default position, and Shift + click to fine tune parameter values are, of course, in tow. Adding just a bit more luster to the sauce, mousing over any control displays a contextual, but concise item description along the bottom of the Kontakt window.

Tonality Panel - Click to Zoom

FX Panel - Click to Zoom

If we scoot over to the top right, we find the ‘Smart Chord’ compartment. Once enabled, a pair of menu items becomes accessible to us, allowing song key selection and scale type. You may choose any of the 12 tonal key signatures between ‘C’ to ‘B’, and configure the Smart Chord to function in one of four available scales: Major, Minor, Dominant 7th and Dorian.

Directly underneath is yet another pair of discreetly placed tabs: ‘Pads’ and ‘Keys’. In like fashion as the tabs on the left side, these too reveal nifty, new panels. Most pertinent features are common to both pads and keys, with the exception of MIDI-learning – that one seems to be reserved for pads only.​

Click to Zoom

​Inconspicuously situated along the lower right portion of the UI, you’ll notice a gear icon. An inquisitive click of your mouse opens yet another hidden panel – unveiling both tuning options and also a selection of three velocity contours: Hard, Linear and Soft.

​Finally, residing down in the lower lot of screen-estate we visit the illustrious and novel ‘Pentamorph’ lodge.  While the Pentamorph puck grabs most of our eyes’ attention, it is flanked by a simple, yet effective two-band EQ on the left and a duo of Dynamics controls on the right – ‘Crunch’ and ‘Response’. Crunch governs the tonal reaction of higher velocities, whereas Response allows you to adjust input sensitivity (velocity dynamics?).

Animator Panel - Click to Zoom (new page)

Last, but certainly not least, let’s hear it for those forty lovable mop-tops from Hamburg, Germany, “The Animators”.

​We won’t lollygag too long with this marvelous attraction just now; nevertheless, let’s enjoy a few moments of meet-n-greet schmoozing, shall we? This, my dear reader, is a veritable hamlet of refuge for the “ebony & ivory-challenged” among us. Here, the non-keyboardist will find reprieve and respite whilst managing to actually produce satisfying e-piano parts. A simple explanatory breakdown would be as follows:

​​Firstly, enable it. It ain’t a-gonna work ‘til ya turn it on, Bubba. There’s a discreet little button in the right corner of the Animator tab. Listed in the ‘Song’ menu, you can select from any one of 40 different pre-arranged songs. Each one of the songs spotlights its own varietal composition (ie: chord progression, rhythmic pattern and overall vibe). Underneath, we see a vertical depiction of a keyboard, indicating where each song-section’s pattern keyswitch is assigned.

A convenient browser takes up most of the Animator’s territory. Herein we can choose from all included midi grooves, and custom-assign them to any one of the available keyswitch locations. I can see this being useful if you needed a dramatically different type of song-section pattern, instead of the song’s default pattern – eg. swapping out a smooth R&B chorus for something funkier.

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Performance and Functionality:
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As already noted, each one of these sample libraries generously divvies up two distinct sample sets: “Studio” and “Live”. The Studio prepared sets tend towards more open, higher fidelity sounds, whereas the Live alternates produce thicker, rounded tones -- the latter due to them being sampled whilst amplified through classic amps and analogue studio gear. Still and all, having a choice between the two variants makes Session Keys “R”, “S” and “W” versatile go to e-piano favourites.

:: EFFECTS TAB

I won’t take up too much of your time dissecting this portion of the libraries’ feature set; after all, if you’re even reading this review, chances are you’re already familiar with common FX, such as those on tap here. Be that as it may, there are a few notable elements worthy of mention. What’s more, some of these signal processing tools are conveniently BPM sync’d.

Effects Panel - Click to Zoom

​Firstly, I really dig how tastefully apportioned and useful the default settings are out-of-the-box. I suspect that most users will rarely find it necessary to make endless tone-chasing adjustments - very little tweaking is called-for to achieve really cool, engaging sounds. The included FX are intelligently daisy-chained in series, and their comprehensive range of parameters more-than-adequately fill the toolbox.

The Tremolo/Pan is widely variable and may be configured for either stereo tremelo panning or more traditional monophonic amplitude oscillation – or any point in between. A plauditory little extra is the Pan offset knob. This allows for disparity offsets between panning and amplitude modulation. The tremolo rate is also assignable to the Pentamorph, making for interesting modulations, not unlike basic oscillator movement in a synthesizer. Sine, Saw and Triangular tremolo shapes are available. Of course, tremolo depth control is fully at our disposal as well.

In like fashion to the Tremelo rate, the chorus’s speed can also be assigned to the Pentamorph. Otherwise, lovely, rich chorusing is heard here. Requisite parameter dials yield user control over Depth, Rate, Phase and Mix levels. 

Moving along to the Phaser, both Depth and Speed are pentamorph assignable. The phaser is actually very well decked-out with knobs for dialing in Depth, Speed, Phase, Feedback and Mix level. Anything from subtle shades of light swish to bombastic swirl can be actualized.

I admit that I tend to be somewhat snobbish towards Kontakt’s built-in amp sim(s). I often prefer to disable them, opting instead to process raw e-piano samples through a dedicated amp sim. However, it would be very unfair of me to not give a positive nod towards the virtual amp outline put together by e-instruments in Session Keys e-pianos. Eschewing the commonly used Marshall® amp and 4x12 cabinet emulations found in most Kontakt libraries, e-Instruments wisely chose to incorporate Guitar Rig’s “Twang” amp in concert with a robust sounding 2x12 green cabinet (me suspects green infers the famous, gutsy-sounding Celestion Greenback 12” guitar speakers). I must admit, I’m pleasantly surprised by the decent, usable tones available here. Flexible 3-way tone control and a malleable gain control offer plenty of texture and tonality tweakage, well suited to electric pianos.

Intelligently following the amp sim, we are greeted by a perfectly acceptable compressor – it being none other than Native Instrument’s “Solid Bus Comp” (presumably an emulation of an SSL G-series bus compressor). Full control over all the usual compression parameters are accommodated: Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release, Makeup Gain and a tidy Mix knob for achieving variable degrees of parallel compression. Personally, I like the sound of NI’s “Solid Bus Comp”, especially when I’m seeking a bit of stronger upper midrange presence – which is often just what the doctor ordered for helping electric pianos burrow through in a busy mix.

The onboard delay is a clean, well-balanced sort – a perfect bread n’ butter choice. Its Damping and Feedback parameters can be assigned to the pentamorph. For those who would rather have a somewhat analogue-sounding echo, the damping control lets you shave off upper harmonics, imitating old-time bucket brigade devices. Elseways, the delay is manipulated by Time, Damping, Feedback and Mix dials.
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The onboard reverb is courtesy of Kontakt’s familiar convolution engine. I honestly find the choices on call here are a good sounding, highly usable lot. The assortment of impulse responses span rooms, halls and plates – there doesn’t seem to be any spring reverb IRs in the group. Hmmm . . . a glaring oversight by e-instruments, me thinks.

:: TONALITY TAB
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As a general statement, I find most of e-Instruments’ default, factory settings to be well-balanced and apropos for all of the buttons n’ knobs here on the Tonality page. Of course, it’s neat to make subtle changes if one chooses to do so.

RESONANCE – This controls the amount of resonance blended in with natural notes. I haven’t found it to have any effect unless I keep my keyboard’s sustain/hold pedal held down. However, if this knob is dialed beyond its default position, you will definitely hear healthy to extreme doses of harmonic resonance (while the sustain pedal is depressed).

Tonality Panel - Click to Zoom

​TINES – Volume allows you to make levels-adjustments to the tine acoustical (unamplified) elements - which can certainly add realism from a player’s perspective - but, I’m not sure how much of this is actually needed in a typical mix. In any case, it’s cool to have it at our avail. When the Pentamorph is fixed at its ‘Unplugged’ point, this volume control becomes much more relevant. On the other hand, changing the tines position makes a dramatic difference in the instrument’s tonality regardless of the Pentamorph’s setting. Turning all the way to the left will result in a very thin, bell-like sound. Cranked right most brings out a very round, robust tone, but it will lack that pleasant, slightly metallic quality that good, well-conditioned Rhodes are known for. Less is more – the factory settings are just dandy as they are so I don’t recommend deviating too much from the defaults.

Click to Zoom

​As an aside, there are no Tines dials in the Session “W”; instead, we have a solitary Reeds Volume control. As with the tines volume on the Rhodes Session Keys, this permits the user to dial in degrees of acoustical reed sounds.

ENVELOPE – Here we have a very basic, but handy means of artificially manipulating the instrument’s attack and decay timings. For normal e-piano functionality, leave attack at zero and decay maximized. If you’d like to experiment with percussive “pluck” sounds, reduce the decay. If more ethereal, pad like vibrations are your shtick, feel free to add in some attack time. That said, I've found that a pleasant, slightly subdued ballad tone is easily achieved by increasing the attack time to eight or nine milliseconds.

NOISE – These knobs are pretty much self explanatory, but are sure to be appreciated nonetheless. Especially for the player’s delight, adding in some extra key, pedal and release noise can really impart a strong measure of realism.

REVERSE – The reverse volume is specific to the overall level of the reverse samples only. This will be observed when the Pentamorph’s puck is at/or near the “Reverse” point.

Next up . . . Let's take a look at the Pentamorph, the Animator, Smart Chord and more . . .

>> Continue to Part 2 >>

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