The Sound Board

A countdown 10 years in the making... must have been started at 315360023

Eh, between this and waiting for Kontakt 5.6, I'm a bit over it all.

No official word, but it seems this is a keyboard collection called Keyscape: https://twitter.com/DiegoStocco

Mike Greene wrote:No official word, but it seems this is a keyboard collection called Keyscape: https://twitter.com/DiegoStocco

That's not something I'm looking for .

Udo wrote: That's not something I'm looking for .

10 years for a software keyboard instrument-interesting to say the least. I sure didn't figure on that.

A short Twitter video on VIC on this page: http://vi-control.net/community/threads ... 45/page-13

Hmm.

Oh boy.

The eventual product might be good. It might be very good, and I may well buy it. But I think "Keyscape" will go down in infamy as how to botch a launch and tarnish a brand. A 7 day daily countdown, 10 years in the making - and they then miss their own launch date (their website is now on day 3 of "1 day to go", even in California time). All that might be mysterious and exciting if a little disorganised, but when the world finally gets their first glimpse of this elusive new product, it's a bad quality selfie of someone playing a honky tonk piano in the background to whoops and cheers. Yes, from the people who revolutionised synthesis - it's pianos and old keyboards. Like you already have a thousand of.

Oh boy.

Spectrasonics may not care that the internet will roast them alive for this. "All publicity" and all that - and I expect the product will be good enough to make the more sober-headed not care a jot for such initial embarrassment. There will now be hundreds, thousands of new sound sources with which to work wonders, and I suspect it is those modified patches that will garner the most attention by Spectrasonics fans in the coming days. And the new mega-library of course will have some great sounding new variants.

But one of my main disappointments about this is that it is so unambitious. Keyboards are the easiest instruments to sample of the lot - a key plays a note, you record the note, another key plays back a note. With voice or guitar you have inherent challenges that require innovation, and beg for new breakthroughs. Here - nothing. Just more variations on a theme. And what is really depressing - if it took them 10 years to sample pianos and organs, it'll take them 100 to do guitars. That global sense of deflation is palpable. All the "ha ha, nobody has guessed it yet" sounds less fun when the reality is that it's such a boring idea, nobody could think down that far.

Oh boy.

Still. Good news #1 - the Greene family get to eat still! Good news #2 - a lot of cash-strapped musicians can breathe a sigh of relief. This can almost certainly be filed in "nice to have" lists, not "must buy" lists. It boggles my mind that they still haven't put up a press release on their website if nothing else, with a few juicy details to mitigate this landslide of disappointment.

EDIT - a day late, those juicy details now online here - https://www.spectrasonics.net/products/ ... /index.php

"Keyscape".....hah! So basically we are again back to The Piano Thread!!

30min introduction video. Just realised - this is just pianos, not organs too. Okaaaay....

Boy, were we wrong.

For me, the best part about the video is watching far better players than me working out and reminding me how crappy I am.

Here is the product link if anyone wants - https://www.spectrasonics.net/products/ ... models.php

EDIT: Im happy for Mike too

I'm sure I'll find something else to spend my money on. This may have been interesting 10 years ago but now..................?

I think combining different keys will be interesting and I can see me getting it and making a soundset (especially with the Omnisphere integration)... but more than that? I'm not really sure.

All those electric keyboards... It really doesn't feel like something I don't already have.

But, that's before dipping into it. I'm sure it'll sound fantastic. It is a little underwhelming though - unless you're Mike!

Lawrence wrote:Boy, were we wrong.

For me, the best part about the video is watching far better players than me working out and reminding me how crappy I am.

Goes quadruple times a hundred for me....

Its as you'd expect, isn't it - they've done it very well. Piano sounds unnaturally wide, not sure what mic options there are, but an impressive variety of tone, I'll be interested to see what the pianoheads make of it. And it's the new session keyboard player's tool of choice, no doubt. Some of the amped stuff sounded particularly fun, and while I'm critical of its lack of sampling advancement by its very nature, they've clearly gone to great lengths to press those keys as well as they can be pressed.

Quite what the market for this is remains to be seen I guess, as so few will positively need it. I suspect it will do well enough, generating sales for years to come, but not be anywhere near the Omni level or probably at the Trillian level either - it's not really for KVR, is it? Not sure yet if I'll go for it - the current exchange rate doesn't help.

And throughout that intro video, the main thing that stuck with me was "Why is that woman wearing a jacket with such long sleeves when she knew she'd be playing the piano?"!

Didn't seem to hamper her much.

Some great sounds there but like most people nothin to get excited about. I understand the marketing and creating such a buzz but I would think you should only do that if you truly unique product to release.

I think Raymond is spot on. This would have been great a decade ago and probably why they started on the journey.
Chris

mm, quite underwhelming.
If there is one kind of instrument I have absolutely no need of, it is keyboard in any shape or form. The little I need is covered by stuff I already have or my Kronos.
It might be a long time in the making, but to me this seems like any other keyboard collection out there. Maybe it is unfamiliarity with the style, but all the keyboard libraries to me are mainly "dude/gal playing freaskishly fast jazz stuff on a wurli while saying YEAH MAN! DIS ROKKZZZ" every five seconds".

Would have loved something with Guitars, but Keys... nope, will pass.

Tobias Escher wrote:Maybe it is unfamiliarity with the style, but all the keyboard libraries to me are mainly "dude/gal playing freaskishly fast jazz stuff on a wurli while saying YEAH MAN! DIS ROKKZZZ" every five seconds"

It IS a problem...

I guess one way to look at this is in context of Eric's desire to preserve old tech, as he does with synths, so he is with (esp) electric pianos. I do kinda like the idea that its an attempt to digitally preserve the soul of instruments from days gone by. But this is esoteric stuff - frankly a copy of NI's Vintage Keys ain't too shabby and would do most of us.

Someone did spot this little nugget in the FAQ:

What is the STEAM engine?
STEAM™ is our in-house core technology that is the foundation of Omnisphere, Trilian and a new generation of Spectrasonics instruments.

Perhaps Keyscape is the template for a load of stuff going forward. I'm now wondering that when it comes to guitars (as surely will come), it might get split into electric, acoustic, world. Although this is called vintage keyboards, it's really just pianos - no organs etc. And it will get awfully expensive - awfully slowly.

I would have loved to see more pianos since it is supposed to be a collection of instruments, but OK! Yamaha C7 ...fair choice I guess. But, it does have many options and perspectives.

I like this library. I think it is great that someone has created a dedicated collection of keyboard sounds. I am not a fan of the NI stuff. It just does not sound that great to me for some reason.

I really liked some of the sounds in the video. Couple of piano passages, sounded really great.

What is interesting to me immediately is that this library sounds very different from their other electric pianos in Omnisphere. It sounds more detailed and has more body. On first listen that is. It does not have the typical omnisphere bite which I sometimes do not like.

It sounds fuller and some of those patches really sounded alive. Of course, they got the best keyboard players to perform really good music so that makes a difference.

I think I am going to get this library. Even though I have Lounge Lizard, this sounds very nice indeed.

I was not expecting anything very different from them because the fact of the matter is that unless Spectrasonics invented something like Sample modeling, they cannot be too far ahead of what is the collective current domain in sampling.

It is in line with what is the current limitation and trend - more variations and better recordings of samples, just more versions and perspectives instead of revolutionary technologies.

Although, I have to say that I am not exactly sure why it has taken them 10 years to do this.

My curiosity is piqued by the seemingly limited amount of instruments. Why ONLY a C7? If you're going to create the ultimate vintage keyboard workstation, why not a vintage Steinway as well?

For that matter, why no organ-not just Hammond, but harmonium, pump organ, a theater organ, a full pipe beast? Was there a harpsichord? Did I miss the Wurlitzer-it must be in there, right?

I'm sure subsequent walkthroughs will clarify matters.

I think all in all it's a really good product at a very fair price that will fill a gap that some people have. I'm just not sure whether "enough" people have that gap.

In some ways, it feels more like an Omnisphere expansion (as Trilian has technically become) rather than an instrument in its own right. A bunch of keybaords is great, but I think they'll be much more fun when put through their paces within the Steam engine.

And with that in mind, Guy's post above that alludes to future similar products is perhaps what this is all about. More Spectrasonics libraries, using Steam. I just think, in some ways, they've been beaten to the draw by ideas like Spitfire's eDNA tech, which they add to their instrument libraries.

But you can rely on Spectrasonics to do whatever it is they do to a high standard. And that means, at some point, there'll be a new product in the collection that meets everybody's needs.

Perhaps the lesson here is myabe don't take ten years to make a product in such a fast-moving industry?

Tanuj Tiku wrote:Although, I have to say that I am not exactly sure why it has taken them 10 years to do this.

It's just an attempt to build hype. It translates to "we had this idea since 10 years".

Lawrence wrote:My curiosity is piqued by the seemingly limited amount of instruments. Why ONLY a C7? If you're going to create the ultimate vintage keyboard workstation, why not a vintage Steinway as well?

For that matter, why no organ-not just Hammond, but harmonium, pump organ, a theater organ, a full pipe beast? Was there a harpsichord? Did I miss the Wurlitzer-it must be in there, right?

I'm sure subsequent walkthroughs will clarify matters.

I can only hope that they will update the sample and patch pool with those kind of instruments, just like they did with Omnisphere a couple of years after initial release.

bryla wrote:

Lawrence wrote:My curiosity is piqued by the seemingly limited amount of instruments. Why ONLY a C7? If you're going to create the ultimate vintage keyboard workstation, why not a vintage Steinway as well?

For that matter, why no organ-not just Hammond, but harmonium, pump organ, a theater organ, a full pipe beast? Was there a harpsichord? Did I miss the Wurlitzer-it must be in there, right?

I'm sure subsequent walkthroughs will clarify matters.

I can only hope that they will update the sample and patch pool with those kind of instruments, just like they did with Omnisphere a couple of years after initial release.

I strongly doubt that there will be a significant sample update to this, Bryla. Trillian is the closest model, but without the synth side - and that AFAIK hasn't had a sample update beyond fixes.

Larry - I don't think you missed anything really, I wouldn't hold your breath for more revelations in walkthroughs. You can see every instrument included on the website, and a full patch list along with the soundsources. Really its a comprehensive electric piano collection, seems to me, plus a few acoustics and a smattering of hybrids. The price is perfectly fair on the face of it I think, but it's exactly as Matt said - I do doubt how many people will feel they have enough of a hole for this collection to fill, added to those for whom having this level of authenticity is required or loving specific tones. But being as it's nice-to-have rather than must-have for most, a lower price point would be tempting an awful lot more people. Personally I think $249 would mean an awful lot more people would be saying "oh sod it, why not".

Spitfire's approach - in their eDNA - is an interesting comparison. I've thought for a while that the two companies share a little DNA (if you will). Personally though, I haven't got on with Earth - it's that age old problem that Kontakt is so frequently used for things it isn't really best designed for. As a host, from a user perspective, Omnisphere is infinitely superior, and Earth gathers virtual dust in the way Omni never does. On the other hand, say what you like about Spitfire, but they do seem to crank things out fast.

10 years for this collection is kinda nuts - as I said (somewhere) earlier, it makes me a little fearful for how long the guitars will be. For all the restoration and care, sampling pianos is such a piece of cake compared to guitars.