Neo Soul Keys Refill

[K1TTENM1TTEN]

Hey all! I have a question - Since GospelMusicians no longer sells and/or supports this product, would it then be fair to say that it is now to be classified as a "legacy" refill that is free since it only fully works well with Reason 6? I had never heard of this Refill until today and have been trying to find it and have had absolutely zero luck being able to find it for sale or otherwise. Anyone use this Refill? Does it really sound as good as the video demos it out to sound?

[mreese80]

I have it. it's ok.

[K1TTENM1TTEN]

I have it. it's ok.

The video demo of this Refill made it sound like pure Mr. Roger's Neighborhood magic. Did you find it to not put out that same vibe when you were playing it? I have definitely bought many a Refill to only find out that it really doesn't play as nice as the demos made the patches to be.

[mreese80]

I have it. it's ok.

The video demo of this Refill made it sound like pure Mr. Roger's Neighborhood magic. Did you find it to not put out that same vibe when you were playing it? I have definitely bought many a Refill to only find out that it really doesn't play as nice as the demos made the patches to be.

he was using a certain patch. It also helps if you know how to play.

[K1TTENM1TTEN]

I have it. it's ok.

The video demo of this Refill made it sound like pure Mr. Roger's Neighborhood magic. Did you find it to not put out that same vibe when you were playing it? I have definitely bought many a Refill to only find out that it really doesn't play as nice as the demos made the patches to be.

he was using a certain patch. It also helps if you know how to play.

Hmmm... I am not going to lie, that video demo sounds amazing. Has anyone else used this refill?

[QVprod]

Best sounding rhodes available (especially for Reason) imo. loading time (and song saving) is slow due to Reason's lack of disk streaming. And It works on everything Reason 6 and above so it'll work in Reason 9. The only downside is that select few patches make use of the Line 6 guitar amp. but you should be fine without it. Not sure how you'd acquire it though.

That said however, His UVI version is much better than the refill.

[mreese80]

Best sounding rhodes available (especially for Reason) imo. loading time (and song saving) is slow due to Reason's lack of disk streaming. And It works on everything Reason 6 and above so it'll work in Reason 9. The only downside is that select few patches make use of the Line 6 guitar amp. but you should be fine without it. Not sure how you'd acquire it though.

That said however, His UVI version is much better than the refill.

The line 6 amps are replaced with Soft tubes in reason 9. it works

[QVprod]

Best sounding rhodes available (especially for Reason) imo. loading time (and song saving) is slow due to Reason's lack of disk streaming. And It works on everything Reason 6 and above so it'll work in Reason 9. The only downside is that select few patches make use of the Line 6 guitar amp. but you should be fine without it. Not sure how you'd acquire it though.

That said however, His UVI version is much better than the refill.

The line 6 amps are replaced with Soft tubes in reason 9. it works

I'm aware that it works. But patches that rely on the sound of the line 6 amps will not sound the same.

[aRiver]

This thing is more about chords than samples imo

[dmcghee]

I bought the Neo Soul Keys Refill when the Refill was first introduced.
It sounds great and it takes awhile to load. But so is some the sounds from some libraries.

I haven't use it since the Radical Keys came out.

[mreese80]

Best sounding rhodes available (especially for Reason) imo. loading time (and song saving) is slow due to Reason's lack of disk streaming. And It works on everything Reason 6 and above so it'll work in Reason 9. The only downside is that select few patches make use of the Line 6 guitar amp. but you should be fine without it. Not sure how you'd acquire it though.

That said however, His UVI version is much better than the refill.

The line 6 amps are replaced with Soft tubes in reason 9. it works

I'm aware that it works. But patches that rely on the sound of the line 6 amps will not sound the same.

I didn't think about it that way. Sounds the same to me imo. I only used one patch anyways

[QVprod]

Best sounding rhodes available (especially for Reason) imo. loading time (and song saving) is slow due to Reason's lack of disk streaming. And It works on everything Reason 6 and above so it'll work in Reason 9. The only downside is that select few patches make use of the Line 6 guitar amp. but you should be fine without it. Not sure how you'd acquire it though.

That said however, His UVI version is much better than the refill.

The line 6 amps are replaced with Soft tubes in reason 9. it works

I'm aware that it works. But patches that rely on the sound of the line 6 amps will not sound the same.

I didn't think about it that way. Sounds the same to me imo. I only used one patch anyways

Thats because the device is included in all the patches (all patches have the same routing) but is bypassed. Only some patches had it enabled. So if you're using a patch such as "Da Original" there is no difference in sound.

[Dante]

I had the Neo Soul Keys Kontakt version, but also havent used it since Radical Piano RE came out.

[miscend]

Is Radical Keys just as good?

[Dante]

It is just as good for what I use it for. Plus it covers Whurlitzer as well as Rhodes. So you can do Supertramp covers no probs.

[bitley]

Hey all! I have a question - Since GospelMusicians no longer sells and/or supports this product, would it then be fair to say that it is now to be classified as a "legacy" refill that is free since it only fully works well with Reason 6

NO

Besides, refills works fully well with any version of the program made l8r than the refill itself.

Never pirate refills please.

[QVprod]

Is Radical Keys just as good?

Really depends on your Rhodes needs, but in general from a keyboard player perspective (this keyboard player atleast)... No. It's not just as good. Radical Keys is very useable though.

[K1TTENM1TTEN]

Hey all! I have a question - Since GospelMusicians no longer sells and/or supports this product, would it then be fair to say that it is now to be classified as a "legacy" refill that is free since it only fully works well with Reason 6

NO

Besides, refills works fully well with any version of the program made l8r than the refill itself.

Never pirate refills please.

Haha, well Bitley, you can check my receipts but I have actually bought every refill you have made since releasing Fairlight Platinum, so pirating a Refill is not really in question here The question being that the Refill is no longer sold, no longer supported, and was known to have issues on later versions of Reason (hence why it is no longer sold), does that become "Legacy?" I feel like there is a strong case for it, as if one cannot buy it anymore I do not understand how this would be considered piracy as there is not an updated version, nor is there a way to obtain this Refill by purchasing it (you can't sell Refills that you have previously purchased, so ya can't get a used one on eBay, either).

[jfrichards]

If you're interested in nice electric piano, Radical is on sale for $49
https://shop.propellerheads.se/product/radical-keys/

[bitley]

Didn't know that, sorry. There is no way of knowing who is behind a nickname you know.

[K1TTENM1TTEN]

Side note - I still use your refills regularly, Bitley. Honest to goodness, the Fairlight Platinum/WBF Refill set the bar so high on what I expect to be included in a Refill that I am almost instantly disappointed with any Refill I buy anymore. Top notch stuff!

[miscend]

Is Radical Keys just as good?

Really depends on your Rhodes needs, but in general from a keyboard player perspective (this keyboard player atleast)... No. It's not just as good. Radical Keys is very useable though.

What do you think of the Reason Electromechanical Refill? Does it still hold up nowadays?

[WongoTheSane]

I have Radical Keys, Electromechanical and a bajillion other Rhodes patches, but IMHO none come even close to a refill raapie/Marco Raaphorst made over a decade ago:

http://ccmixter.org/files/marcoraaphorst/2633

The patch I use literaly all the time (it's the only patch in my default song, so that's the one I'm using when looking for ideas) is "Smooth Rhodes". I slapped a chorus and a reverb on it, and that's it, sexiest Rhodes ever! There are a couple of variations in the Refill (Dyna, Hard, Plain, Smooth and Trem), and also Subtractor versions of them. Might be worth investigating!

Quick Edit: oh yeah, it's free, forgot to add...

[K1TTENM1TTEN]

Is Radical Keys just as good?

Really depends on your Rhodes needs, but in general from a keyboard player perspective (this keyboard player atleast)... No. It's not just as good. Radical Keys is very useable though.

What do you think of the Reason Electromechanical Refill? Does it still hold up nowadays?

The thing I have learned is that everyone's "perfect Rhodes" is different. For me, I am not a fan of Electromechanical. I was a fan back in 2006, but now with Radical and several other Refill offerings, I do not feel like it meets my needs anymore. For me, the "Meat and Potatoes" Radical Keys patch is a solid go-to for a Rhodes Mk II sounding patch. I had a Mk 2 and sold it shortly after playing that patch and my Mk2 side by side, as the patch sounded nearly identical and not having to haul 100 lbs around sounded great to me. But that being said, Radical Keys will not give you that "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" Mk1 sounding Rhodes, so if that's what you want, that is not what you will get with Radical. Electromechanical, to me anyways, sounds very stale and it definitely feels very "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit" as the vibrato/tremolo patch is permanently set to a certain speed and depth that cannot be adjusted without it sounding wonky. It is free though, so download it and give it a try, you may like it.

[WongoTheSane]

The thing I have learned is that everyone's "perfect Rhodes" is different. For me, I am not a fan of Electromechanical. I was a fan back in 2006, but now with Radical and several other Refill offerings, I do not feel like it meets my needs anymore. For me, the "Meat and Potatoes" Radical Keys patch is a solid go-to for a Rhodes Mk II sounding patch. I had a Mk 2 and sold it shortly after playing that patch and my Mk2 side by side, as the patch sounded nearly identical and not having to haul 100 lbs around sounded great to me. But that being said, Radical Keys will not give you that "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" Mk1 sounding Rhodes, so if that's what you want, that is not what you will get with Radical. Electromechanical, to me anyways, sounds very stale and it definitely feels very "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit" as the vibrato/tremolo patch is permanently set to a certain speed and depth that cannot be adjusted without it sounding wonky. It is free though, so download it and give it a try, you may like it.

Oohh, you just reminded me of a thread I read recently, posted by Selig on the PUF a few years ago, where he sets out to recreate exactly the Rhodes Vibrato. It's an effect combi, so it can be plugged on any Rhodes patch/device/combi/etc. I'll repost his article because it reads like a detective story and it's full of interesting tidbits, plus there's a link to the actual patch at the end. Everything below this sentence is (c) Selig (I can't post the original link because I lost it and the HTML I saved is kinda garbled):


Selig's Rhodes Panner/Vibrato Emulation

SeligRhodesPanner1.png (338.36 KiB) Viewed 3040 times

I’ve been sitting in front of a sweet Mark I Suitcase Rhodes all week long, wondering what made it’s vibrato (panner) so unique and identifiable (especially on headphones). Late one night, I decided to see if I could re-create that sound. I was able to get close, but I never actually got ‘that sound’. Finally it occurred to me that there was a way I could analyze what was actually going on.

The Rhodes has an accessory jack that allows you to insert an FX unit (love to put a Memory Man there) between the mono Rhodes and the stereo “Vibrato” circuit. This just happen to be the perfect setup for my experiments, allowing me to patch a test tone into the Vibrato effect. So I fired up Reason and loaded up my Function Generator and a sine wave, and recorded the results back into Reason as a stereo audio track.

This is what I saw:

SeligRhodesPanner2.png (29.37 KiB) Viewed 3040 times

As you can see, the left channel (upper waveform) has a different shape than the right (lower waveform), giving it the ‘signature’ sound and explaining why a simple auto panner didn’t even come close to emulating this famous effect.

I tried to match the curves in the waveform using many different process to ‘warp’ a simple waveform into what I was seeing, like using a Shaper in Thor to change the shape or using the Pulveriser’s Follower, all to no avail. So I gave up on the whole concept.

That night as I was falling asleep, it came to me: just load the recording I made as a stereo SAMPLE into an NNXT. Then convert the audio to CVs, one for left and one for right, and use the CV to control the levels in Thor to create the panning effect. Simple and accurate.

Here’s what I learned along the way. The NNXT is great for this application because you can force the Release time to infinity by setting both the sample’s release time and the master release knob on the front panel to ‘max’. So you only have to trigger it once and it will loop and run on it's own until you quit Reason. The only catch is that after first loading this combi, you have to hit play to get the effect “started”. But from there it will play on, even if you hit stop.

The only other minor issue I ran into is you can’t ‘pitch’ the sample up enough to cover the entire range of the original Rhodes unit. So I had to take a second sample at a higher rate and put a X6 button on the Combinator.

Here’s the side by side comparison of the original Rhodes Vibrato recording, and my version - you can see how close this technique gets you to the original, and I can’t imagine a better or simpler way to recreate these quirky types of analog devices.

SeligRhodesPanner3.png (60.37 KiB) Viewed 3040 times

The Combinator is presented in the form of a ReFill so the samples will be included (they're small samples). Those who’ve played the original will instantly recognize the sound (don’t forget to hit play after loading the combinator, or you won't hear anything!). Be sure to try this on sounds other than Rhodes BTW, as it’s great on just about any source! Enjoy.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14755091/Selig% ... Panner.rfl

Giles Reaves
Audio Architect, Musical Technologist
Selig Audio, LLC