All In the tests

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Electric Pianos never seem to go out of style; and because they’ve now gone virtual, Digidesign has decided to come out with their own version of these timeless instruments.

Since its acquisition/creation by Digidesign, the A.I.R team has been very busy, giving the virtual world nothing less than Xpand!, Hybrid, Strike, Structure and Velvet, the latter being the subject of this review. In recent years, Rhodes and Wurlitzer instruments have made their return to the stage and in numerous productions, from pop to hip-hop. By emulating these famous pianos, Velvet aims to be, for Pro Tools users, the direct rival of Scarbee, AAS and Native Instruments.

A Familiar interface

Test Machine Mac PPC G5 2 x 2 GHz OS 10.4.9 4 Go of Ram ATI X800XT MBox2 Mini & MBox Micro 2 internal HD SATA & 5 external HD FW800 TC PoCo PCImkII & FireWire UAD-1

A DVD player, at least 700 MB of free disk space and an iLok (sold separately): these are common specs for a RTAS plug-in. A small application helps the plug-in to find its samples, allowing you to install them wherever you want, thus avoiding the creation of aliases, symbolic links, etc.

According to A.I.R., Velvet uses a blend of samples and modeling, here called dynamic modeling. Instead of simply using sample libraries that were made when they were called Wizoo (the Magnetica library), the editor has built Velvet from scratch, with brand new samples, offering three Rhodes and a Wurlitzer. As the editor says: “Whatever you hear is a sample, but the "behavior" (i.e. reaction to playing styles, key off, interaction of notes, artifacts) is modeled.”

These four electric pianos have been sampled throughout their ranges; so, since the whole library is only 605,9 MB, we can assume that Velvet uses some kind of data compression, like the one used by Hypersonic, created by... Wizoo, and then a complicated crossfade system to smooth the transition between velocity layers. It could also be a sampling “trick” like the one used by Kurzweil: when sampling a note whose highest frequency is 4000 Hz, for example, you don’t have to use 96 kHz, according to the Shannon-Nyquist principle. Sampling the note at 11 kHz is sufficient. However, it wasn’t possible to get more information: trade secret!

In the lower section, there’s a virtual keyboard and several parameters: Volume, Tremolo with Rate, Depth, Stereo or Mono use. The GUI changes according to the selected piano, Rhodes (MkI, MkII or SC73) or Wurlitzer (A200), in the Model menu. On the keyboard’s left side a switch lets you to extend the instrument’s range, for when the factory presets are faithful to the originals range.

Above there are two setting strips, the top one is dedicated to the “physical” parameters (Setup Section), the lower one to the effects (Preamp/EQ/FX Section). PickUp Level adjusts the level equivalent to the line level of the original, Mechanics (a first, and a success) emulates the sounds of pedals and other mechanical keyboard noises. This function helps you to reinforce the real sensation. The result is quite amazing, you get the impression that the keyboard response has changed, thanks to psycho-acoustics...

But don’t use them in a mix; these kinds of sounds are never included in a recording of a real instrument, unless you use an ambient mic for whatever reason. A right-click opens a menu which lets you bypass the FX section.