The story
I wanted to see if I could recreate an E-Piano using my modular synth.
E-Pianos like the Rhodes are made up of two main sounds: The Tine and the Tonebar.
The Tine is the bell like sound that is heard at the beginning of each note and the Tonebar is the sustained sound.
In order to recreate the Tine, I had to use the frequency modulation as it is perfect for bell like sounds but here comes the first issue, analog oscillators and FM do not track well. The solution was to use my SSF Zero Point Oscillator that does Through Zero FM. This allowed me to get crazy with FM without the pitch drifting. If you are interested in Through Zero FM I recommend you read this: https://learningmodular.com/understanding-the-differences-between-exponential-linear-and-through-zero-fm/
For the Tonebar part I used my Deckards Voice and filtered it down. Blending these two sounds together gave me the sound I was looking for. Lastly, I ran it through my Analog Heat for a little bit more saturation and then I recorded 88 keys and looped them for infinite sustain.
For the GUI I wanted to recreate a LABS style GUI. I am a big fan of their Neumorphic and minimal design and I think I was able to get pretty close.
Anyway enough rambling here. I hope you like the instrument!
Interface
Reviews for Thru Zero E-Piano
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Purely Inspiring
The night I downloaded this instrument, I wrote a piece of music solely using it, and the result really hit me hard. This instrument is indeed impressive.
The sound gives me a lot of inspiration. It has a rich warm sound below F4 (I’m using Fl Studio), which was just like a PCM synth E-Piano (like what those old Roland devices may have), while those above C5 sounded pure and clear, like something between an E-Piano and some marimba thing. Also, somehow the instrument reminds me of water drops. I can even imagine some game scenes hearing the sound. It’s the perfect one.
Also, the GUI... I will not be surprised if it turned white. You guys know what I’m talking about.
By the way, the chorus control is best to be set at 0.32 and the release at 0.78 to me. You can also set the release to somewhere at the top to imitate a sustain pedal.
I’m composing for an independent game currently, and this instrument will be sure to appear in my tracks. Thank you Calico!--Edited at 04/15/2023--
This instrument deserves to be honored as a true Pianobook Gem. I have used this instrument in several tracks and it never turned me down. The clear water-crystal-y sound makes it stand out among a number of synth E-Pianos in my sample pack database. This is the most IMPRESSING instrument I have ever met in Pianobook for its simplicity and distinctiveness.Great Sounds Once Again
Very simple, clean, nice sound. Once again, gotta give huge props to this soundmaker. Great e-piano sound. Sounds like a classic, sounds great.
An Analogue E-Piano!
Just when I thought that I had heard just about, very nearly, approximately, quite a lot of, definitely all of, one or two of, a representative number of, more than one of, a plethora of, pretty much, every possible electric piano sound, along comes another one. Initial impressions are powerful things, and I hated this one. To my ears, it didn't sound right at all. Nasty, synthetic, and just plain wrong.
And then...
I set the chorus control and release control to half way up, and tried again. In total and complete contrast, it now sounded wonderful! Amazing! Gorgeous! It sounded right. Beautiful, not realistic, but then what electric piano is? Just plain right. Brill!
That's zero to hero in two slider changes. Wowzer!
I would say that this is an instrument of two colours, but the background is all blue, and just a little cheekily familiar. The minimalistic controls provide just what you need to make it sound perfectly wonderful, or if my experience is anything to go by, the complete opposite. It isn't you, it is me, as they say.
There are 88 chromatic samples, all labelled, revealingly, with the labels v127 and rr1, which strongly suggests that there are more velocity layers and more round-robins out there somewhere. Maybe there's a Pro version coming up? The use of a high end Saturator effect like Analog Heat would make emulating different velocity layers relatively straight-forward, methinks. But I'm just extrapolating and fishing...
( I don't have one, but if I did, then the temptation to add an 'h', so that it said 'Analog Heath' would be huge! Or maybe 'Cold' instead? My Deluge says 'Martin :)' where it should say 'Deluge', by the way... You can just about see it in my 'Samplist' of the Month (August) photo... )
I'm picky sometimes, so I will say that the chorus was a little slow for me, but, as I always say at this point, that's easily fixed with an edit of the XML in the .dspreset. The reverb room size is quite small, so I wasn't able to drown the sound in pointless amounts of splosh, at least, not until I edited that as well...
As delivered, the release was too low (in terms of slider position) and hence too short in terms of time. 3 seconds out of the 6 maximum was the sweet spot for me. But you won't be surprised that I went all ambient with an edited 30 seconds maximum, just for fun! And Decent Sampler makes it easy to save your own presets, so unless you want to go outside of the available range provided, then you can quickly get to and preserve your own land of honey and timbral perfection.
In conclusion, a usable and subtly different variation on the electric piano. I didn't think that there could possibly be room for yet another alternative, but I loved this one. At this price, an easy and obvious purchase, er..., download. Thank goodness it is not big and heavy - virtual instruments are wonderful for gear acquisition syndrome addicts. If I ever meet one I will let them know...
Simple and beautiful!
If you are looking for a beautiful, ready-to-go e-piano with a nice warm character, this is a great candidate! Coming in an overly small package of just 25MB, you surely don't expect to see a deeply sampled instrument, yet this one definitely is. It plays really well too, and it definitely sounds warm and romantic to me.
It comes with a very, very minimal GUI, with just Reverb, Chorus, and a Release setting. I personally don't like the Reverb having to be set by draging the mouse along the "curve", since I am used to just vertical controls instead. I also noticed that the Release slider has a very big hitbox that touches the left side of the Reverb. Once you figure it out it's not an issue though.
Vintage piano
My first thought when I heard this package was “vintage”. The simplicity of this instrument is fantastic. The sounds are spectacular, as if they were the result of combining a harp and a piano.
I don't know why, but the interface looks familiar. Maybe it's just my imagination. I think it would have been cool if you had added some figures in the background.
This is a resource that every person who is starting to make music should have.
