Digidesign Velvet

Price: $249.99

Vintage electric pianos aren’t easy to acquire. They are behemoths in size and also in price and Digidesign’s new virtual instrument specialists A.I.R have done an amazing job of eliminating these size issues into a nice little RTAS plug-in for Pro Tools users and to an extent live performances with just a midi controller and your PT rig.

Four of the great classic electric pianos are represented - Fender Rhodes’ Mark I and II, a Rhodes Suitcase 73 and (my favorite) the Wurlitzer 200a electric piano. Besides the absolutely astounding authentic sound quality, each piano can be extensively edited with the controls provided. The control section includes the Piano Model selector, volume knob and Tremolo controls. The style of the knobs and switches look just like the originals, which is a classy touch.

The second section is called the Setup section. This provides control over the sound of the selected piano. It provides controls for the Pickup Level, Mechanics (adding the actual plunking hammers from inside the real keyboards), among others. Another interesting knob is the Condition knob, which allows you to choose a “mint” piano or a “bad” piano - a very, very clever tool. A.I.R thought of every detail going into this project and it shows since part of the character of these vintage pianos comes from small imperfections, this knob is a great addition to shaping the overall sound.

The third section is the Preamp/EQ/FX section. As the name implies, this section provides controls for Compression, Tube Drive and EQ. However, the most fun part of this section is the Effects section. While Rhodes and Wurlitzers themselves produce distinctive sounds, many of the classic sounds we revere came from the effects used on those pianos.

These are presented in a stomp-box style, and a red faux-LED light turns on when the effect (and their variations) are activated. Distortion, Wah, Modulation (chorus, flanger, two phasers), Delay (Mono, Stereo, and an excellent Tape setting), and Cabinet are all present. Even the effects chain is adjustable!

Finally, for live performance, Velvet also includes MIDI controller mapping yet cannot run outside of Pro Tools.

Velvet ships with 200 ready-made presets with 50 per keyboard model. The presets cover all styles, including a few interesting ones you wouldn’t expect. Once again the clever engineers at A.I.R named a few presets after the famous songs they represent - i.e., “Sunshine” (Stevie Wonder), “Logical” (Supertramp) and “Green Flower” (Steely Dan).

Digidesign’s Velvet is easily one of the absolute best vintage e-piano plugins out there with authentic sounds, extremely simple controls and tons of options to change tone and effect.

www.digidesign.com

-Brian E. King