Kontakt Free Player (Cali Keys), Kontakt 5.5 or above for the other 4 titles in this bundle.
Review: California Keys
from Q Up
Arts
by Brian Brylow/
Sample Library Review.com
After thoroughly investigating
California Keys, I can’t recommend it enough. For me, the grand piano is what
sets this library apart. Not to lessen their role in the library, but the icing
on the cake is the addition of the other six vintage instruments.
Review: California Keys from Q Up
Arts
I am always fascinated by a
library where I spend so much time lost in exploration that I can’t really pull
myself away to write the review. California Keys definitely falls into that
category. It was clear to me from the
start that this collection of instruments had been lovingly recorded, produced
and scripted. The detail, clarity and
overall production are top notch and it comes through in the sound – especially
the Fazioli Grand.
Thoughts
I have had the pleasure to review
a previous offering from Doug Morton of Q Up Arts in the recent past; his
partnership with Rhythmic Robot on the
Emulator II series sampler libraries. This
time out, California Keys is a solo effort from Doug and once again does not
disappoint! Once you start to unpack this massive 40 GB library, you will find
that California Keys is indeed the perfect name. What you have inside this
library is a virtual studio’s worth of vintage gear made famous on the L.A.
recording scene with a 10 ft. Fazioli Grand Piano as the centerpiece.
California Keys contains a Fazioli
Grand, Vintage Rhodes electric piano, a Vintage Wurlitzer electric piano, a Vox
Continental organ, a Farfisa organ, a Clavinet D6 and a Hammond A-100 tone
wheel organ.
This is truly a mind-boggling
collection of history in a single library! In addition to the Grand Piano,
which for me if the piece de resistance, you can also channel at will your
inner Doors, Stevie Wonder, Deep Purple, Elton John, Ray Charles, or
Supertramp…..you get the point; it’s a treasure trove of lovingly recorded gear
that gives you incredible creative potential.
A huge bonus for me is the
included snapshots for each of the instruments
A huge bonus for me is the
included snapshots for each of the instruments which also include snapshots for
non-weighted keyboards. Admittedly each composer and musician likes to tweak
the sound of instruments and you certainly can do that here, but these snapshots
give you a real glimpse into the true potential of the California Keys
collection. The other immediate standout for me is NKS support for the Native
Instruments Kontrol Keyboards. In a library with seven independent instruments
that is a great addition. Let’s take a look at what we have included in the
libraries.
The centerpiece of California
Keys is the not-oft recorded 10ft Fazioli Grand. The recording technique for
this gem is what will probably set it apart from the vast majority of other grand
pianos out there. The grand was recorded with 10 channels of microphones
including microphones placed above the hammers, under the piano, traditional
room positions and also ORTF. Each of the microphone pairs can be adjusted for
volume and pan independently. Clicking the “I” next to the microphone pairs
will display the microphone models and position information.
The sound of the piano is simply
amazing & I say that owning almost every major piano library or
plugin.
The sound of the piano is simply
amazing and I say that owning almost every major piano library or plugin. I
would place the California Keys Grand in the top libraries out there. Let me
talk a bit about what makes it so special. The CA Grand has all of the
requisite features you would expect from a high end piano – envelope controls,
velocity control for the curve and filter (using the Cutoff control), Reverb
and Delay/Chorus/Phaser. What sets this one apart is the extreme level of
control that you have in sculpting your sound. The Sustain knob sets the amount
of sympathetic resonance derived from the use of the sustain pedal. Soft Pedal
will soften the attack on the SCX microphone pair, while the Noise control will
increase of decrease the amount of pedal noise heard from the sustain pedal. The
Key Off control sets the sound of hammer coming back to rest.
Feature packed and offering up
amazing sound quality, the CA Grand also offers surround sound in 5.1 and 7.1.
Getting back to one of my favorite features – the snapshots; each of the piano
NKIs (other than the Surround Sound instruments) are populated with a generous
sampling of what the CA Grand can do from a haunting echo dripping “American
Beauty” style to Classical, Pop, Rock and anything in between. I really like
the sound of the CA Grand because you can capture such beautiful tone playing
softly, employ sympathetic resonance for lush and dreamy sounding chords or
play with full velocity and achieve excellent results. The CA Grand found its
way onto a new recording project I am working on before I ever had a chance to
write a word. This is definitely my new go-to Grand Piano. There is a good
amount of detail in the documentation and to take full advantage of what CA
Grand can do, I would urge you to explore the manual.
This is definitely my new go-to
Grand Piano.
Let’s move on to the vintage
keyboards and take a look.
First up we have the Clavinet D6.
This classic keyboard has been used famously by everyone from Stevie Wonder to
Pink Floyd, The Stones and Led Zeppelin. While it is known for that
“Superstition” sound, there is much more to the Clav than being a one trick
pony. Dial down the Wah and turn everything else up and you get that intriguing
watery guitar echo from Floyd. The Clavinet has never been one of my favorites,
but I really like the capabilities here.
Q Up Arts did a great job of
maintaining a consistent interface across all six of the vintage instruments.
I will refrain from covering
every control on each of the vintage boards so that my review doesn’t turn into
the user manual, but I want to point out that Q Up Arts did a great job of
maintaining a consistent interface across all six of the vintage instruments.
While there are some differences in controls across instruments as you would
expect, the layout and control naming is quite consistent.
I usually save my disclaimer on
my preference for using premium plugins to mix in the room and avoiding FX that
are included in most instruments, but in this case I am a big fan of the
sculpting capability using the included FX for not only the CA Grand, but also
the vintage instruments. I really had a great deal of fun tweaking and
shape-shifting the sounds here. Since all the vintage keyboards were deeply
sampled from the real McCoy, you really get a sense of playing the hardware and
the interface gives you that hands on feel for each of them. If you do a little
bit with Midi Learn on a keyboard with a bunch of knobs and sliders, you can
sit back and really explore the sound sculpting potential.
Next up we have the Farfisa
Organ. You probably know it from Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock” but you may not
know how many other mainstream musicians incorporated the Farfisa into their
music. What struck me most about the Farfisa here is that by adjusting the
Depth , Feedback and Vibrato Rate, you can move from the traditional sound and
venture between a pipe organ and a close facsimile of the cathedral organ
sound. Most of the vintage instruments come with a number of NKIs and each has
their own snapshots. This again highlights how much design work and care was
taken to produce this wonderful set of instruments. I have even found that by
exploring some of these keyboards and organs like the Clavinet and Farfisa that
I would not normally gravitate towards, they have a great deal to offer in musical
appeal.
The Hammond A-100 Organ is
another great addition to the library. On this one, I was immediately drawn to
open the instrument NKI called “Lordish” looking for – and finding the classic
Deep Purple signature sound. This is another charming piece of gear that has
been used in more musical genres than can be listed here, either as the A-100
or a C-Series. You can manually control the stops and the Leslie here or you
can choose from a few different instrument NKIs, each armed with snapshots to go
from gritty to a nice trippy echo to a nice jazzy Hammond sound. It is all in
there and definitely one of my favorites.
The Rhodes Seventy Three electric
piano really needs no introduction. If you’ve never heard one of these on the
radio then you must be living on a desert island without a copy of The Beatles
“Let It Be”! This one is presented with five NKI instruments for Full Layer,
Soft Layers, Hard Layers, Ultra Soft Layers and X-Faded Layers. Again, each one
contains snapshots to help you explore the limits of the instrument. This
Rhodes is an excellent complement to the library and stands up well to other
sampled Seventy Threes I have used.
A couple of feature notes here;
the Type switch will toggle through the nine different Reverbs while the Level
knob will control the level of the Reverb. The Dry toggle will disable all of
the parameters in the upper position. While each instrument has some unique
features, these are worth pointing out as they are generally patterned in the
UI design for each instrument.
This IS the sound of the sixties!
Everything from The Animals “House of the Rising Sun” to The Doors “Light My
Fire” to Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” was recorded using the amazing
Vox Continental.
This is another like the Farfisa
were you can get that classic sound from the records, but you can also bend it
and shape it in interesting ways.
One of my favorite snapshots here
is a classic organ sound with a long delay tail that gives you a whole
different take on the classic sound. This is again, not one of my favorites in
the lineage to play but I really like what Q Up Arts did with this one. Having
the organs and pianos handy in one library makes it really easy to play around
without moving from each piece of gear to another in order to experiment. The
consistency of interface and controls is a big plus here, as I said earlier.
The Wurlitzer Electric Piano,
another of my favorites. Since I am into history lessons – who has played this
one? Who hasn’t! From Supertramp’s “Bloody Well Right” to the top hits of
Marvin Gaye and half of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”, this electric
piano has defined its role in musical history.
This being another of my
favorites amongst the litter, along with the Rhodes Seventy Three, I really
enjoyed playing around with the snapshots as a starting point but then pushing
things into different territory. The Dreamscape snapshot from the Wurli has
some beautiful Reverb and Delay tails on the classic sound that fits really
well into the mix of more introspective compositions and some quiet ambient
that I am working on currently.
I spent a really lengthy period
of time working with California Keys because I found so much on offer here.
I spent a really lengthy period
of time working with California Keys because I found so much on offer here.
Like I said to begin with, when I meet the rare library that takes my attention
away from writing and into composing right away, that to me is the ultimate
experience. California Keys is an amazing library with six vintage keyboards
and organs alone. Now add in the centerpiece – the Fazioli Grand and this takes
it to a whole new level. The piano is simply amazing for all of the reasons I
discussed. What blew me away were the Surround Sound instruments for the CA
Grand and the snapshot variety for each NKI and microphone profile.
This is one library that after
thoroughly investigating, I can’t recommend enough. I would recommend
California Keys to composers of all genres based on the grand piano alone and
then the icing on the cake is the six vintage instruments. I don’t mean to
lessen their role in the library, but the piano for me is what sets California
Keys apart and is worth the price of admission itself.
Facts
The library comes in at a
whopping 40 GB. California Keys ships with the Kontakt Player software and will
also work with the full version of Kontakt 5 or higher. NKS is fully
implemented providing support for Native Instruments Kontrol keyboards.
The entire library is comprised
of 8,000 24 bit/44KHz samples recorded at 192 KHz/24 bit into ProTools HD
system. The Fazioli 10 ft. Grand Piano was recorded at Counterpoint Studios in
Salt Lake City Utah, which is a Studio Bau:ton design. Recording was done using
top quality microphones and preamps. The setup features 10 channels of
microphones (Earthworks, Peluso, ORTF) run through NEVE, Grace and UA preamps.
California Keys features Stereo presets as well as presets for fully discreet
customizable 5.1 and 7.1 Surround Sound. The six vintage keyboards from the
private collection of Arlan Oscar Schierbaum were restored by L.A. tech wiz Ken
Rich and were recorded in a private studio in Topanga Canyon, California. Along
with Doug Morton; Engineering was done by Robert Abeyta and Programming &
Scripting were done by Michael Scott.