Spring Sale… they don’t sell to southern hemisphere apparently.
Most of their stuff is for skin thumpers but the Upright and the rest of the Ivory is on sale as well as a few package deal king offers.
I hear a lot about AK on here. Is it honestly worth the money if I already have Komplete?
not if your happy with Komplete, and can show unusual restraint
TBH, the piano is better to my ears than those in the Komplete bundle. I own both, and I’ve never been satisfied with the pianos in Komplete. Alicia’s Keys is nice, but very much a one-trick-pony; the others (Gentleman, Maverick et al) sound lifeless and sterile compared to Addictive Keys.
Just my personal perception, though…
Cheers,
Torsten
Hmmm… $75 for a grand, an upright and a mark 1 doesn’t sound too bad if they play as well as you guys say they do. Just got a couple hundy from a Paddy’s Day gig, I may give in to my GAS. Thanks for the heads up, @papwalker!
i got the grand last year. It’s my go to, but the upright, she is calling to me…
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I grew up with a Steinway upright. I miss that piano…
I concur. I left the Kontakt pianos almost 2 yrs ago. I still use Acoustic Samples pianos for Kontakt (not available anymore) I have been transitioning to AK as time allows. My 2 Cents.
And Alicia’s Keys is the one piano I didn’t get with regular Kontakt. I’m kinda bummed I spent the $600 at this point, as I find myself moving away from nearly everything in that package except for Session Horns.
I got Alicia’s Keys when it first appeared. At that time, I was probably running 2GB RAM. It took for-----ever to load, and taxed my system. Like Torsten said:
He is dead on right! I got bored with it too quickly. There are too many options now to get the sound you want without breaking the bank. Alicia’s was a really nice mellow piano in it’s day, but somewhat lame in today’s world. NI’s biggest problem is that they make a good product, rarely update it, then drop support. The little guys have surpassed them.
Ok, just bought Addictive Keys and I am definitely addicted! These pianos are SO playable! Night and day difference with Kontakt.
I love how quickly the samples load as well. I can switch from the Mark 1 to the Upright or Grand almost instantaneously. It seems like you could just have one shared rack for the entire collection and really save some resources. The only problem is when I use entire rack it only saves the editable parameters, not which instrument is being used. Have you guys found a way around this?
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I really like The Gentleman and I use it quite a bit, but for the $$ and the ease on resources you can’t really beat AK. I usually go with the upright. It has a LOT of character.
I have tried so many piano sounds, pianoteq, different kontakt pianos, all sample tanks 3 pianos and even keyscape (keyscape have better bass but I prefer addictives highs) but I always prefer Addictive Keys Grand. Probably you get used to one sound so it`s hard to change for that reason as well.
I use the preset Studio Grand with tweeked equalizer so the guitar in the band don’t drown me and just the two microphones in the middle of the keybed. The most closed up microphone position I think. Then valhalla reverb and echo instead of the built in FX.
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I use tose 2 269s mics as well. Sounds like you’re sitting where you’re supposed to.
Good enough for me. Just grabbed it at that price.
Now I gotta get it up the stairs …oh wait … take me pills.
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I’m switching between the Studio Grand and the Upright without any problems. I simply use Cantabile’s preset system and “selected program”, not the “entire bank” state behavior. One preset has the Studio Grand loaded, another the Upright; switching between the presets immediately loads the other instrument (very quickly, which I like!).
Cheers,
Torsten
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Thanks for the response @Torsten. So you only ever use one version of the grand and one of the upright? You do not tweak the settings at all per song?
I have three presets in Addictive Keys:
- Live Grand (my standard go-to-piano with a bit limited dynamic range)
- Dynamic Live Grand (full dynamic range - especially for ballads where I need the “soft touch”
- Upright
Everything else I do with an EQ, a compressor and a chorus after Addictive Keys. I have a couple of EQ settings for bright piano, mellow piano, ballad piano etc, plus a chorus for honky-tonk or Toto-like settings. No need to change the underlying piano - just like having a real one on stage…
Cheers,
Torsten
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Can anyone compare the addictive grand to the Ravenscroft 275? This is my favorite at the moment … I bought to many libraries in the past that I don’t use now. So if someone can compare both it would help a lot
Thanks,
Chris
@Torsten: Got a weird issue with Addictive Keys. When I change the AK preset manually it updates almost instantaneously. When I change the C3 program number to one with a different AK preset it sounds like it updates all the parameters and then waits like 5-10 seconds to switch sample sets. Am I doing something wrong?