Cherry Audio has just released “Wurlybird”, their take on the Wurly - they sampled / modeled a very nice 140B model instead of the more widespread 200 / 200A models.
I’ve grabbed the demo and played with it for a while - very playable indeed! I compared it to my default VReeds Wurly by Acousticsamples (my current go-to Wurly), and the playability is similar, while the CPU load is a little lower in a similar config (stomp effects off, just a touch of tremolo). I find the sound of the Wurlybird a bit more “muscular” than the VReeds version; nice for the Ray-Charles-y interpretations. But it also does a veeeery good job on the Supertramp styles with its built-in stomp effects.
Given the intro price of $39, this is pretty much a no-brainer IMHO.
Checked this out as well. Watched a video or two and then downloaded the demo. I agree with Torsten that this plug has been in the gym packing on the muscle. The sound is stellar IMHO. I had a beige colored 200A way back when…but this feels and sounds like a beefed up version of that. The collection of stomps covers all the classics. I have a bunch of EP’s on my various keyboards and several VST’s, but I opened up my wallet for this one. It is likely going to become my go to on a lot of songs.
I am a bit of an electric piano junkie and bought it right away. It did have a few CPU spikes with me when I played some more aggressive accents (enough that the sound actually drops out). I will need to explore more why this happens, but I suspect either the effects or the volume control (the patches are really soft compared to other EP plugs). It sounds great otherwise.
I’m not a big fan of the Wurly, but out of curiosity I tried the demo and have to say that with less than 400MB they’ve managed to make an amazing Wurly sound, better than the (few) A200s I own (included in bundles like N.I. Komplete or Waves Keyboards).
Another great product from Cherry Audio, again at a reasonable price.
I’ve been on the fence about this one (and I own a LOT of Cherry Audio VSTs!) …
It is, indeed, a very nice emulation of the 140B, which is in certain ways superior to the 200A. That said, my Nord Stage 3 has two different Wurli samples, and the first one sounds more like the '140 to my ears. (The other one is clearly a pristine '200.) With a little EQ and tube overdrive, it does the Ian McLagen/Ray Charles thing nicely. But I might have to download the demo and compare them!
I had nothing Wurly but the freebie NUMA Player, so bought this after seeing some positive comments by the folks here. The acid test for me is can it do Three Dog Night’s “Mama Told Me” (which many accounts say was a 140). The verdict is “with Melda’s Vibrato and EQ its gets in the same ballpark”.
But so far I haven’t been able to totally nail it the way I was able to nail the Lowery sound on “Won’t Get Fooled Again” using B3-X layered with Ultra Analog VA-1 going into a Kiloheart’s ladder filter, which was pretty uncanny even in context of a recorded mix. But what I was able to get with this Wurly along with the Melda Vibrato (which includes both volume tremolo and pitch de-tune) would fly in context of a live cover, imo. Not so with either Wurly in the NUMA, imo.
I did end up downloading the demo and comparing the Wurlybird to my two Stage 3 options – particularly, the ‘Wurlitzer 1’ with some EQ and a touch of tube overdrive. The Wurlybird is, indeed a great emulation, and very hard to beat for the price. The included effects vary from ‘pretty good’ to ‘fantastic,’ and give the plugin a lot more flexibility. If I didn’t already own a good Wurly, it would jump at buying it.
But the Nord Wurlitzer samples I already have are very good, as are the effects. I found the Wurlybird excels at the Ray Charles/Grapevine sound, but doesn’t truly nail the Supertramp vibe or the Ian McLagen Stay With Me tone. I also wish that the effects chain could be modified: I used to put the EQ right after my (real) '200A back in the day, adding an ‘S’ curve to remove the boominess of the piano sent to a mixer. The same setting at the end of the chain sounds different to me. YMMV.
Comparing the Wurlybird to my Nord, sometimes I prefer one of them for a particular sound, sometimes the other. I also had trouble dialing in the velocity setting to match my Studiologic SL73: I can’t seem to find that perfect trigger point for the Wurly ‘bark,’ something that just works with the SL and the Stage. I may still pick the plugin up sometime if it goes on sale.
For anyone interested, here’s about the best I could do for a self contained Cherry 140B preset (i.e. no other plugins needed) for “Mama Told Me”… IMO, it’s instantly recognizable and sounds decent enough for a cover, but not by any means the same sound as the original.
To my ears it sounds like there is some modulated detuning in the original and some other things going on as well, and have no idea what was used. I did use Melda’s mCCGenerator to modulate the 140’s tuning knob a touch at about five Hz to get a bit of the warble and this preset sounds a little closer to the original imo, but I doubt that nuance makes any real difference in a live cover setting.
I can get a bit closer using the “Rotator” effect - gives a bit more of the “wobbly” effect, although not as extreme.
According to the song’s producer, the sound on the record is just a stand-alone Wurly, using the internal tremolo / vibrato without any special effects.
"Jimmy had an old Wurlitzer electric piano. Most Wurlitzers sounded like the one Ray Charles used — nice and clean. This one had a nasty tone. It was perfect for the character of ‘Mama,’ so we didn’t touch it. We just directed its mono output right onto a track, adding maybe a touch of EQ on the way in.” - that’s according to producer Richie Podolor.
So unless someone gets hold of the original 140B used in that recording and reproduces its “nastiness”, it will be up to us to use whatever effects to approximate the sound with a different (cleaner) base wurly. I like what I can get with the Rotator on fast and the tremolo at full (5Hz speed) - good enough to convey the character of the song. I like a bit or re-interpretation whilst staying true to the general intent - good enough for any cover show in my books.
Just a thing I noticed today when breaking in this newbie. When I did damper pedal with adding notes slowly the Time load began jumping into glitch territory after several notes are added while still sustaining. It seems like it’s either not able to stream some samples in time or it uses more processing time as the sustained note number builds up. When I limit the damper action it runs great. Has anyone else seen this?
Yes, but I didn’t make the connection with the damper. I tend to play electric pianos fairly aggressive to get a good “bark” and I noticed the spikes then, sometimes with a time load of nearly 200. I was probably using the pedal a lot though. I will try and experiment with and without the pedal to see what happens.
Haven’t really gotten it into spiking territory with the sustain pedal. OK, playing glissandi across the whole keyboard holding the pedal does stress it a bit, but that’s par for the course…
Thanks for the heads up 