Applied Acoustics Systems Lounge Lizard EP-1 VST/DXi/MAS/Standalone

25+ yrs playing/writing. New (1yr) to the whole DAW thing but learning quick. I play Chapman Stick, bass, guitar, keys & loops. "Soulful, ecletic, lounge-prog" - like King Crimson met Zero 7.

Very easy. Never know the mechanics of a typical EP before. Love playing around with settings for the tines, hammers and pickup.

Nailed the EP sounds I'd had in my head. Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, Zero 7 and the EP on the theme for TAXI are the sounds I gravitate to. Found them and tweaked to my liking very quickly. Also capable of much more unusual synth-type sounds. Quality is very high.

Can't live without it... for now.

I've been making reggae for round about 10 years and now, just starting to get my head fully into this computer business. Started with Logic about 2 years back, been with it ever since. Having owned a few Rhodes in my time, I wasn't keen on the tone of the Emagic piano, too clean and not fat in the bass like a real Rhodes, So I start looking for other solutions and options in software. I come across this Lounge Lizard EP-1 about 2 months ago, and since it was a fair price at 99 quid picked it up straight away. This is the most do-it-all weapon in my arsenal now. I use it of course for piano sounds, but also for big organs, and even makes nice dirty guitar skank sounds. It's a but hard on my old computer which is a P3 running as a VST, but will be alright if it's only a few tracks. I'm sure those with the fast new machines will have no problem with this.

If you know how a real electric paino works, this is very easy to understand. You have controls for all parts of the real piano like the fork and hammer, and the amp and pick up which is used to amplify the sound of the first two, and also dirty up the sound if you so choose. You also get great classic effects like wahwah, tremolo and phaser, plus my favorite, the great stereo delay. Could do with a reverb added I think as well but hopefully this will come soon. The sound is very warm and fat as I already said,and good for pianos sounds and a whole lot more. The effects also have a great range of really lively sound like good hardware boxes. Installing was easy, it uses a key code instead of these dongle like Logic. I got a little worried when I saw this, as I had many problems with the Waves plugins last year and their key code, but I emailed the AA guys and they said it is sometihng different that they made themselves and won't give the same kind of problems. The manual is very good in explaining the modeling use to make the Lizard sound so realistic, which it does, far more than anything else in software, and with more range to mash up your sounds than the real thing in hardware.

As I already said, this thing sounds phat and warm! I found the presets very good, though some of my favorite ones were in the experimental folder, so I switched up the presets on the buttons to have quick access to these and also the Rhodes and Wurlitzer sound.
The output of the Lizard can be very hot, so I always compress it in the mix, and often turn down the lowend on it's small onboard eq so it doesn't fight too much with the basslines. Some presets need to be tweaked to respond with more drama to different velocities, bu this only takes one twist of one knob. I get good latency running 12 voice, and use it always at 24/44.1, although you can go higher if you want to 96.

A great value plugin overall, perfect for those doing rap, rock, or (especially) reggae, or anyone who wants to put a little soul into their tunes.