Emagic EVP73 VST 2 PC

I've been playing keyboards and messing around with home production for 20 years now, and use it with Cubase / Win2k.

Interface is fine - there's only a few dials to use. The constant licence expiry forces you to put in the original CD every few weeks of use, which I find a real pain, especially as it doesn't suppress the autostart program. As well, if you want to record at 48khz, you have to pitch shift it, this is a virtual instrument but apparently, somewhere along the line they are 'seeding' an algorithm with a sample.

I have been trying for years to get an authentic Fender Rhodes sound and this is finally it! No other VST instrument comes close! The way it reacts to your playing, the way the tremelo effect reacts to the sound, make for a very convincing rhodes sound, in a way that sample playback can't touch. I've heard Lounge Lizard, and while it has a very convincing Wurlitzer, the Rhodes sound is as generic sounding as sample playback. Turn the bell and damper dials up a bit, add a bit of tremelo, then hold down the sustain pedal and starting hitting the same keys over and over - what a sound!

It has a few annoyances, but this is the only E.P. for me now.

Using a Roland JX-8P as the MIDI control for this VSTi. Using with Cubase SX for recording; Chainer VST for standalone application or just messing around :)

Easy to use, no difficulty on this at all. It's easy to tweak because it's only a few dials and pretty much shapes the tone to sound like a real Rhodes.

Sounds ok - nothing really to write home about. It sounds like a Rhodes but much thinner. I played one at my high school years back and it sounded really nice. The plug-in gives you the idea, but not as good or high quality. Mine seems to cut out here and there even though it claims to have high polyphony, but it could be my midi controller doing that so I'm not going to rant about it. I haven't used this yet in a mix so I can't judge as to whether or not it cuts through well, but I haven't had any bad luck yet with VSTi's cutting through anyway, so I hardly feel this will be any different.

It's definately worth the $70 is is going for now, especially when you have to consider the size and price of a real Rhodes piano. But I'm hearing a lot of good news about the Native Instruments Elektrik Piano and I think it may be a better buy than the eMagic; especially because NI is a great VST plug-in manufacturer that is reliable and their stuff always sounds good and authentic. A step up would be to buy a Nord Electro to get that dead-on accurate rhodes/wurlie sound, but then you're looking at spending upwards of around $1700. You can probably get a real Rhodes for much less than that, but you have to consider the space it will ultimately take up, and then when you can pay a measly $70 for a plug in instrument, it seems well worth it. Especially if you use it to record and nothing more.

I've been using my real Rhodes Mark 1(playing the piano for, let's see 26 years) for the the last 5 years gigging, fantastic instrument so why should I get EVP 73(instead of Halion with a Rhodes sample). Off course, to save my back when I use my portable studio with a powerbook titanium, Cubase VST 5.0 , MOTU 828 and a Roland PC-300 when travelling.

The plugin is very easy to use, no surprises a rhodes sound.

The sound would be ok to some people in a mix, but it sounds to thin to be interesting to play. I used a roland fp-1 to play the sound and It's boring turn over to my rhodes mark 1 or my nord electro and never gets back to play evp 73, it's just not fun.

When adding some plugins like distortion and reverb from cubase and things starts getting better. With auto-wah from D-sound its quite cool. But sorry folks the sound/price will keep me from buying this electric piano.

I will not buy this electric piano, it doesn't give me more than playing a rhodes sample in halion. The polyphony is great, but it doesn't help, the sound is to weak.

Been doing computer recording for 4 years and have a pentium 3 800 w/motu 2408 mkII recording setup. I use this vst instrument with Cubase vst 32 5.0.

Very easy to use, you need a midi keyboard to play it realtime but if you have pre-made midi tracks you can play it through those as well. Extremely easy to get a good sound out of it.

Sounds amazing. I've never actually played a real rhodes, but this is such a nice sounding warm electric piano sound I just want to use it in all my songs...add a little reverb and compression and this instrument sounds very alive. One of the best things about this is that it is very expressive. velocity sensitivity alters tone which is awesome. Sounds very real...right down to the bells and little key release sound when you take your finger off a key.

If you want a really good clean electric piano sound this is the one for Cubase...the new logic has a more advanced version of this plugin included but I couldn't justify buying a whole new sequencing package just for a few more tone options...It's totally reliable and it will make you want to play for hours whether the record button is on or off...try it out.