UVI EGP | Electric Grand – Review
Some years ago, a rather enthusiastic, and somewhat giddy, Steve Howell (Hollow Sun) popped up in my Messenger application and proceeded to get all excited about his latest project. The fog of time has clouded the exact details somewhat, but I got roped in to broker the deal and acquisition of a Yamaha CP70 and arrange delivery to South Wales. I seem to recall I also had a hand in sorting out the sale of it some months later too. Steve hated eBay.
Anyway, Steve was more than a tad excited because the CP70 was quite a special instrument for him. It had been used by some of his musical heroes, such as Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks and had returned to prominence at the time through a band called Keane, for whom it not only formed a key part of their sound but was also evident in a lot of the band imagery too. Furthermore, he saw this project as a way to fully utilise the sampling features of the latest range of Akai hardware samplers, which would also turn out to be their last. The Z Series attempted to build on the success of the S5000/S6000 units that had become so dominant in that field, but sadly fell wide of the mark, brought about largely by an ailing Japanese Akai who found themselves competing with ever improving software samplers. Software samplers were cheap, especially to the many who used pirated copies. They were also appealing to sample library developers because they could lock down their content better via monolithic sample files. Nobody wanted to cart around hefty hardware anymore, especially when they could cram multiple gigabytes on a laptop, rather than megabytes in a rack mounted module. So Steve saw an opportunity to create a library that utilised some of the unique features of the Z Series, which included the Z4, Z8 and the ill fated, aborted Boreas, a version of the Z4 designed to be sold as a sampler/rompler with a built in hard drive and lots of sounds out of the box. One of the (then) unique features of the Z Series was note off sampling. This is where a sample can be assigned to trigger on the release of a note on the keyboard as well as the striking of one. Steve planned to not only sample all the notes, but also the mechanism of the CP70, including the hammer action that occurred when the key was released.
He slaved over this beast for some time, sampling every note at multiple velocities and then judiciously refining those samples into a library that had a much smaller footprint than its sound suggested. I helped in the testing and instantly fell in love with it, particularly because of those subtle yet all important note off samples. He’d even sampled the sound of the mechanics when the damping and sustain pedals were pressed so that when you played this thing, it truly did sound like you were playing the real thing. So convincing was his library that Keane themselves picked up a copy to use both in the studio and out live.
But I digress. The reason I’ve started this review of UVI’s EGP Electric Grand library with this story is to give you, dear reader, some context behind my appreciation of sampling an electric grand piano. Yamaha’s unique approach to creating an authentic piano sound in as small a space as possible was, at the time, revolutionary. No other electric piano sounded as close to the real thing as the CP series did, but it had its own unique character that was instantly recognisable and used by many, including Stevie Wonder, Keith Emerson, Tears For Fears, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Boston, Journey, Asia, U2 and Abba as well as the previously mentioned luminaries. But as revolutionary as it was, it was still an incredibly hefty beast that came in two halves and weighed a ton (300lbs, to be precise).
Whilst there have been other CP series based libraries in the past, it was always my opinion that Steve’s was the best because of its totality in capturing the sound of the instrument. That opinion has now changed, and I have to confess that it fills me with a degree of guilt that I now have to rank my dearly departed friend’s library into second place. Trust me, I do not say this lightly.
UVI have taken the CP to the next level. They have not only extensively sampled a CP70, both electrically and acoustically, with multiple miking positions in a professional studio environment, they’ve included built in effects, EQ and multiple playing styles that draw from techniques used in their rather marvellous IRCAM Prepared Piano library. This means you can select whether you want your piano played traditionally or by using picks, sticks, brushes, fingers or bows. And then you can combine this stuff, as well as tweaking the mic positions, EQ and effects to your hearts desire.
Upon loading the library, you are given 8 categories to choose from… Standard, Pick, Stick, Brush, Fingers, Bows (conventional and Ebow), Muted and Miscellaneous. Each of these give you your initial choice of “attack”. Open up one of these categories and your first choice will be a default version. That is, the simple sound of the piano played by that method with no adjustments to miking, EQ or FX. Below this are a range of presets created by UVI. These range from the sublime to the not so ridiculous but clearly demonstrate what is capable with this library because of the depth of detail that has been gone into here.
UVI have captured both the electric signal that passes out of the CP70 as well as the acoustic sound captured by microphones placed around the instrument. Microphones have been placed to both left and right of the piano, as well as mid/side miking so that you can have a full 5 sample layers with complete control over the mix of those layers. You can also affect the electric signal via a replication of the EQ and tremolo functions found on the original. And all of this is before you feed that electric signal, if you choose, through the supplied effects, rendered here as traditional stompboxes. These FX comprise of Overdrive, Chorus, Phaser, Delay and Reverb. On top of this, you can also apply EQ, delay and reverb to the acoustic samples too. Reverb in this instance is provided by the stunning UVI Sparkverb algorithms. So, to summarise, you have samples taken from both the electrical signal as well as the acoustic recordings, both of which can have EQ and FX applied separately. Finally, there is a settings section that allows some tinkering with amplitude envelopes and filter settings as well as the pedal volume and dynamics. You can also mess around with the stereo signal too. Finally, there is a wheel strum setting that allows you to hold down keys on the keyboard, and then use the mod wheel to ‘strum’ the notes. This is most effective when using the pick or stick samples. You can also expand the keyboard range to match that of the larger CP80.
So, as you can see, there is an enormous amount of potential here. You might argue that if you simply want a regular CP sound, there are far more affordable options. This might be true, but where’s the fun in that? And you sure as hell couldn’t get this amount of high quality samples captured in so many ways just of the normal function of a CP70. Steve’s CP70 library costs one twelfth of the EGP but it doesn’t feature the extensive sampling of the EGP, whether that be in the regular mode or one of the many preparations. The EGP is a far more comprehensive package and not even Steve would argue with that, although I imagine he’d still say it was overpriced! But then, he always was a cantankerous and curmudgeonly old sod 😉
I would go as far to say that this is a definitive CP library. Definitive and extensive, possibly exhaustive. I imagine that whatever your needs are regarding this instrument, this library will cover it, be it simple, authentic reproduction or wild and crazy experimentation. The quality of the samples and the sampling are exquisite. The controls are simple and intuitive and UVI’s new compression techniques get this 20GB sample library down into a little under 5GB with no loss of quality. All of this comes in a small DVD case that contains a UVI branded flat USB key, serial number, UVI catalogue and authorization instructions. The manual is brief and stored on the USB key along with the library and a copy of the free UVI Workstation app that is required to play it. EGP is also available as a download from UVI direct.
In a previous review of UVI’s Vintage Vault, I mentioned the fact that it didn’t play well with MOTU’s MachFive 3 sampler, in as much as sustain loops vanished and scripting errors occurred. Thankfully, this is not the case with EGP (aside from one or two discardable scripting warnings) and it plays perfectly with MachFive 3 which is a real bonus.
This instrument is an absolute joy to play with. One the one hand you have the instant satisfaction of a full CP70/80 with its unmistakeable tone and character that is piano but not quite piano. And you have the ability to very quickly play the tricks the likes of which Gabriel did using a slap of chorus or phase to get a really unique piano tone. And on the other hand you’ve got new sounds that were never anticipated nor ever heard before. There is something otherworldly about playing a bowed piano string, even more so when that is one of the CP70s much shorter strings. Apply reverb, some delay and you have evolving textures and character that have to be heard to be appreciated. Drones, bright and percussive timbres, constantly developing, eclectic soundscapes and so much more. This is far, far beyond a piano at times, but equally it is absolutely everything you could desire from a faithful recreation of one of the all time great keyboards.
I dare you to try it. But moreover, I dare you to put it down…
Like all UVI products, a free iLok Account is required and you have the option of using the software key via their license manager or an iLok hardware key. An iLok key is highly recommended but not necessary. Three concurrent authorisations can be active at any one time, for greater flexibility and convenience.
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