UVI Analogic Piano AP-09 for UVI Workstation Review

Released in 1980, the Roland EP-09 was a very simplistic effort by the Japanese company in producing an affordable electric piano. Compact, light and relatively cheap, this was far from a “pro” product, its built in speaker being a give-away feature of an item destined for consumer’s homes rather than the great stages or studios of the world. Born, as it was, at the beginning of the decade when electronic music had it’s teenage growth spurt, electric pianos were pretty unfashionable and so little is really known about this quaint little machine. 1980 was also a very bumpy year for Roland. Their European distributor declared themselves bankrupt, unable to afford the spiralling costs of buying Japanese goods in light of an incredibly strong Yen, and in an instant, a third of Roland’s market vanished, with all of its European stock, worth millions of pounds, being seized and handled by the liquidators. More stock was already on its way to Europe, valued at $1,500,000. Roland managed to stop delivery of this stock and thankfully, some characteristically astute business management saw Roland secure a sufficient credit line with a bank, and business continued.

So, the EP-09 is a very unfussy instrument with a sound that is often, and somewhat accurately, described as “cheesy”. It has the grand total of four, count ’em, FOUR preset tones. Two “pianos” and two “harpsichords”. You’d be hard pushed to tell the difference between “Piano 1” and “Piano 2”, and the same goes for the Harpsichords. However, the device lets you mix and match all four sounds, giving you a total of 16 possible combinations. Even with this, the range of sounds is pretty limited. But it does have a little more to help spice things up. There is an overall instrument tuning rotary and a sustain switch with two settings that also has a slider to increase or decrease the amount of sustain time. But interestingly, it has an arpeggiator built in. You can select between a one, two and three octave range as well as up, down or up/down modes. There’s a Rate slider to control the speed and a very useful keyboard split which isolates the arpeggio function to the lower left of the keyboard, allowing you to play freely on the right side. On the rear, three sockets give you an output (with low/medium/high selector), a headphone jack and a sustain pedal input. As mentioned earlier, a built in 2w speaker allows the user to play without any other connections required.

UVI Analogic AP-09

Hardly an instrument that people are clamouring for, but our friends at UVI have resurrected it in the form of their Analogic Piano AP-09, and, in a nice little gesture of goodwill, have decided to give it to us for free. Well, I say free. You’ll have to “Like” their Facebook page and give them a valid email address to get access to the download. Not a problem if you have a Facebook page but, if you’re a Luddite, conspiracy theorist or general sad muppet that “hates” Facebook, well, you’ll either miss out or have the presence of mind to create the most basic of accounts, turn on all privacy settings and use it for the ever increasing number of occasions that require Facebook activity in exchange for useful free stuff.

Roland EP-09

So, how does it match up to the original? Well, it is virtually identical. From the looks to the functionality. In fact, the only thing missing is that the sustain feature only has one setting compared to the originals two. Not having played the original, I can’t say how big an omission this is, but I think it’s safe to assume it’s not that huge 😉 There are 488 samples used in this, so I’d wager the accuracy is pretty spot on. UVI have even included the built in speaker so that by turning it on, you can replicate the tinny quality of that 2w speaker. This is achieved by it using the UVI Workstation’s convolution engine. Neat, if maybe unnecessary.

But it’s what UVI have added that ultimately makes this a very useful and somewhat pleasing instrument. On their incarnation, they have added three rotaries that give you direct access to chorus, delay and reverb effects. These offer direct control over the FX capability of the UVI Workstation host. Of course, if you want, you can add further FX on the FX page, but you’ll have to edit them on that page rather than the front panel.

And how does it sound? Well, it certainly does sound cheap and cheesy, like the original. But start playing with the FX, or dabbling with the arpeggiator, and this starts to become quite an engaging device. The two piano presets are quite muted affairs, the second being a little “brassier” than the first. The harpsichords, buy contrast are quite fizzy and bright and completely unlike harpsichords. But when you start mixing them up, things begin to sound much better. Combining the two pianos starts to get you a Wurlitzer EP200 kind of sound. Add in the second harpsichord, dial up the chorus (and if you want, add a bit of a phaser or tremolo in the UVI’s own FX panel) and this thing really starts to stand out.

Turning on the arpeggiator starts giving you some interesting ideas, and judicious use of the sustain control helps the arps become more full. Of course, the arpeggiator is linked directly to the UVI Workstation’s tempo setting, which in turn can be driven by your host when used as a virtual instrument.

And that’s really about it. It’s a simple, functional and authentic reproduction of a forgotten device that, when given a little sonic sparkle and yet another of UVI’s gorgeously simple and intuitive interfaces, becomes a very useful addition to anyone’s sonic arsenal. It won’t be long before this device goes beyond providing you with some nice electric piano noodlings and starts to turn into a pretty powerful synth lead.

It would be pointless to debate whether it is worth acquiring, as this is a freebie. As is the UVI Workstation. It’s a no brainer, and UVI are a very reputable firm, so “liking” them on Facebook won’t result in a deluge of spam and news feed clogging posts. Yet again, I’m left wondering how well this would fit into a Reason rack as a Rack Extension device. UVI are playing their cards very close to their chest, telling me the other day that, “we will take it into account and you’ll be among the first to be informed about UVI evolution. Stay tuned 🙂 “. Sounds promising, if non-committal!

Analogic Piano 09

To support this review, I have made another video which you can watch below, along with some of the audio demos that UVI provided.

Next up, the UVI Electro Suite, which I am currently exploring and having lots of fun with. And see this post about their latest release based on classic string synths.

For completeness, here’s UVI’s promo video and a video of a real EP-09 being played…