Acousticsamples

Hey, all.

Pardon the cross-post, I'm a bit new to posting at KVR.

So I had the opportunity to check out Vreeds from AcousticsampleS this week, and I thought I'd post my thoughts! Disclaimer: I was given a copy for free, but for those of you that follow my work on AskAudio, you may be aware that I generally *only* review things I like. I'm fortunate enough in this field to have plenty of things to review, so if something isn't doing it for me, I simply decline to review.

Anyhow, I definitely dug this instrument. The Wurlizer is near and dear to my heart (I had an entire classroom full of them at one point as a music teacher, those were the days!). I was a *big* fan of B5v2 from AcousticsampleS so I had pretty high expectations of this instrument. I did not expect that they could come up with something as good as they did with such a small footprint (70MB! Holy hell!). It runs in UVI Workstation or Kontakt, and I found it to sound great. My own nitpickey wish is for velocity response curves already completed for top (popular) keyboard controllers, but you can customize the response curve completely, so once you do it once, you save it, and you're done.

I've thrown up a quick video overview to accompany this review, and it's here:

https://youtu.be/inc31FGXH7A

This is my first review I'm posting on my own outside of my work with AskAudio, but my resolution this year is to do a bit more overviews and reviews on my own, so I'm happy to post my first one here. Anyway, at around a hundred bucks, this one is a no-brainer if you love the Wurly. Less than 2 xbox games.

Beautiful & sweet. No bark. Doesn't need to.

This is such a sweet Rhodes MK1 library. Perfect for jazz and reggae. I love it.

At first I had a big problem when I ran it on Windows 7 SP1 and Cubase 6.5.5.
It would crash at random times during starting up UVI Workstation.

Then I installed Windows 10 LTSB and now the trouble is over.

I now like it after spending some time with it. The sound has more body compared to VB3, which still is an excellent VSTi.
The VB3 is more 'in your face' and the B-5 has a more mellow, dark tone. But you can make adjustments on the Lesie and EQ to make it sound more fresh. I prefer the 'Log' Leslie, whatever that means... :-)

Possible improvements for future updates:

- no more CPU spiking when adjusting certain sliders
- make it possible to change the default preset. Couldn't figure it out yet, maybe it is already possible.
- UVI Workstation related: make it possible to choose a default library at start up.

I got excited about Acoustic Samples! Now I am thinking of buying their E-Pian library. Damn, that Rhodes sounds just perfect!!! :-D.

The AcousticsampleS B5 is an ecellent sampling of a Hammond B3. In terms of pure sampling, it is miles above the Native Instruments one.

There's a lot of tuning options (individual drawbars volume, common hardware modifications, different amps cabs...). The Leslie emulation is not so good, but an update is coming with bugfixes, common controllers mappings and the new Rotary from UVI.

The sound is smooth, less "in-your-face" and brighter than VB3, so more suitable for jazz, pads...

It's a sample library, it works with the free UVI Player. The player is easy to use, stable and fast loading. It's protected by iLok, but no USB-dongle is needed.

And the developper is very kind. Watch his Wurlitzer library too...

Edit : well, the library have just been updated to v2, with 4 different Hammonds sampled (one B3, one A-100 and two C3), a new (and much better) Leslie emulation, bugfixes... I don't use VB3 anymore, B5 v2 covers all my needs. So I can change my rating to 10.

Save your time with this product. Not working properly.

There are a lot of low noises. Notes gets sustained from nowhere which make this VST not playable live or at home even.

Emulation of the Leslie is terrible.

Sound is just OK.

No updates whatsoever from this company.

Hard to believe that in 2016 nobody can come up closer (more realistic) to real Hammond organ.

There is much better alternative from GSi - VB3.

This C7 virtual piano is an absolute joy to play, and meticulously sampled and programmed. A very high quality instrument. Having extensive playing experience with high end acoustic pianos, I'm very demanding of sampled pianos and the Acousticsamples C7 is rated in my top 3. Every time I load it up and play, I get lost in the music, not distracted with performance or playability problems like so many others. The best software instrument purchase in a long time.