Spectrasonics Auxiliary Keyscape Virtual Keyboard Collection

This is the most amazing sampled piano instrument I have ever heard. This includes a variety of different instruments, but the most fantastic of them all is the grand piano. This would be worth the entry price just for the piano alone. What sets this apart from other instruments is the level of excellence that they put into making this. The instruments themselves are restored to a high level of excellence, and beautifully tuned and recorded, and mixed and mastered into something just incredible. The musicality of these instruments is on another level. For comparison, I own the Ivory II American Concert D, Garritan CFX, Alicia's Keys, and Addictive Keys - and the Keyscape piano beats them all. It is just richer and sweeter and more musical. The other instruments are great too, especially the custom Rhodes piano. But I would have to say their grand piano is probably the finest digital grand piano instrument available currently. Probably someone will make a better one someday, but this is a feat of excellence that will be hard to surpass. Worth every penny.I don't know what microphones or placements they used for recording all of this, but it's perfect. All of it. Every instrument is beautifully recorded. For example, the Yamaha C7 piano, something about they way they recorded it makes it sound very close and intimate. My other pianos sound a little distant in comparison. Also, it is darker and rounder than other pianos. I think they customized the hammers and everything to give it a super smooth tone.The custom Rhodes piano is pure magic. I could play this for hours. It sounds incredibly real and alive. All the other instruments are amazing too. I don't even know what to say but WOW.There are a few notes / downsides to be aware of. First, this takes a long time to install. I think for me it was somewhere about 8 hours, which is a really long time to wait when you're eager to try it out! The other thing is this is a CPU hog, and requires a powerful computer (much more CPU usage than Ivory or the others). Specifically I recommend a Mac. I initially tried to use it on a dual-core Windows 10 computer, and it worked, but had occasional pops and glitches, which got really annoying after a while. I tried it then on a faster Windows PC, but still had glitches. I finally ended up doing a bunch of research and deciding that Macs are better at running real-time instruments like this, and I bought a quad-core MacBook Pro. Yes, I actually bought a new computer just to run this software. It was worth it too. The Mac was much better, and now I can play it without glitches, and it feels like a real instrument.I recommend getting a good MIDI keyboard to get with this. I tried it on an old 88-keyboard I had sitting around, and it didn't feel good. The touch wasn't right. The newer Roland A-88 is what they use in the Keyscape demonstration videos, and I've played it on that and it feels amazing. So make sure to have a good keyboard so it feels good. This is a top-notch instrument, and deserves to have all of that feel under your fingertips.

Over the past few years, I've tried a variety of virtual keyboard instruments ranging from free to considerably expensive. Keyscape has the most realistic and organic sounds of them all in my experience, and they regularly inspire me to play more. To me, this is very important. When your instrument's sound is something that inspires you rather than something you have to work around, this changes everything. The effects that they support on the instruments are also inspiring and easy to use as well, so I spend a lot of time enjoying tweaking the built-in effects and other parameters.You get a substantial variety of instruments, so the greater the variety of instruments you use, the greater the value. So as minor downside, if you only intend on using one or two instruments, the value per dollar won't feel as great. If they sold instruments as separate 'packs' or some equivalent, that would lower the barrier to entry for a lot of musicians who don't have much money, and just want 1 or 2 instruments. However, I understand some potential reasons why it's sold as a collection. If you want to use most or all of the instruments, the value is unparalleled.My only criticism is that I wish there are more effect options available for instrument variants. For example, a 'vinyl' post-processing effect is only present on some variants of a given instrument - not all of them. If you want to have some characteristic of one variant with the extra effects only available on another variant, it appears there's no option. The presets cover most use-cases with effects and other parameters, but there doesn't seem to be complete freedom, perhaps for technical reasons. As you can guess by the overall rating I gave, I still think the product is incredible despite this slight limitation, as having more freedom would just be an improvement on an already great product.

Very pleased at how well it worked on my 2013 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7 Macbook Pro.I occasionally get some drop out clicks, but it generally sounds clean and seemless with no detectable latency.I set audio buffer to 96 samples at 44.1kHz, and close other apps and turn off wifi (although it seems to mostly work fine with wifi on and Chrome browser open).This is the best sampled piano I've ever played, hands down. It's got the mechanical thud from hammers that you start to "feel" after a while when playing in good headphones, along with pedal mute noise and release damper noise that all make it sound and feel really realistic. It's extremely responsive and expressive and playable.Likewise with all the Rhodes. The Wurli's and clav's are also very good, but don't stand out like the grand piano and Rhodes. That may be partly the fault of my weighted digital piano controller, which isn't well suited to the lighter touch keyboards.Long story short, I waited a long time to take the plunge on Keyscape, but this has fully lived up to my greatest expectations. Most definitely worth the $400 I paid (after tax)

Sound quality is good for the price

There are libraries that are cheaper. There are libraries with more sounds, such as UVI KeySuite. What Keyscape has is production quality presets that sound ready to go right out of the box. That’s the reason you find this library on nearly every major record producer’s computer and in countless hit records.

Bought as a pair for omnisphere 2. To be honest, I was skeptical about its need. But when my boring melody started playing as Beverly Hills product, I felt like Hans Zimmer. Even a couple of keys, with the right presets, can sound very dramatic. If you are looking for a VST piano, this is the right choice. Also, this is a boxed version.