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RMI 368 Electra-piano on iOS?
Anyone know of any app that can create the sound of this instrument?
Or any iOS synth patches that come close?
Comments
never heard or read about that thing - one of the most bizarre circuit boards
http://www.wernbo.de/RMI_368X.htm#center3
It's a rather simple design principle (1 tone generator per key), but uses a coil/capacitor driven type of oscillator, which gives a very specific resonance response.
(some early drum machines used similiar layouts)
If you want to recreate it: each note has a slightly different amp envelope, most obviously the decay length varies (according to string length in real world).
It seems to have 2 oscillators layered per key, one sine, one pulse (?).
A modular patch in Audulus may be worth a try. 2 oscillators per key and 1 or 2 volume envelopes, no filter or filter envelope (this seems to come after the main oscillators by the switch panel).
Each key needs a midi filter that only passes 1 note on/off event to that specific key.
(plain guess from listening to some examples)
Cool instrument btw and good find
ps: the app that comes most close to it out of the box is Synclavier Go, in particular some presets of Red Sky Lullaby capture the RMI's character quite well.
@Telefunky +1 synclavier is so deep!
For the harpsichord type of sounds of the RMI, there is this app called eHarpsichord, a set of samples from a Baldwin electric Harpsichord put together using Audiokit. Wanted to post a link, but seems to have been pulled out from appstore. I have the app installed on my old air2 and wanted to install it on my iPad pro but it disappeared from my purchased app list. Anyone knows what happened to it?
https://audiokitpro.com/whiskeyshot-eharpsichord/
You can find similar types of sounds in IK multimedia iLectric app. The pianet and cembalet sound ok (never had the chance to put my hands on the real ones though ...)
If you are really after the RMI sound, soniccouture offers the free Rocksichord (need registration). It is a Kontakt instrument for desktop, but you might be able to use the samples and map these inside Audiolayer or create your own sfz file.
http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products/p58-rmi-rocksichord/
Yes, it's an amazing instrument, but doesn't seem to get much love for it's interface.
Which is very different from common virtual synth GUI approaches, but on the other hand the sound is also very (!) different.
In fact I only bought the full version for this unique soundprint (after trying the free iPhone version on iPad). It's worth the steep price for the afforementioned (free) RedSkyLullaby Bank alone. Exceptionally well designed Sounds.
While the Synclavier isn't even remotely an emulation of the RMI piano, it just happens to hit a very similiar character with it's mellow bottom end and the highs standing out.
The cool part about this mixture is in the modulation of components, so there is no static in sound. All is moving, similiar to what the RMI achieves by it's huge amount of analog single voice oscillators, which are completely unsynced.
Thanks for all the input.
Yes it’s a very cool, if strange instrument. It often didn’t have a sustain pedal and isn’t even velocity sensitive!
Nevertheless it is all over lots of recordings I like (particularly some early 70s salsa tunes).
Here is quite a nice video of Chris Holland (Jools’ brother) playing Todd Rundgren’s ‘I Saw The Light’ on one:
Geez. That keyboard looked a bit uneven...
Quite chuffed - managed to find some RMI soundfonts and set them all up as a ‘scene’ in BS-16i. Sound pretty good!
https://sites.google.com/site/despianosvirtuels/443-v6-electrapiano-rmi-368x
Merci !
Thank you for sharing the link, this site is a gold mine!
RMI piano
Yeah total goldmine!
Had lots of fun downloading many of the other funky keyboards (love the Hohner Electra Piano and Rocksichords, and they have a really good Clavinet set).
The vibraphones are also superb.
And with BS-16i it’s easy to recreate a more realistic Clav as you can load all the samples into 1 scene and switch them on/off as you would on a real clav.
Would have been even better if it included pickup selections (A/B/C/D) for each sound and have the damper function as a MIDI CC (rather than a separate sample itself). Plus samples at different velocities obviously.
But the sounds are free so can’t complain!
Maybe one day @GospelMusicians will bring us the ultimate iOS Clav (straight after the ultimate iOS Hammond organ many of us hope they are secretly working on)...