In Reply to: Vintage keyboards - rhodes sounds posted by Andreas on October 21, 1999 at 14:58:16:
Here's a mail I got from Elson Trinidad:
The presets are fair at best (the pathetic"Suitcase88" and "Stage 73"
patches can be used to sue Alesis for false advertising).
But "SoftRoads2" and "Velo Roads1" sound much, much more than the real
thing. If you really wanna get anything out of this card, I suggest getting into the programming. I've created a very nice patch that combines one of the "mellow" Rhodes waveforms with the "FenKeyBass" waveform (playing at loud velocity). The result, combined with LFO tremolo, is something that sounds more realistic (especially when you slightly overdrive it through an amp - don't use the QS's distortion though).
The rest of the sounds are GREAT, especially the clav, organ and Yamaha CP electric grand. And having some Mellotron in there is nice. The downsides: The Wurlitzer. Compared to the internal waves, Alesis did a better job with the Rhodes waves on this card, but they hardly made an improvement on the Wurlie. They still sounds like a cross between full-velocity and a synth set on a square wave. The real tonal quality of the Wurlizer is the mellow tone, the "bite" (which is over, over emphasized on this card) should only be the icing on the cake. I've programmed a much more realistic (and warmer-sounding) Wurlie on my Yamaha DX7 (tremolo included)! And those lame RMI pianos...they sound realistic, but who wants *those*? Nobody liked the
real thing in the first place, so why should they waste space on a card? They should have junked them and concentrated on getting a better Wurlitzer in there, IMHO.