M-Audio Key Rig Virtual Instrument Review & Ratings

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M-Audio Key Rig Virtual Instrument Review

Where do I start? I have been a semi-pro musician for 30+ years. I actually HAD a real 88-key suitcase model Rhodes (geez that thing was heavy). I had been looking for a simple yet high quality way to get the "swiss-army-knife" of keyboard sounds (acoustic piano, Rhodes, Wurly (think Supertramp), Hammond B3 (with Leslie), and analog synths). I am in a trio and I am responsible for drum and bass arrangement (I do this on a Yamaha PSR-S700) as well as the keyboard parts and vocals (and sometimes acoustic guitar). THIS SOFTWARE IS THE BOMB! I thought at first that I wouldn't like the acoustic piano, but I found out that the M-Audio Key Rig acoustic piano is EXTREMELY "musical". In other words, it's as though the engineers knew it would HAVE to "fit" inside a typical live band mix and it does! It has just enough brightness and punch to cut through the mix. The Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos are ALSO excellent (and remember, I owned the original Rhodes). Perfectly processed and ready for you to add various on-board effects (such as Phaser, Flanger, Chorus, Tremolo, etc.). I even use the distortion effect within Key Rig on the Rhodes patch to simulate an electric guitar. The Hammond B3 is AMAZING! WOW! To think I got this thing for $49. I use an 88-key M-Audio 88SX controller to control Key Rig (running on an older Dell Inspiron laptop with NO lag and NO CPU issues) and I use the Mod wheel to engage the Leslie (speed up and slow down). Unlike the LAME Leslie simulator on the Yamaha PSR-S700 (which sounds like simple LFO mod wheel crap), the Leslie within Key Rig actually spins the low frequencies DIFFERENTLY than the high frequencies. THIS, my friends, is how the Leslie got its distinctive sound (that and you could overdrive it and give your resulting tone some warm distortion). Do NOT be fooled by lame attempts to simulate a Leslie. Roland makes a foot pedal that ALSO does a GREAT job at simulating a Leslie because it specifically rotates the highs differently than the lows.
Analog synths are ALSO great and I use them for some older 70s covers (Steely Dan stuff, Spooky, and the like).
Not only are the sounds really high quality for live use, but I've used them in the studio as well.
Don't just listen to me talk (don't know if Amazon will allow a URL), you can hear me using all the instruments of Key Rig on our live recordings at the Live Music Archive. Go to: [...] and search for Baja Dunes. Listen to gig recordings starting in, say, 7/2011 (I have earlier stuff, but as a band we start getting good in the summer of 2011). On the recordings, all acoustic piano, Rhodes, Wurlitzer (not used much), B3, and analog synth are coming from Key Rig. Cannot say enough for how great these instruments sound.
Key Rig is extremely easy to use and with a little more MIDI knowledge you can easily use even MORE of the features M-Audio packed into this little treasure. I DO wish it had a way to trigger presets. I use Live Professor (currently in beta, so it's free) to "host" Key Rig (rather than run Key Rig standalone, or within a DAW such as Cakewalk). Live Professor allows me to send patch changes from the 8 buttons on the 88SX to switch sounds.
you HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO go to the M-Audio site and download the update to Key Rig and do things in this order:
1. Install Key Rig.
2. Do NOT attempt to authorize the software (heck don't even run it yet).
3. Download and install the Update and it will "fix" Key Rig so that you don't have to authorize it with M-Audio.
The quality of these sounds simply have to be heard to be believed.
I could ding M-Audio a teensy bit by being real picky and saying that the "fast" setting of the B3 Leslie is just a TAD too fast and it would be nice to be able to adjust the spin settings of fast vs. slow, but I'm quibbling. Go listen to our (Baja Dunes) gig recordings and you'll see what I mean. The B3 simply cuts through the mix like a knife yet still sounds all warm and gooey. The Leslie lets you make the B3 "talk" as you change the speed from high to low speed.
Value for price is simply too good to be true. You can still find Key Rig software for roughly $49 around the net. Or simply buy one of M-Audio's controller keyboards and they usually come with Key Rig.
The UI of Key Rig is ALSO very nicely laid out and easy to use. Another user complained a little that the acoustic pianos were slightly lower in volume than the other instruments. I noticed this too, so I simply tweaked the acoustic piano to be louder, saved that as a preset and then I switch between presets and I got all instruments (acoustic piano, Rhodes, B3, and analog synth) to be roughly the same. I use a volume pedal hooked to the 88SX controller to let me bring the volume up for solos and then back down again for the rest of the songs.
I have been using this product for over 2 years now and am extremely happy with it. Have used it on multiple laptops (including a tiny netbook computer (you gotta have at least an Atom Dual-Core N570 or faster to make it worth your while and avoid latency, but I HAVE gotten it to work on an N570 - just so you know). I plan on using it until the day I can afford a Nord Stage EX that has all the same "swiss army knife" sounds as Key Rig.

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