EHX Key9 Initial Impressions

Started by hippietim, September 29, 2015, 08:19:53 AM

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hippietim

Here's a couple posts I made on TGP about it that I thought I'd share.

First, this is my initial impression after playing with it very briefly:
Quote from: hippietimI got a little bit of time with it last night.  My initial impression is that there are a couple pretty usable electronic piano type sounds in there. The marimba sound is far more sensitive to playing cleanly.  The steel drum is surprisingly cool but I don't see myself using it.

A couple days later I got a chance to spend more time with it and updated my impressions:
Quote from: hippietimI spent a bunch more time with it last night. 

Dynamo - pretty usable overall.  Adding the "tine" via Ctrl 2 gets you a bit of that theme from "Taxi" sound.  A little bit of the low-end via Ctrl 1 goes a long way.

Wurli - probably my favorite preset.  This has the best electric piano attack to me.  The tremolo is pretty cool - you can get some good Doors stuff with this.  I also like it for No Quarter and using an outboard phaser.

Suitcase - it's the stock Rhodes preset.  I don't like that Ctrl 1 overloads adjusting the bass and high end at the same time.  The phase shifter is fine but I'd rather have the independent bass and high controls like the Dynamo and use an outboard phaser.  No Quarter works good on this.

Mallets - this is the worst tracking of all of the "9" presets (I've got the B9 and C9 as well).  Just playing some simple and clean arpeggios ala Under My Thumb proved to be surprisingly challenging.  It wanted to trigger the harmonics of the note about 10-20% of the time instead of the fundamental.  I will revisit this preset again with heavier strings and higher action.  The chorus is not very good.

Eighty Eight - very nice electric piano - not a lot different than the other Rhodes settings, a little cleaner

Tri-Glorious - I don't get it.  What makes the originals glorious is they were three analog choruses panned differently and some individual control over each one.  I didn't think this preset captures the sound in any way.  The emulation on any of the Line 6 units that have a Tri-Chorus all sound better to me.

Vibes - fun but not sure what I'd use it for.  Seemed to do what it was after.

Organ - meh.  Disappointing really.  I was hoping this would allow me to pull the C9 off my board.  Nope.  Don't get me wrong, it's a good rendition of a particular organ sound.  I just want more of a rock organ ala Mr. Lord.

Steel Drums - If I ever play Jane Says again I'm totally using this pedal!  Very cool.  You could use this to introduce some color to your reggae tunes nicely.

hippietim

I have the B9, C9, and SY-300 as well.  I'm going to put together a pedalboard with just these keyboard/synth pedals running into an RJM mini-mixer.  With this I'll be able to easily incorporate these into each of my rigs.  I'll have a buffer/splitter on the front end as input and run everything into an A/B merger (it'll either a Boss LS-2 or a Little Lehle Dual - I have both but haven't decided which yet).

imerkat


hippietim

One thing about the Key9 is that you need to play with your attack a bit to get effective piano tones. It's similar to the problem with the B9/C9 and getting organ click to happen. With a real keyboard, each key is backed by the physical thing that makes the sound. And those each produce just a single note. When you play the guitar into one of these pedals, you're giving it one signal to produce all of the sounds. So when you pluck/strum a chord the piano attack/organ click is about right. But when you let things ring and play an arpeggio or some other single note stuff, those notes won't necessarily get the attack right. You will need to experiment with your playing technique to get convincing keyboard parts. This is one reason why a divided pickup like the Roland system works better.

szilard

I got a Key9 today and have been playing with it. Two thumbs up. I got it to use in the studio to add ep tracks to home recordings. It will certainly do the job. The pedal is fairly small for an EHX pedal ;D and won't take up much room in the studio or a pedal board. The Rhodes sound is its strong suit, but the Wurlitzer is nice as are the other presets. It seems to track really well to me and responds well to finger picking, which is how I usually end up doing keyboard parts.

I have the Overloud Vintage Key FX and after an initial run thru of the pedal I ran it thru Sonar with the VKFX. Really nice! This pedal will be a lot of fun. Although I got the pedal to record ep parts I'm going to try layering the vibes with the SY-300.

Bill Ruppert

That is great to hear!




Quote from: szilard on October 20, 2015, 02:55:55 PM
I got a Key9 today and have been playing with it. Two thumbs up. I got it to use in the studio to add ep tracks to home recordings. It will certainly do the job. The pedal is fairly small for an EHX pedal ;D and won't take up much room in the studio or a pedal board. The Rhodes sound is its strong suit, but the Wurlitzer is nice as are the other presets. It seems to track really well to me and responds well to finger picking, which is how I usually end up doing keyboard parts.

I have the Overloud Vintage Key FX and after an initial run thru of the pedal I ran it thru Sonar with the VKFX. Really nice! This pedal will be a lot of fun. Although I got the pedal to record ep parts I'm going to try layering the vibes with the SY-300.

szilard

Nice job on the pedal Bill, kudos to you and the rest of the design team.