The UVI Attack EP88 is a plug-in instrument that can operate in the UVI Workstation and the UVI FALCON environments. Visually, the UVI Attack EP88 looks to be a normal electric piano, and even though it does contain a number of such sounds, the instant you load up a tacked piano sound you'll know that it's anything but just another Rhodes or electric piano. It's very obvious that a whole new approach has been taken to get this sound.

Tacked Piano? What's That?

Many of you may be wondering exactly what a tacked piano is, as it's not a very commonly used term, and how does the sound differ from a normal electric piano. It is a very intriguing matter, to be sure.

For starters, let's look at the word "tacked." The tack being referred to here is a thumbtack. So, does that mean a tacked piano has thumbtacks all over it? Sort of. A tacked piano is a piano where thumbtacks have been placed on the hammers, right where they strike the string (or bars/reeds, in the case of electric pianos). Doing so adds a very unique tonality to the attack portion of the sound itself.

The Attack EP88 electric piano plug-in utilizes a fully restored, 88-key Rhodes Mark I with tacks on the hammers as the sample source. A variety of miking approaches were used during the sampling process, resulting in a massive amount of samples (47,000) so it hardly needs to be said that you can completely customize the sound, and tailor it exactly to your liking.

The sound itself of a tacked piano is very unique, with a special emphasis on the attack, and has a definite impact that sets it apart from the pack.

Instrument Main

From the graphics on the Main page, you may not be able to visualize the unique attack sound we've mentioned. In any case, there are two sources which make up the sound of the Attack EP88: the Acoustic Upper and the Electric Lower.

Acoustic Source

The part at the top outlined in a dotted red line is the Acoustic Source. Visually, it looks like what you'd see if you opened up a Rhodes case—a bunch of tone bars, controls for Contact at the left, Mono in the middle, and Stereo at the right.

Because they used a truly mind-boggling method when sampling, each individual note has 8 different sound sources for velocity, sustain, and release, with the end result being the 47,000 samples we noted above. What's more, each has an on switch, mute and volume controls. The Contact section also has an Attack Trim control for adjusting the attack portion of the sound.

CONTACT
Controls the sound recorded from a contact microphone attached to the tone bar.

• Mount Switch
  Turns on the Contact Mic sound.

• Mute Switch
  Mutes the Contact Mic.

• Volume

• ATTACK TRIM
  Adjusts the start point (attack) of the contact mic sound

MONO
The monaural source was sampled using a Neumann U67 microphone.

STEREO
The stereo source was sampled using a pair of Bruel & Kjaer microphones.

Electric Source

The dotted line at the bottom of the instrument indicates the electric source, which is your everyday Rhodes Mark I. The EP88 puts particular emphasis on the Attack, but even the base sound of the Rhodes Mark I sounds quite amazing.

If you don't use the tacked sound, there are a few gigs of Rhodes sounds included, which should be enough to provide hours and hours of satisfaction to just about any and everyone. This alone gives the instrument considerable value.

• SIGNAL
  Selection between DI (DIRECT INPUT) and TUBE can be set here.

• EQ
  Settings for adjusting BASS, MID, and TREBLE.

• TREMOLO
  The unique Rhodes TREMOLO, PAN (STEREO PAN) effect can be set here.

FX

The FX are divided into analog signal and electric signal for separate application to the upper and lower sections.

Acoustic Source

Effects can be applied to both the CONTACT and MONO&STEREO signals. Effects here do not get applied to the electric source.

• EQ
  3-band EQ。
• DELAY
  Tempo-syncable digital delay.
• SPARKVERB
  UVI's high-quality SPARKVERB.

Electric Source

Four types of effects have been provided. As with the Acoustic Source FX, effects here are only applied here, and do not affect the other source. When you use just the Rhodes sound, these effects, along with the TREMOLO are sure to cover all your effects processing needs.

• DRIVE
  Adds distortion to the Rhodes sound.
• THORUS
  A Rhodes isn't a Rhodes without CHORUS, and here you get ENSEMBLE, and controls for DEPTH and SPEED.
• PHASER
  A STEREO phaser with adjustable FEEDBACK.
• DELAY
  DELAY with tempo-syncable TIME, and settings for either STEREO or MONO use.
• REVERB
  A spring reverb.

SETTINGS

You can fully edit both the acoustic and electric instruments. The acoustic source provides an envelope for the metal attack sound, so you can slow it down or make pad sounds even. You can also use the STEREO for thick, detuned sounds. There's also a PEDAL VOLUME which controls the amount of noise present when you step on the pedal.

WHEEL STRUM and PITCHBEND RANGE parameters work in conjunction with each other.

WHEEL STRUM uses the mod wheel to achieve a plucked/strummed effect. If you use the metal sound, envelope and wheel strum in a crafty way, you can even achieve glass harp type sounds.

Acoustic Source

Settings are available for editing both CONTACT and MONO&STEREO amp envelopes and dynamics, as well as filter and stereo settings.

Electric Source

The design itself is different, but the same settings are available as with the Acoustic Source.

VOICING

Detailed parameters can be edited for each voice on the ATTACK EP88

• VOICING
  Active only on the Electric Source signal, you can choose between three positions for the tone bar pickup on each note played. (Practically speaking, this means you can select between three Rhodes samples for each note).
  
  Position-1：SHALLOW
  Pure Over Tone：Normal sound
  
  Position-2：IDEAL
  More Over Tone：A bit richer
  
  Position-3：DEEP
  Pure Fundamental：Reduced harmonics
  
  Presets have been provided which showcase the different samples.

• TUNING
  Each note can be set over a range of ±50 cents. This is applicable to both Acoustic and Electric Sources.

Sound and Operation Demo [No Talking]

This time, our Demo video has no talking, just playing. You can watch and see (and hear) how Tremolo, envelope, and the tacked sound alters the overall sound of the EP88.

During the second half of the video, the electric piano sound is given the spotlight. While adding in the Acoustic Source and changing effects settings, we go about making an original sound. Because the UVI WORKSTATION comes with effects as well, we use the Attack EP88 as a master source and then apply the effects of the UVI WORKSTATION on top.

While tailoring the attack sound as we like, we found that an incredibly wide range of sounds is available—from the usual Rhodes, to the Dyno-my-piano, all the way to the tacked piano sound.

No Talking

Sales Info (Japan only)

UVI Attack EP88 ダウンロード販売

¥11,550 税込 　¥16,500（2019/12/16 現在）

by musictrack