I’m torn between which plug in I want to use.
I have the Scarbee and want something else.
Can you all tell me what you prefer?
I’m trying to decide between Phoenix or Diamond( not interested in the 2 pack)
Also, possibly Lounge Lizard.
I did a recording job recently and the engineer had me on Keyscape. I really liked the way it sounded, but don’t want to spend that much and I have too many acoustic pianos
Thanks
I’m a big fan of lounge lizard for Rhodes and wurly
If you already have Pianoteq… try theirs on demo first.
Also consider whether the instrument is physically modeled (Lounge Lizard and Pianoteq) or sample based (most others)…
I have tried to move toward physically modeled instruments because they use much less memory. So, I am more comfortable duplicating them in different rackspaces.
I have a lot of them. Currently I prefer to tweak with Keyscape. Easy and fast. Adding effects such as flanger, chorus, comp, EQ is fast and immediately successful.
With some more efforts you can get very good results with Longe Lizard, which is extremely cheap.
I would test new things by Rhodes itself like their Anthology. I am not interested to buy it because I am ok with my things now, but if you start it could be a milestone.
The Rhodes plugins use tons of RAM.
At some point, the law of diminishing returns becomes a factor and although newer plugins may improve previous ones, unless there is a really dramatic difference, I couldn’t be bothered.
Lounge Lizard has served me well for Rhodes and Wurly and I haven’t found any reason to replace it. I do however feed the Rhodes through the MXR phase 9 (the famous orange phaser) emulator in TH-U as I find it a significant improvement over the built-in phaser.
What a great forum! Thanks to all for suggestions. Pretty new with GP and I’m sure I’ll have lots more questions.
For what it’s worth, I use Lounge Lizard too.
I own Lounge Lizard, Pianoteq EP’s and Scarbee, but my absolute favorite is the Famous E Rhodes from Orange Tree Samples.
I own the Rhodes VST and it’s nice but my issue with it is most of the controls that I want host automation over or the ability to map midi controls to are not exposed. It’s ironic because it’s these controls that seem to impact the sound quality the most.
So I don’t use it much except when recording in Abelton.
I use Pianoteq’s Rhodes, Wurli and Clav because in a live setting, in mono, they are good enough and it means I can run basically one plugin for all those sounds plus my acoustic pianos making my gig file very efficient.
Then I script them all with this setup so I can just punch between them on the fly if I want to.
I have my gig file down to one rackspace with a dozen or so variations this way.
My Rhodes plug-ins:
Lounge Lizard
-realistic Rhodes and Wurlitzer with lots of parameters and effects.
Low RAM footprint.
Keyscape
-beautiful Rhodes 80’s “sparkle”
-my favorite Wurlie, the 140B
Pianoteq
-very good Rhodes and Wurlie, but not as realistic as Lounge Lizard to my ears
Scarbee88
-I love it. It sounds great.
UVI Attack88
-it’s a tack Rhodes. It sounds huge. While I love the sound, I can’t use it much
because it’s too big for the mix.
Which version ?
Do you have the older NI version or this one ?
If you don’t like the Scarbee Classic EP 88s, I think I cannot help much… 
Indeed one of the only plugin sounding and responding close to the real instrument. Even closer to my real 200a that their 200a plugin.
My favorite Rhodes is Lounge Lizard. Modeled so low CPU consumption. Better than Scarabee. I also complement Lounge Lizard with Velvet.
Look at Cherry Audio Wurlybird for Wurlitzer.
Not to be nit-picky, but modeled would seem to make it low in ram usage, but not CPU.
As a general rule, I would think physically modeled instruments would use more CPU, but less ram. (Of course, other factors might effect this, like how the plug in is coded, the use of effects, etc.)
Jeff
It depends, some sample based VST also consume a lot of CPU when complex effect chains are involved.