Product Reviews

Released in conjunction with Abbey Road Studios, Propellerheads' latest ReFill, Abbey Road Keyboards, offers seven of the studio's most famous keyboards. It consists of Steinway and Challen upright pianos, a Hammond RT-3 organ, a Mannborg Harmonium, a Schiedmayer Celeste, a Mellotron M400 and a set of tubular bells.

The developers were lucky enough to record the multi-layered samples for the collection in Abbey Road's Studio Two - The Beatles' spiritual home - using the same mics, outboard gear and even the same four-track valve mixing desk used throughout the 1960s.

It's an interesting collection of instruments, ranging from familiar upright pianos to the more esoteric celeste and harmonium, and having them to hand in your Reason folder enables you to treat

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them as The Beatles did the originals: when Strawberry Fields Forever needed a Mellotron or We Can Work It Out needed a harmonium, the device in question was simply wheeled into Studio Two, expertly miked and recorded. Now, all you have to do is to fire up Reason.

Some of the instruments lend themselves best to supporting work in an ensemble piece, such as the bright tack-piano sound of the Steinway upright. Others work well blended with other lead instruments, adding their own harmonics, such as the celeste or the harmonium. Still others can lead from the front, whether it be the warm intensity of a Hammond RT-3 in full voice or the Challen piano in a sparse arrangement. But however you use them, the quality is guaranteed.

Abbey Road Keyboards is loaded with preset, style and template patches. The Combinators are excellent, allowing you to blend the close-up and distant mic signals for a dry or roomy sound, greatly increasing the flexibility of the collection.

When you start with great sounds, everything becomes easier and while it seems unlikely that there'll be a harmonium revival any time soon (acid harmonium?), it's hard not to love this collection. Just playing one of these instruments solo is a joy: a beautiful instrument captured in a beautiful space. This is Abbey Road in a box, and it doesn't get any better than that.