Soft sell
In terms of VFM, the iRig Keys I/O is a pretty good deal on its own, but IK have sweetened the pot big time by throwing in €750 worth of software.
The package kicks off with Live Lite and Studio One Prime – cut-down versions of Ableton and PreSonus’ acclaimed DAWs that give the newcomer to computer music everything they need to get started.
Much more exciting than those, however – and of more relevance to those who already have the DAW side of things covered – are IK’s own contributions. For starters, you get Miroslav Philharmonik 2 CE (€180), a 10GB orchestral ROMpler featuring over 700 instruments, edited, processed and mixed in an easy-to-use interface. Then there’s Syntronik Pro-V (€60), a sample-based emulation of the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 and Prophet-10 synths.
The headlines, though, are T-RackS Deluxe and SampleTank 3 (€420). The first includes nine modules from IK’s superb mixing and mastering suite, and SampleTank 3 (8/10, 210) is a jaw-droppingly massive (33GB) ROMpler, packed with over 4000 multisampled acoustic, electric and electronic instruments of all kinds, endless effects, powerful pitchshifting and timestretching, and much more.