As a proud owner of the Astrolab since It’s earliest OS, I have always missed the support of Mellotron V and the CP-70 V. With every announcement of a new OS I found myself shivering with anticipation to these… but to no avail until now.
While still being jam-packed with such an amazingly profound colour pallette, the instrument doesn’t seem to be complete without the inclusion of these highly-acclaimed emulations. And these two are particularly useful in a Live-band context. They are definitely among the keyboardist’s best sound tools - the Mellotron
is soaring with meaningfulness, and a good CP is remarkably confident and percussive without masking other players.
Yes, I know there are some patches that serve as substitutes (such as the Early Prince CP-70 from the Emulator V and Melo Flutes from the Sampler instrument), but these are pale excuses for all the sheen and glory of the excellent full emulations.
I can only assume that the instrument can handle these in terms of sample length and overhaul complexity.
After all, Astrolab handles meticulous emulations of numerous instruments with complex sonic structures so well!
I feel that an inclusion of the Melo V and CP-70 V flagship emulations would truly complement the Astrolab ecosystem, and can also help the acceptance of the 88 key model.
What do you think?