Alicia Keys Launches Virtual Piano Software in the States

Alicia Keys is attempting to pass on some of her musical capabilities to fans and fellow musicians with the U.S. release of her new virtual piano software, 'Alicia's Keys'.

The Grammy Award-winning songstress teamed up with Native Instruments to create the program, which mimics her Yamaha C3 Neo Grand Piano, giving the public access to her musical catalog. The program was created with the help of her engineer Ann Mincieli and sample specialist Thomas Skarbee and the pregnant songstress was featured on the cover of Guitar Center's September issue, where she explained the details behind the software.

"We started with an idea of creating piano software that felt like home to me," Keys said. "I wanted to be able to take my piano sound on the road with me as well as have it any time I wanted to record," she said. "Ann thought it would be interesting to bring in Thomas Scarbee because he created some bass sounds that we love and use often, but he hadn't done a virtual piano sound. We all got together in my studio and started to create it by going through this long process of sampling, recording everyone note sound and expressive nuance. We ended up with me entire piano in virtual form."

Keys explained that she used the virtual piano software to create her last album 'The Element of Freedom,' in addition to using it extensively on her recent world tour. 'Alicia's Keys' was released for the European market in April. Check out her tutorial below.

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