Four instruments, four plug-in formats. Addictive Keys runs as VST, VST3, AU and AAX in most hosts, or on its own.
Two acoustic pianos and two electric: Studio Grand, Modern Upright, Mark One, Electric Grand. The Modern Upright is a Yamaha U3.
Good for quick piano parts that sit in a mix, and for songwriters who want a few solid sounds rather than a thousand options. Four instruments in total. English interface.
It loads fast. On an M1 Mac with a dozen other plug-ins already active, the instrument appears in under three seconds. No beachball. No long scan of presets on first launch. The code base is lean, and it shows.
Memory use stays modest. A single instance with the Modern Upright hovers around 180 MB. Stack four instruments and the number climbs linearly — no hidden leaks. CPU hit is equally predictable: about 2% per voice on a modern chip, with the built-in reverb adding maybe another percent. You can run a full piano track plus a Rhodes layer without freezing a thing.
Stability is uneventful, which is the best kind. I have not seen it crash a session in Logic or Ableton across two macOS versions. The plug-in validation passes clean. No sudden silence, no corrupted preset recalls. It behaves like a tool that was finished, then left alone.
Beginners often overlook the mic mix sliders. There are two mics per piano — close and room — and a simple blend control. New users tend to load a preset and move on. Dragging the room mic up even 15% changes the stereo image from flat to believable. It is the difference between a piano that sounds like a sample and one that sounds like it was played in a space.
Another missed detail: the Timbre control on the Mark One. It is not a simple EQ. It shifts the bell tone from soft and rounded to sharp and bell-like, modeled after the original Rhodes preamp. People treat it as a brightness knob and miss the character change entirely.
One common mistake is running the standalone app and the plug-in simultaneously with different audio devices selected. It produces no sound and no error message — just silence. Quit the standalone app first. The plug-in does not warn you, but the fix is instant.
A second mistake: expecting the Electric Grand to behave like a modern stage piano. The CP-80 has a percussive attack and a short sustain. Playing it with a heavy sustain pedal makes the mix muddy. Treat it like a percussive instrument with a piano layout and it sits much better.
The full collection is sometimes referenced as addictive keys audiotools in forum threads, and the bundle covers all four instruments in one install. If you are looking for addictive keys plugin downloads, the installer places all formats in their standard folders — no custom relocation needed.
