KVR Audio

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Sat May 18, 2013 6:08 pm

selling databases, that might make me think twice about buying a synth at anyprice...

sjm · Post by **sjm** » Sat May 18, 2013 6:16 pm

Some of the other synths I have have already been mentioned, but I don't think Harmor has been mentioned yet. I don't know if it qualifies as "lesser known", but Harmor gets far too little love round here. Apart from in the "What should I buy in the IL sale" thread, where about 4/5 people recommended it, it doesn't seem popular at KVR. It's also constantly recommended on the IL forums, so those who like it seem to really like it (I do). Not sure why it gets so little mention here.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sat May 18, 2013 6:37 pm

tanabarbier wrote:Yeah, they are not poor at all actually, those ones at least... But it is true that is seems we have a little bit of a problem with that arround here. Could it have anything to do with an other country just accross the border up north? mmmmmh... Off topic anyway, sorry.

Sure, go ahead and blame the U.S. What ever horror we must excrete must flow south because Canada seems fine. Keep blaming us instead of working on making your country a better place. That's the easier way to go.

Back OT...

I suggest Sawer by Image Line. Seems to have been forgotten by most, but it's still one of my VSTs to beat for great "analog style" sound. Right up there with Diva, DCAM and Admiral Quality's Poly-Ana.

ariston · Post by **ariston** » Sat May 18, 2013 6:47 pm

sjm wrote:Some of the other synths I have have already been mentioned, but I don't think Harmor has been mentioned yet. I don't know if it qualifies as "lesser known", but Harmor gets far too little love round here. Apart from in the "What should I buy in the IL sale" thread, where about 4/5 people recommended it, it doesn't seem popular at KVR. It's also constantly recommended on the IL forums, so those who like it seem to really like it (I do). Not sure why it gets so little mention here.

Well, I think it's very confusing to use. To be honest, I haven't spent much time getting to know all the ins and outs, but my initial tweakings never took me where I wanted to go. That filter section puzzles me no end.

This doesn't say anything about the synth's quality, of course, but maybe others feel the same way. I want to like it, but it's really playing hard to get.

mellotronaut · Post by **mellotronaut** » Sat May 18, 2013 6:48 pm

Howard wrote:Re the comments about update charges etc..: This is one thing that u-he got thoroughly right - all updates are free of charge, and after an introductory offer, the product price stays the same forever. This system works, it doesn't penalize loyalty.

perfect

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Sat May 18, 2013 6:55 pm

this thread is weird.

Igro · Post by **Igro** » Sat May 18, 2013 8:11 pm

sjm wrote:Some of the other synths I have have already been mentioned, but I don't think Harmor has been mentioned yet. I don't know if it qualifies as "lesser known", but Harmor gets far too little love round here. Apart from in the "What should I buy in the IL sale" thread, where about 4/5 people recommended it, it doesn't seem popular at KVR. It's also constantly recommended on the IL forums, so those who like it seem to really like it (I do). Not sure why it gets so little mention here.

I agree. But there are not that many additive lovers at all, to be honest. Only Alchemy comes to mind. To get any useful sounds of it [additive] have to know some basic fundamentals. But once get it, then working with it would be a pure joy. I remember back in the days i bought WhiteNoise Additive and lost my interest too fast because of the knowledge lack.

Igro · Post by **Igro** » Sat May 18, 2013 8:14 pm

zerocrossing wrote:
I suggest Sawer by Image Line. Seems to have been forgotten by most, but it's still one of my VSTs to beat for great "analog style" sound. Right up there with Diva, DCAM and Admiral Quality's Poly-Ana.

How it's on CPU? What exactly you like about it?
Shame, i still don't have a proper VA yet...

gamecat666 · Post by **gamecat666** » Sat May 18, 2013 8:18 pm

Igro wrote: How it's on CPU?

hard

JJBiener · Post by **JJBiener** » Sat May 18, 2013 8:20 pm

ariston wrote:
sjm wrote:Some of the other synths I have have already been mentioned, but I don't think Harmor has been mentioned yet. I don't know if it qualifies as "lesser known", but Harmor gets far too little love round here. Apart from in the "What should I buy in the IL sale" thread, where about 4/5 people recommended it, it doesn't seem popular at KVR. It's also constantly recommended on the IL forums, so those who like it seem to really like it (I do). Not sure why it gets so little mention here.
Well, I think it's very confusing to use. To be honest, I haven't spent much time getting to know all the ins and outs, but my initial tweakings never took me where I wanted to go. That filter section puzzles me no end.

This doesn't say anything about the synth's quality, of course, but maybe others feel the same way. I want to like it, but it's really playing hard to get.

Harmor is worth getting to know. It has amazing depth that you just don't expect looking at the interface. It can do things that no other synth can do, at least as far as I've found. Read through the manual, and take it for a test drive.

Aiynzahev · Post by **Aiynzahev** » Sat May 18, 2013 8:23 pm

mellotronaut wrote:
Howard wrote:Re the comments about update charges etc..: This is one thing that u-he got thoroughly right - all updates are free of charge, and after an introductory offer, the product price stays the same forever. This system works, it doesn't penalize loyalty.
perfect

I've always liked this policy

Aiynzahev · Post by **Aiynzahev** » Sat May 18, 2013 8:24 pm

vurt wrote:selling databases, that might make me think twice about buying a synth at anyprice...

Who's selling databases?

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Sat May 18, 2013 8:27 pm

Aiynzahev wrote:
vurt wrote:selling databases, that might make me think twice about buying a synth at anyprice...
Who's selling databases?

on the previous page, yessongs suggested it as an avenue for making extra cash if you are a dev.

fluffy_little_something · Sat May 18, 2013 8:34 pm

yessongs wrote:
fluffy_little_something wrote:Anyway, I am thinking of getting TubeOhm's paid version of their Anti-Transpirant. It is SE, but its sound quality is excellent as it uses 8x oversampling. And the sounds as such are also quite unusual (and even dangerous to your speakers ) because of its unconventional architecture. I will use it mainly for rich leads and bass sounds, as chords simply consume too much CPU (Diva level). It only has 6 voices, anyway.

The developer is really into his work, not a businessman trying to make profits.
antitranspirant rocks and the free version is one of my top free synth faves for leads but leads generally are monophonic so I do have concerns the paid version might not be able to offer me much more in usability. I wouldn't use it enough to justify the expense because I have others that are so much better.

Synthmaster is about the same cost and does so much more than this synth its not even funny. If it were $20 I would probably snag it but for what they want there are way better options for me and my money as is true with a lot of the synths being mentioned in this thread but hey one of these days money will no longer be an issue and I will just get one of everything.

I say this not to beat the dev up but because it's the economic reality of the situation and it is really more profitable to sell at a price point were sales increase as a result of it being a total no brainer.

In the price range he is competing with other better synths are there to keep his sales from reaching a number he would like to see. I see more synth devs taking this approach especially with their older synths because of the better sales numbers it will create sales.

What is more money $20 x 50,000 sales or $80 X 1000 sales? Plus then you have a larger database to upsell to. This is the key factor these guys miss out on.

A list of 50,000 buyers is worth a lot of money and I can show guys how to market other things to that list and generate just as much money as if they sold the product at $80, maybe not on all 50,000 but a sizable enough % that by the time you add that back into the equation my strategy is making a whole lot more business sense.

People won't spend the kind of money in masses these guys are asking for when there are better synths to buy in or around the same price that are better advertised

That is the financial reality of the situation. Now it takes money to make money and you do have to advertise and if your spending money on ads you need to recoup that expense but if your smart you never even blow a large wad to advertise and you give your synth away free to famous musicians that agree to speak about your product in articles and do things like that.

You just need to be smarter at marketing and take advantage of certain situations to think outside the box. I could write about marketing strategies because I am in biz development and always come up with new ways to market things.

If I owned a software product and was looking to sell more (provided the product was as good as other similar products) the market would be mine because the synth developers are just so inept at marketing it is a gold mine I could really tap into quite easily. It's not that they are not smart enough they are just focused on their product way too much to do anything with it marketing wise.

I didn't know Synthmaster is so cheap, thought it is about 100 bucks.
Anyway, Turkey has a lower cost of living than Germany, of course the developer does not have to charge as much for his work.

Anyway, I bought the paid version of Anti-Transpirant today. There are two bundles (i.e. you cannot buy AT alone, but if you could, it would cost about 25 to 30 dollars), both include three versions of AT (0x, 4x, and 8x oversampling, which is great as people with older computers can use it, too; you can also use the 0x version for working, and the 8x version for mixdown) plus a step sequencer. The 50 dollar bundle includes a rather powerful sequencer (which can be bought on its own as well and costs 25 dollars or so), the 40-dollar bundle includes a simpler version of the sequencer.
So, I don't really share your view that AT is somehow overpriced as you get four plugins for about 40 and 50 dollars respectively.
I have tried SynthMaster, it is nice, but I did not buy it as I did not like the interface, it didn't look and feel like a musical instrument to me. SynthMaster has too much of everything, that gets in the way of creativity. One tends to spend too much time on sound programming instead of making music.
Plus, I am not so sure it can produce the weird sounds that AT can make, at least not as easily.

Anyway, I bought another cheap (about 33 dollars) synth as well, ancient Superwave Trance-Pro. I hate trance music, but that synth is much more versatile than its name suggests. It does not come with any useful presets for my taste, but the first thing I did was make an INIT patch, from which I get pretty good sounds fast. Many people know the simpler free version, the P8, but the paid version is clearly superior. It has a dense, somewhat digital sound to it, without sounding clinical. Was looking for that kind of sound for some time. Of course it can't compete with Dune etc., but in the mix it sounds pretty decent

Since I don't make instrumental music (where naturally people focus on every little sound and its quality much more), it is enough for my needs.
It does not have oversampling, nor 0df filters, of course

Then again, I don't like/use high-frequency notes anyway (so aliasing is no issue), nor do I use filter resonance beyond 25% or so (so 0df filters would not make an audible difference, either).

The only drawback with both of my purchases is that they are 32-bit only

But it seems I will be stuck with 32 bit for quite some time to come, anyway.

fluffy_little_something · Sat May 18, 2013 8:50 pm

Regarding charging for major upgrades, it is a difficult issue.
Take Dune 2 for instance, it will come with a completely new engine (with 0df filters and all the latest stuff as far as I know). Since those people who like Dune, already have Dune and thus the number of people buying Dune 2 will be somewhat limited, I guess the developer has to charge for the upgrade. The other way would be to sell a whole lot of licenses, but that is not very realistic. Dune for instance was not even listed in the recent ranking of the 30 best synths, although it sounds superior to Saurus and some other synths that made it onto that list. Odd, but still... Since rankings influence what people buy, they will limit Dune's success and thus the developer's revenue.

Plus, I think a developer deserves some money even from existing customers, after all he spent a year or so of his life working hard.

It also makes sense in view of the EU law on selling software licenses.

I am not even sure Dune 1 patches will be compatible with Dune 2 presets. In that case you would basically get a completely new synth that only shares the name with the older version. An existing customer's loyalty would be honored with a clearly reduced upgrade fee.

Do you know some excellent lesser known paid soft synths?