KVR Audio

vata44 · Post by **vata44** » Wed May 22, 2013 10:44 pm

It seems to me that their synth sound has lots of imperfections which makes it great to me... gives it that unique character so each note will never quite be the same. I am enjoying this. I could be wrong and this could just be the sound patch programmer, but this is what seems to strike me right off the bat with every preset, the same note never sounds exactly the same regardless of my velocity.

There is a unique warm, musical feeling and instability... makes loops more interesting, melodies more melodious and my brain less fatigued.

I like it... I just never thought I would find a worthy Zebra competitor... but alas... they also work in harmony together very well.

Is this essentially what OSC Drift does?

Cheers XILS, I have been ignoring you... Nice to meet you.

audientronic · Post by **audientronic** » Wed May 22, 2013 10:50 pm

Which ones are you using?

vata44 · Post by **vata44** » Wed May 22, 2013 11:56 pm

The CM PolyKB II I got with the magazine...

I am pretty touched by it's sound.

I also have the BEAT Mag XILS synth which seems to have that same peculiar quality to it. At least in my ears.

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Thu May 23, 2013 12:31 am

I really liked the PolyKB but I just can't get my head around the modulation in the GUI. I'm used to grokking GUIs very quickly, even something unusual like Cyclop only took me half an hour to suss everything out, but this just has me running into a brick wall. It's not that I can't do stuff with it, but more that it just feels very unintuitive and it takes me too long to get anywhere.

But yes, the Xils stuff has a very good sound overall. Their oscillators can be a bit samey from product to product, but they sound good.

donato · Post by **donato** » Thu May 23, 2013 12:41 am

They have great products. Probably my favorite synth developer/company

I think a lot of people overlook them because of the iLok/eLicenser element which is a shame. Those against that type of requirement should check out the incredible bargain PolyKBii player, XILS 3 LE and Oxium.

audientronic · Post by **audientronic** » Thu May 23, 2013 12:47 am

donato wrote:They have great products. Probably my favorite synth developer/company

I think a lot of people overlook them because of the iLok/eLicenser element which is a shame. Those against that type of requirement should check out the incredible bargain PolyKBii player, XILS 3 LE and Oxium.

Yes! Last time I checked you could get both the "appetizers" on jrrshop for only 25 bucks.

vata44 · Post by **vata44** » Thu May 23, 2013 1:01 am

The only thing I do not like is the preset browsing on the Player CM version, looks the same on the Player. I guess I am starting to prefer that big open browser list of sounds... like Alchemy, Zebra, etc.

Am I missing it?

ontol · Post by **ontol** » Thu May 23, 2013 1:33 am

audientronic · Post by **audientronic** » Thu May 23, 2013 1:39 am

vaisnava wrote:The only thing I do not like is the preset browsing on the Player CM version, looks the same on the Player. I guess I am starting to prefer that big open browser list of sounds... like Alchemy, Zebra, etc.

Am I missing it?

Nope, that's the browser. I agree it would be nice to have a browser page.

vata44 · Post by **vata44** » Thu May 23, 2013 3:46 am

One cool thing about the browser though, is that my Korg M50 Inc/Dec buttons flip through the presets. I wish every synth offered that as well.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Thu May 23, 2013 7:32 am

I got all Xils Lab synths (including the Beta of V+) and all of them a just great. Also none of of them sounds really similar to the others.
They usually also use quite rare synths (or synths that have no been done really properly so far) for their emulations.
PolyKB II and V+ are good examples and a Synthex (= Synthix) should be quite rare too.
They usually also add some quite useful additional features to their synths.

One feature i like in both Synthix and PolyKB II is that you could record a sequencer pattern using your MIDI keyboard like it was done in e.g. a real Synthex. Besides that the sequence could be also edited from a built-in piano-roll.

With the layer system in Synthix you could create some quite complex sounds once you learned how to use it. You could stack up to 16 detuned Saws that way. which are duophonic then. I had created a few patches to stack 8 saws which results in 4 notes of polyphony.

One of my favorite filters is the "BP6" (6dB/oct BP filter) in Synthix. Sounds like no other BPF IMO.

Ingo

skitchy · Post by **skitchy** » Thu May 23, 2013 7:54 am

Can anybody tell me what the difference is between PolyKB2 Player (payware) and the CM/Beat version? Are there more presets in the paid version?

xavier · Post by **xavier** » Thu May 23, 2013 1:31 pm

skitchy wrote:Can anybody tell me what the difference is between PolyKB2 Player (payware) and the CM/Beat version? Are there more presets in the paid version?

Hi

Thank your for your interest in the PolyKB II Player

The differences are
_ 8 User slots (to modify a preset) for the Player, 4 for the CM edition
_ You can disable build-in effects with the player, not with the CM edition
_ almost 300 factory presets for the player, less than 150 for the CM (I don't really remember this)
_ External approved sound sets can be load with the Player, not with the CM edition
So over 700 presets can be loaded with the Player.

Best regards
Xavier

fluffy_little_something · Thu May 23, 2013 2:55 pm

Sendy wrote:I really liked the PolyKB but I just can't get my head around the modulation in the GUI. I'm used to grokking GUIs very quickly, even something unusual like Cyclop only took me half an hour to suss everything out, but this just has me running into a brick wall. It's not that I can't do stuff with it, but more that it just feels very unintuitive and it takes me too long to get anywhere.

But yes, the Xils stuff has a very good sound overall. Their oscillators can be a bit samey from product to product, but they sound good.

I never tried it, but I just had a look at the user interface, it does look a bit "unorthodox" to put it mildly

But since it is an emulation, Xils is probably not to blame for that.

The user interface looks good, but a bit dark, and those 3D knobs seem to hide the upper part of the scales, while their shadows seem to hide the labels below the knobs.

The area in the upper left corner looks like an empty cpu socket

Is that any indication of how much cpu that synth consumes?

Lotuzia · Post by **Lotuzia** » Thu May 23, 2013 4:52 pm

donato wrote:They have great products. Probably my favorite synth developer/company

I think a lot of people overlook them because of the iLok/eLicenser element which is a shame. Those against that type of requirement should check out the incredible bargain PolyKBii player, XILS 3 LE and Oxium.

Thanks a lot Donato

Also all Xils effects are dongleless : LeMasque Delay, ChorX, and the Leslie series.

XILS, a reflection on their "analog" sound