Is UVI Falcon worth Buying?

[Jermusic]

To Impodiam:

Thank you for the comment. Glad I could help!

About UVI Falcon, I don't know if UVI offers crossgrade for a NI Komplete owner like you. You should contact UVI about this. It may pay off for you as they are known to offer discounts in certain cases. It was mentioned here on kvr about UVI Vintage Vault 2 that an owner of UVI products could contact UVI to get a better price for the upgrade to Vintage Vault 2 from other UVI products. I did so and they gave me a $100 rebate for VV2 (as an owner of Falcon and some other individual UVI libraries but I did not own the full Vintage Vault 1).

The fact that you own UVI Vintage Vault 1 is a good thing from UVI's standpoint since they like the reward their customers and the fact that you own NI Komplete may or may not grant you a special price on Falcon. If I were you, I would drop UVI an email to ask for a better deal on Falcon if you are interested. Like I said you own UVI Vintage Vault 1 and NI Komplete which may help you get a better price.

I can not guarantee that you will get or can get a better price on Falcon by being a Vintage Vault 1 and NI Komplete owner but I would ask UVI if I were you.

[exmatproton]

Hi all. Thanks again for the replys. This was actually my first post (Avid Kvr Reader but never put myself out there) so im happy to get valuable feedback on my question. Im going to reply to people individually.



Exmat:Yea reaktor is one of my favs. Probably of all the goodies i got in Kompete i use it the most (More than Kontackt even..surprisingly enough) Its amazing. Would you recommend just keeping reaktor as my sonic powerhouse or are there things Falcon does Reaktor cant. I still learn new things about reaktor everyday so perhaps im looking at this wrong haha .

I can't recommend anything. I can tell you how i work though.

Falcon (to me) is a patch-maker. From simple 1 osc synth patches, to more experimental and "advanced" multi layered ones.
Reaktor is a great platform for 'devices', pre-made (Form, molekular, monark, and all the others....) and synth making (which i do as well).

So, if i have a certain specific sound in mind, i go to Falcon (and start building from the ground up). If i want a simple/quick/pre-made synth or just going bananas by making my own, i open Reaktor.

[Impodiam]

To Impodiam:

Thank you for the comment. Glad I could help!

About UVI Falcon, I don't know if UVI offers crossgrade for a NI Komplete owner like you. You should contact UVI about this. It may pay off for you as they are known to offer discounts in certain cases. It was mentioned here on kvr about UVI Vintage Vault 2 that an owner of UVI products could contact UVI to get a better price for the upgrade to Vintage Vault 2 from other UVI products. I did so and they gave me a $100 rebate for VV2 (as an owner of Falcon and some other individual UVI libraries but I did not own the full Vintage Vault 1).

The fact that you own UVI Vintage Vault 1 is a good thing from UVI's standpoint since they like the reward their customers and the fact that you own NI Komplete may or may not grant you a special price on Falcon. If I were you, I would drop UVI an email to ask for a better deal on Falcon if you are interested. Like I said you own UVI Vintage Vault 1 and NI Komplete which may help you get a better price.

I can not guarantee that you will get or can get a better price on Falcon by being a Vintage Vault 1 and NI Komplete owner but I would ask UVI if I were you.

Hey its worth a shot. I mean the Vintage Vault is quite the product (I think it sold for 500 in its heyday but I got it on sale) so they could give some loyalty discount. One can only hope

[Kinh]

[Impodiam]

Hm??

[pdxindy]

Pdxindy: Thats the eternal struggle going on in my head, do i need anything else or am i just buying into the urge to purchase somthing new...Ive been freuently a victim of imulse buys, In fact i have 1000 Waves plugins that i barley touch and a copy of studio one i got on sale but never use extensively so im no stranger to poor financial decisions

You do not need to buy anything else. You have every possible sound and type of sound you could need in what you already have. Now you have to increase your skill in using the tools you have.

[Echoes in the Attic]

IMHO yes, UVI Falcon is definitely worth buying. It is, to me, the best virtual instrument that I own and would never sell.

To me, Falcon (along with UVI libraries) is the closest thing to a high-quality hardware synth that you can get in software. What I mean by that is that UVI Falcon and also UVI libraries have a thick, solid, 3D, lush, heavy, full sound and also a more "open" sound that other softsynths that I've tried simply don't quite have. From what I've tried, only u-he Diva and VPS Avenger come close, though I still think UVI Falcon outdoes them by the lushness and "processed" nature,if you will, of the quality of its sound. I have not tried Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2 however but I have liked the sound demos from Omnisphere on YouTube quite a lot.

Synths like Xfer Serum, Tone2 Icarus etc... are great and sound great but they sound "softy" to me. What I mean is that in some ways, they sound a tad thin in the way that software synths are often rightfully accused of sounding. This does not mean that Serum and Icarus are "bad", far from it. But if you want the closest thing to hardware-quality sound in a box (obviously you computer), UVI Falcon is the way to go.
I have bought Steinberg HALion 6 with the crossgrade price of $250 US that being a Falcon owner gives you (BTW, you as a NI Komplete owner would also qualify to get HALion 6 for $250 US). Without that crossgrade price, I would not have bought HALion 6 as the price was too high for me. HALion 6 is fantastic and I love it but it too, like other softsynths, sounds "softy" compared to Falcon. Because of this, I sometimes have some mixed feelings about getting HALion 6. For an example of what I'm talking about, watch this YouTube video comparing Falcon to Serum, I certainly hear the full, solid, thick, open sound of Falcon compared to Serum which, like I said, is "softy" sounding (I've used Serum with a Splice subscription like you do):

Look maybe all of this doesn't matter to you at all and that's perfectly fine. Other softsynths sound great as well and plenty of good music has been made with them but Falcon is unique.

Other people on the internet also feel the same way about Falcon. About how "open" it sounds, how thick it sounds, how solid it sounds compared to other softsynths. The predecesor to Falcon, MOTU's MachFive 3.2 (developed or co-developed by UVI) was also described as have a more "hardware" like sound that other softsynths.
About the rest of Falcon, how powerful it is and how deep it is... well this is certainly true. Faclon is the software equivalent to some extent of the Korg KRONOS, Kurzweil PC3 series, Yamaha Montage or John Bowen Solaris. Falcon is certainly expensive as a softsynth but look at the prices of those hardware synths I mentioned... They all cost between $2500 US to $3000 US ($4000 I think for the John Bowen Solaris) while Falcon is $350 US.

Falcon is solid and ultra-sleek and as professional as it comes, the CPU consumption is to me very reasonable but I tend to make relatively simple patches but even there, as far as synthesis is concerned it is extremely deep. I find Falcon to be much better CPU-wise than VPS Avenger (another great synth) for example. The only downside to Falcon is the included factory soundset, it's good but limited to about 700 presets right now. If Falcon had a factoy soundset as big as HALion 6 (HALion 6 has 3000+ wonderful presets) , Falcon would be as close to perfection as possible. Of course in Falcon you can load UVI libraries which sound amazing but are often a bit expensive.

I wish I felt the same. I really respect Falcon's feature set and especially like that it has MPE at the same time as great sampling functions like multi-granular. And per voice effects is great. However I purchased it once and sold it not long after. Partially it was because I didn't get along with the interface, but also the sound of the synth engines were very weak to me. About as far from hardware as I could imagine. Somehow muddy and thin at the same time. About as software sounding as I could imagine. It also seemed difficult to make nice snappy attacks. The attack of presets tend to sound like someone punching a pillow. I'm certainly not saying you cant make nice sounds with it, especially ambient sounds. However it seemed all too easy to get poor results. I'm pretty unimpressed with the presets and sound banks for it as well. Even very talented sound designers tend to still make Falcon sounds that sound distinctly like Falcon, with a sound quality that to me simply sounds cheap. The lows and mids lack body and the highs lack brilliance. The wavetable osc in particular sounds terrible to me.

All that being said I still sometimes think of getting it again purely because of the sampling functions, per voice effects, and MPE. And the development team seems responsive and quick on fixes where necessary. I just wish I liked the sound more. Who knows, tastes change. Maybe I'll come around.

[EvilDragon]

I have the Repro-1 demo on my PC right now (I've had it since it was released). It sounds good don't get me wrong but I prefer Falcon. I think Falcon sounds bigger and more processed (even without FX) but that's my opinion.ound that I've not heard anywhere else in software. I think I'd say so even if Falcon sold for $100 instead of $350.

I don't think that "sounding more processed" is actually a good thing, but ok

All of this to some extent may have something to do with the fact that Falcon was more expensive than all of my other softsynths and I may "project" things into it but I don't think that's the case.

Of course you don't think so because you do sound quite biased, but you ARE very likely, indeed, projecting


Falcon does sound great, but sorry, it does not do component level modelling of the same quality that u-he does. It just doesn't. Filters are good for a S&S type of synth (but hey Omnisphere has pretty great filters as well in that regard), however they do not compare to the in-your-facedness of filters that Diva, Bazille and Repro-1 have. It just doesn't



On the other hand, I would never say Falcon sounds "cheap", either.

[Harry_HH]

I have the Repro-1 demo on my PC right now (I've had it since it was released). It sounds good don't get me wrong but I prefer Falcon. I think Falcon sounds bigger and more processed (even without FX) but that's my opinion.ound that I've not heard anywhere else in software. I think I'd say so even if Falcon sold for $100 instead of $350.

I don't think that "sounding more processed" is actually a good thing, but ok

All of this to some extent may have something to do with the fact that Falcon was more expensive than all of my other softsynths and I may "project" things into it but I don't think that's the case.

Of course you don't think so because you do sound quite biased, but you ARE very likely, indeed, projecting


Falcon does sound great, but sorry, it does not do component level modelling of the same quality that u-he does. It just doesn't. Filters are good for a S&S type of synth (but hey Omnisphere has pretty great filters as well in that regard), however they do not compare to the in-your-facedness of filters that Diva, Bazille and Repro-1 have. It just doesn't



On the other hand, I would never say Falcon sounds "cheap", either.

Wellcome points, all. I don't have neither, but tested both. Can you really compare Falcon and Repro-1, Falcon is more a platform than just a synth. Repro-1 sounds great, most likely my next purchase. UVI's effects integrated to the Falcon are, of course, unique.

[EvilDragon]

We can compare them on grounds of how "hardware" they sound.

[SJ_Digriz]

I kind of try and stay out of the "sounds better" stuff as it's so subjective. But, I think Repro-1 has the best pure synth sound of any VSTi I've heard to date. But that's just a subjective opinion.

The OP asked if it was worth buying Falcon.
The answer is based on his desire to program if you ask me. To really "use" Falcon you have to deal with a lot more UI paradigm than a typical VSTi synth. It can get very complex, very fast. However, it is far deeper than most single purpose synth VSTi. I don't particularly think Falcon "sounds" better than Halion. A lot of the stock content in Falcon is superior IMO. However, if I just build a hybrid synth from scratch, I can get similar results without some huge sonic difference.

It's just a waste to spend all that money if all you will do is scroll through presets. You can do that with the free player.

[Kinh]

Falcon definitely sounds exceptional but here's the main problem with it..
If you sit down and design your own sounds, the odds of you sounding as good as the factory presets are very slim. I seriously doubt anyone here has designed sounds better or as good. The reason is it just takes soooo much to get there, pluck oscillators, FM synthesis, several lfos, mod env, amp env and a chain of effects longer than the unemployment line in a 3rd world country.. all to get what appears to be 1 basic, yet decent sounding pluck preset. When you load a factory preset you'll see what I mean.
Oscillators just dont sound good on their own, you have to layer and layer and add a lot of shit. So if you're impatient like me and dont have hours to spend on one thing then you may hate it. I can whip up things faster in Omnisphere BUT I dont have several oscillators at once, that's how it's ahead of Omni.

The sampler. Well, it's IRCAM algorithm sounds great but prone to crashing when you start pushing it. It's good for re-tuning vocals..but Kontakt is probably equally as good at that.

I would still say it's worth buying because of the quality of the presets, you may even get some use out of the granular and sampler just dont expect too much in the sound design area unless you have hours to familiarize with everything and get some kind of workflow going. I spent hours on it and I just couldn't do that maybe cause i'm used much simpler vsts layouts (and arpegiators that were bigger than 2x4 inches).

[Sampleconstruct]

It's definitely worth buying.

[pinki]

I bought it and sold it... and went back to Mach Five 3 as I MUCH prefer the MF3 GUI. As a previous poster said, Falcon can get very complex very quickly and signal flow becomes confusing.

[martinjuenke]

OMG, 350 Euronics!
That has to be an extraordinary sound beast...