User Reviews for Universal Sound Module
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By Crossinger
On 22nd July 2002
Version: 1.0
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First time I tried this VSTi. Over 80MB's of samples sounds promising - but for what?
It's the worst set of GM I've ever heard! Even some of the 8MB Soundfonts are better than this crap. Stability is average: Sometimes my song loses the channel settings and USM refuses to switch to another Patch.
Do yourself a favour: Delete it and save 80MB of valuable harddisk space for better VSTi's.
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By x_bruce
On 26th December 2001
Version: 1.x
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edited 10/14/02
Latest impression, not so terrible.
One big thing going for USM is it's efficent use of CPU. 16 tracks took under 10% on an Athlon XP1700+ with 512mb ram. It's sample qualities are still questionable but for checking out the occasional GM sequence it's worth having and it's free with Cubase VST 5.1.
Let's put it this way, I use it now and then whereas at the time of my prior review it seemed a waste of disk space.
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First impressions, bleh.
Second impression, bleh but I see some possibiities for net collaborations and jamming which is cool.
First off, it's free but this synth doesn't sound like it uses 70 mb of samples. Not horrible but come on, you can do a lot more with so much sample memory.
GM was ok until every manufacturer's designs were incompatable and sometimes didn't even meet the GM design. USM (which isn't even GM 1 compatible) might change things for the positive but the timbres are lacking character and with 70 mb of samples that's a real shame.
Pros: it works, the jam and collaboration potential is unique
Cons: 70 mb of samples? You'll never be able to tell
Several years ago there was an ad in the U.S. regarding hamburgers at fast food restaurants. An elderly lady looked at a bun and seeing little to no meat says, "where's the beef?" I expected much more out of USM.
Well intentioned and if the net jams are working possibly a good first step for Cubase 5 users. |
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Last edited by x_bruce on 21st February 2003
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By Jambo
On 20th August 2001
Version: 1.0
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USM is average, its sounds are thin and I generally get a better sound from the 8MB GM SoundFont on my SBLive! USM's strings are better but not great.
The fact that the data file is 80MB is a mystery, surely Steinberg could have come up with a better sound bank than this. It would also be great if it could load SoundFonts, along the lines of Bismarks BS-1, then it would be a great instrument, maybe v2.0 could add this, it would be a great extra selling feature, I fear this will never happen. |
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Latest 3 reviews from a total of 3 |
