SR-202

Reviewed By dreibel [all]
September 30th, 2003
Version reviewed: 1.x on unspecified OS

it took awhile for this VSTi to become stable enough for me to use it, but the current version of SR-202 has quickly become my drum sample playback device of choice. It's simply one of the most intuitive to use, with a great GUI and the ability to quickly load samples and then save all of them in a single kit file. The filters and distortion are great to manipulate and sculpt the samples, and the ability to tune the samples have made it a snap to tweeze the kit to the song so the drums are audible without having to crank the volume on the kit.

The kits that come with it are OK if a bit on the wacky side - I tend to be a guy who cut my teeth on more realistic sounding kits from the 1970s. But at least I have that option to find more old-school samples and build my own kits, or substitute some of my samples in an otherwise good kit.
It is cool that CM got Robert Miles to design one of their kits using his own sample collection.

There still needs to be some improvements on this - like, make it so you can load stereo samples instead of having to convert them to mono first. And I'd love to see at least another eight pads added to load more samples in, and more control over velocity. But for now, this VSTi does good for me in getting a kit down quickly. Muon did a great job building this, and CM made it cheap enough for me to afford.

Reviewed By warbug [all]
June 9th, 2003
Version reviewed: 1.1 on Windows

i just picked up the may issue of CM that had all the instruments that they have released. when i had first seen the 202 i wanted to try it out when ever it was first released, now i got my chance!

i have been using battery for all my drum needs as of lately but i was still anxious to try 202.

my first thought was that man this thing is easy to use. it is layed out very nicely. i love the filter (battery needs that!!!)

the only problem that i have with vst is that it wont read some wav files..as where battery would load just about anything.

Reviewed By crimsonwarlock [all]
June 2nd, 2002
Version reviewed: 1.x on Windows

Excerpt from the orion-central review.

The user interface is rather big, but then again, there are a lot of knobs on it. The interface is made up of two major sections. The top section that has the master controls and all the sound settings that act on the current selected pad. The lower part consists of sixteen pads that can contain one drum sample each. There are also volume and panning controls on each pad and a big button that you can use to audition the sounds. The buttons even move when you play back your drum pattern so you can see which sound plays when. The knobs are moved by a vertical movement of the mouse (my preferred way). They also have the little pop-up function that shows an exact value when you move a control. All very familiar when you have seen a Muon synth, but also very useful.

Read the complete review at Orion-central:
http://www.orion-central.com/reviewsr202.shtml

Reviewed By DuX [all]
March 5th, 2002
Version reviewed: 1.0 on Windows

Well what can I say? How about "This is one of the easiest to use plug-ins I have ever come across."

The interface is plain, with simple navigation and controls. Drumsets can be loaded and saved, and effects applied to the whole drumset or individual instruments!

Don't like the presets? Simply click one button and the program lets you browse for any wave file, which can then be used in your midi part just like any other drum. Easy as that.

When you have a drumset you like (or even a collection of sounds) simply save them as a kit and use them in any tune you happen to be creating!

When coupled with other plug-ins such as Halion etc., the sr202 plug-in has the capability to be one of the most powerful drum sequencers about.

Reviewed By [all]
February 13th, 2002
Version reviewed: this one on Windows

For what it does this is a great plugin. The only complaint I have (which Muon is already aware of) is that Logic crashes when I touch a pad. I even downloaded the upgrade and it still crashed.