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All Reviews by M_W_N_P


By M_W_N_P
On 8th September 2002
Version: 1.01

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Native Instruments (NI) Battery

Battery has become my favourite and most-used VST sampler – replacing both HALion, and my hardware sampler.

It's a deceptively powerful and flexible instrument, capable of doing much more than playing the supplied drum kits.

I use it for just about everything; single hit sounds, loops, basses, vocals – even for triggering AIFF mixdowns of other VST instruments (a trick which can save you a lot of CPU, especially if the other instrument is Reaktor).

I like the GUI, and the fact that most parameters are either visible immediately, or just one mouse-click away. I like the built in waveshaping and bit-reduction effects, and I love the option of having up to eight stereo and sixteen mono outputs to the VST mixer!

The "FX loop" function, with its snap-to-zero option, makes it very easy to create looping sustain portions for pitched sounds (as well as nice glitchy drum noises), and the pitch envelopes can be used for some excellent "warped" effects.

Copying a drum loop to multiple cells and adjusting the Start point and amp envelope settings for each copy makes it surprisingly easy to separate phrases into single hits – for "do-it-yourself" ReCycling – and this is something I find myself doing more and more.

The only thing that Battery lacks is a resonant filter – and it's so easy to insert (for example) OhmBoyz's freeware Frohmage into a mixer channel that you soon forget about this omission.

To sum up: an extremely usable, functional VSTi, which I have come to depend on probably more than any other.
 
Last edited : 10th September 2002     

By M_W_N_P
On 11th April 2002
Version: n/a

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Muon Software Tau Pro

This is a surprisingly versatile (mono) synth, capable of quite a wide variety of sounds – not just acid-y basslines (although naturally it's great at those).

There's a good selection of oscillator waveforms available, and the Sync and Ring Mod modes can produce some unexpected variations on the basic sounds.

The onboard FX are excellent, and very usable.

The supplied pre-sets are good – but the Tau Pro is fun to program, and you'll soon have made a bank of your own sounds anyway.

On the one occasion I contacted Muon customer support, their reply was quick, courteous and helpful.

The Tau Pro has a couple of limitations to be aware of: there is no ADSR envelope generator, and pitch-bend via MIDI is not implemented. In practice (and in my opinion), these don't detract much from the value of the synth. However, if in doubt, download the demo, and see how it handles for yourself!
 
Last edited : 6th May 2002     

By M_W_N_P
On 31st December 2001
Version: n/a

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mda Piano

It's a free piano, which sounds much, much better than I thought it would.

In the context of a mix, with a couple of well-chosen FX, it can work well.

On balance, it's a nice thing to get for free.
 
Last edited : 6th May 2002     

By M_W_N_P
On 24th November 2001
Version: 1.22

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neXoft LoopAZoid

A simple-but-effective drum sampler, with multiple outputs in Cubase VST.

Since it's freeware, one can't complain too much about glitches...although it's still worth pointing out that there is one fairly problematic bug.

Basically, LoopAZoid would be very useful...if it weren't for a still-unresolved file-handling problem when importing/exporting kits (this may be unique to the Mac version).
 
Last edited : 5th February 2003     

By M_W_N_P
On 24th November 2001
Version: 3.27

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Malcolm Haylock VSamp

VSamp is great value for money, and it works well.

It's very easy on the CPU, and I have never seen it crash.

The built-in soundfont convertor is a big plus, and registered users also get access to a private FTP server with a good selection of pre-made VSamp instruments available for download.

I use VSamp all the time. It's a functional, efficient sample player, which I'd recommend to anyone.
 
Last edited : 11th December 2002     
Latest 5 reviews from a total of 5