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All Reviews by RWA


By RWA
On 4th August 2003
Version: 5

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  GUI
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Features
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VFM
Stability
Jeskola XS-1

Reading the previous reviews made me purchase this thing...... and I'm not disappointed. Of course the sound depends heavily on the quality of the soundfounds but the XS-1 threads them perfectly!

GUI: not my style, but very simple and dead easy to use. And you can easy replace it by another GUI-design provided by Jeskola.

Features: excellent. I hate VSTi's with millions of features you never use much. XS-1 has all the main ones you actually use.

Documentation: no idea really... never had to use it.

Presets: it's been said before, it's what you put in yourself. But the starter-set on the Jeskola page is pretty good.

Customer support: never had to use it but Jeskola sends the updates automatically by E-mail. You don't have to think about it yourself! Excellent!

Value for money: price is hardly an issue, it's freakin' cheap!

Stability: rock solid. Never had any problems with it.

I've checked out several SF-players but this one is by far the best. No click or crackles or crashes or loadingproblems or whatever......
Go get it!
 
Last edited : 8th August 2003     

By RWA
On 25th June 2003
Version: 1.19

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IK Multimedia SampleTank Free

I love this thing! The orchestral-strings, old 4-string bass and piano find a way in almost every track I make. The sounds are fantastic and very natural. The bassplayer of my band couldn't tell I used this VSTi on my songs; he actually though it was the real thing.......

The most important thing about the sounds to me is that they fit into almost every mix. Sometimes a "stand alone" sound kinda drowns in the total mix but these presets fit in perfectly. And although the sounds itself are fixed you can tweek a lot using the effects.

Also a big plus is the stability and low CPU compared to the rich sound it provides.

Ofcourse the amount of presets is kinda limited and the main purpose of this thing is to make you intrested in Sampletank LE,XL etc. Don't forget this thing is free. And it worked for me. I just ordered Symphony Strings which includes the LE-version.

It's funny to see how critical some people are towards these kind of free instruments. Ofcourse they're limited and are not as powerfull as some commercial ones. But it seems irralevent to me to compare a free VSTi to ones that cost $300 to $600. I find it amazing that a great sounding instrument like this is for free.
 
Last edited : 8th August 2003     
Latest 2 reviews from a total of 2

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