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All Reviews by Cabinfever


By Cabinfever
On 16th November 2004
Version: 1

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Wusik Wusik Station

i was 50:50 about getting this device but since it was going cheap in the group buy i thought why not. unfortunately straight away is kept crashing fl studio. it turned out to be a bug for users on low-latency system (now fixed).

i found the gui to be extremely confusing - it's hard to tell which layer you're actually editing or where the effects are actually applied.

the wave sequencer is absurdly small and fiddly and one of the most unintuitive things i've seen recently in the vsti world.

modifying sounds is slow, click-intensive work. with so much going on you can't expect this to be super-fast, but i think it could certainly be better.

i believe this device was constructed as a sort of "super eve" and certainly the specs support that idea. the sound manipulation possibilities are huge !

but i still find eve much quicker and more effective.

also, many people rave about the "fanous keys" sets which come with wusik. well, some of them are interesting, but generally they are low quality, noisey samples.

on the other hand you can get hugely thick and swirling pads here for a tiny cpu hit. that's a big plus.

some new sets are coming out now like the moog samples which are much better. but the cost of each set reminds me of the printer-hardware trap: low initial purchase cost but very high running costs.

i'm not begrudging people good money for good woirk, but in the long run what seems a bargain may not be such good value. over the long haul it may be that something like the sonic synth might be better for the cost.

(edit for the cpu praise, fixed typos)
 
Last edited : 16th November 2004     

By Cabinfever
On 7th October 2004
Version: 1.4

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Cakewalk z3ta+

zeta gets lots of praise and it deserves it. it has many strong points: fantastic routing possibilities, huge patch library, good arp, good filters, comprehensive built-in effects, excellent ergonomic gui, easy to learn, a good sale price.

overall i feel it has a slightly cold tone. that doesn't mean it is lacking in "emotion", but it doesn't sound like an old roland or korg, it's more "digital" than "analog". but still distintive, and very appealing.

the one facet of zeta which *is* weak is cpu usage. compare zeta to absynth for example and it is a most monstrous resource hog. given what is now being achieved by ni and developers like williamk, i think zeta is quite profoundly substandard in this area.

i also give zeta an 7 for presets, not for any lack of quantity or quality, but only because they are still so disorganised. i'd like to see a zeta bank library like ni has for absynth with sounds categorised into 128 banks. there are hundreds of great sounds available but they are hopelessly disorganised. patch chaos.

but overall one of my all-time favoutrite synths, versatile, rich & deep.
 
    

By Cabinfever
On 13th February 2004
Version: 1

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Sonic Charge Sonic Charge MicroTonic (µTonic)

Yes, this is a great drum synth, but it's not perfect. So instead of talking about it's wonderful tweakability, easy sound manipulation and crash-proof life, here's a few things I don't like:

- Chaining patterns together isn't intuitive. Maybe for you, not for me. Can't see what the hell is going on.

- It's a pig to synchronise to other sequencers if you decide against using the in-built 16-step toy pattern sequencer.

- The pattern sequencer is a joke. 16 steps ?! If this thing was designed as a horizontal GUI rather than a bathroom-tile square then they could have fit in an a workable 32-step pattern. I mean what the hell - 16 steps and then we flip to another pattern ? Is this 1990 ?

Hopeless, in fact truly woeful. Unbelievable. When everything else is so good to shoot itself in the foot with such an amateurish and frustrating restriction just takes my beath away.

I also find the GUI insipid and washed out. Maybe it's trying for some sort of Mac-like translucency, but for me it doesn't rate.

Other than that I'm very happy with this device. It's got a beautiful sound, absolutely superb noise and filter & EQ to get very subtle shades of tone, and lots of odd sound potential.
 
    
Latest 3 reviews from a total of 3

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