Product Reviews by KVR Members

I have experiences with many classic brickwall limiters. They are ok, for mastering etc. But you should use limiter also for every mix channel to ensure no one channel will be in clip.

But... Digital brickwall limiters harden sound, make it more shart, distorted, ugly...

Finally somebody (my beloved G-Sonique :-) made emulation of analog limiter as VST. Zener diodes are analog electronic components that can work also as limiters, in special analog circuits they are used for transparent analog limiting.

G-Sonique Zener limiter is absolutely perfect for naturall, analog limiting of every channel during mix. It do not produce any distortion, harshness, hardness... try demo and compare it with classic digital brickwall limiter you will be wonder-struck. It can be used also as mastering compressor because while it has analog sound it has also brickwall function (do not allow peaks to clip over 0db but it dont have typicall brickwall sound) but it is better for mastering of live music, for mix it is perfect for all genres.

If you want to make your mixes modern, loud and analog (according to current music trends) witouth using harsh/distorted digital brickwall limiter, try this one zener analog tool, it is something totally different with different sound :-D.

If you are producing Drum and Bass, Neurofunk or Dubstep DUBSHOX H8 is a MUST!
There are many multiband distortions but ones have terrible sound, others are absolutelly difficult to control.

If you are producing other music styles like electro house, psytrance, electro, ebm, industrial Dubshox will be perfect helper for you too.

Firstly I though, just next classic distortion, but... It is really byg helper in my production.

I was always angry that my NI Massive basses and dubstep sounds has still ugly raw sound while my favourite producers had juicy, fat, massive analog sound, i was wandering how they made it using massive. Answer is additional procesing.

Dubshox split sound into 3 bands, you can very elegantly set frequency ranges and control volume level of each band, if bass is not fat enought just move slider up to add heavy bass low end. If there is lot of harshness move MID slider down.

Additionally you can control drive (amount of distortion) of every band, so if you want to have loud bass but with minimum distortion it is possible.

You can set overall input distortion level and individual distortion levels of all bands. This is very perfect and easy for controlling of sound.

Every band has different types of distortions, probably designed for bass, mid and treble because every one band has different types of distortions which you can choose. I think there is more than 50!! types of distortions, from fat gentle analog distortions to digital madness, also specialities like Fukushima, Chernobyl or Reactor distortions which really sound dark and scarry like radio signal from missing radio transmitter lost in fukushima reactor. Crazy but sounding perfect.

Some distortion algorithms add distortion and crazy sharp harshness and others vice versa clean sound!! If original NI Massive bass or synth is too sharp and digital with some distortion algorithms from dubshox h8 you can clean it, made it more creamy, fatty, analog sounding and mid-treble harshness will be removed! Try it. Some distortions add romantic vintage dust to signal.

Additionally if your synth/bass is missing fattnes ans space there is SPATIAL PROCESSING called 3D sound - you can add some 3D sound/space to Mid and Treble frequencies while bass frequencies remain mono which is ideal ehen playing at big party.

Last perfect thing is neurofunk unit - you can add sci-fi vibrato/detuning to your basses known from dark styles like neurofunk dnb, ebm, electro.. it also make your bass more smooth an analog sounding.

Overall rating: Dubshox H8 is best dubstep and drum and bass multiband distortion available at the market. Work with it is fastest and I alwey get perfect results within few seconds. But do not use presets, learn to work with it and set your own parameters - results will be fantastic, you can very fast create your own preset which works best to concrete bass.

I remember times (7-10 years ago) when it was very difficult to get realistic, organic, precise synth sound from VST synths. Only one chance was to get real analog or virtual analog synth - hardware. During that time I produced psytrance, trance and dnb music. Sound of VSTs vas crispy, digital, thin, digital dirty. Psytrance music requires precisely clean filters, organic and fat sound. I remember that during that time it was almost unpossible to get this precise sound from high-pass filter - when you turned cuttof right instead of clean razor sharp organic sound you get digital crippling. Same with low pass filters - VSTs sounded very thin, digital, while analogs or virtual analog hardware (with DSP chips) sounded organic, full, sound of their filters was magicall and liquid and sounf of oscillators was fat and massive. So I started to saving money for my first analog hardware synth.

But than, later in 2006-2007 first VST synths with powerfull sound were finally released, one of them was Renegade.

What I really like about it is sound quality and originality of sound. Unfortunately Renegade has not so many features, so you can create standard synth sound for classic styles like psytrance, trance, drum and bass, electro, house, etc... But as my friend told me in past, every good hardware synth has its own original sound charasteristics, while most of VST synths sound the same - thin and digital. Also these days most of VST sound the same digital and thin. My friend also told me: if you apply any settings to hardware synth it always sound good, but with VSTs you always trying to find good sound, and you must do lot of compromises.

Renegade is something other, its sound is really analog styled. Fat massive, organic and liquid and also original. If you apply any setings it sound always good. Im using many hardware synths but Renegade is used in my everyday production because of his original sound described by G-Sonique as combination of both worlds digital and analog. In combination with analog/hardware synths Renegade is never lost in mix, it is one of most "visible" synth in my mixes.

OSC - there i 15 shapes, basic, they sound precise, sharp, fat and massive, but I hope in version 2 there will be more interesting shapes, you have 3 oscs available also with spread function so you can create original leads sound. Interesting feature is also phase knob.

Filters - one of best in digital world of VSTs, also G-Sonique own G-Low pass or G-High pass remember me original organic while german sharp sound of Wald*rf hardware synths Q, Q+ or XT
Combination of two serial filters digital and analog create perfect and original sound. Filters are strongest part of this synth.

Presets: renegade do not have tons of knobs and features, it is one of easier synths, but presets show you wide range of useability in modern music styles also. From trance to drum and bass...

Final result: Renegade is one of best sounding synth on the market. With original sound combining best of digital and analog emulations. More features/functions are welcomed, so I beleive Renegade ver. 2 will be released in future.