Product Reviews by KVR Members

I have purchased Pianissimo over 10 years ago (for the price of $69, it is now listed for $19)
and used it in many projects, no problems whatsoever.
I use Pianissimo in combination with a M-Audio Keystation 88 ES and Renoise on the PC to produce music.

With options for sympathetic resonance modeling, reverbration, (key) hammer sounds, next to a built-in 3-bands equalizer.
Pianissimo has 256 voices of polyphony, enough for 88 keys, does not consume much CPU and is very stable.

Comes as stand-alone executable and VST2 (.dll) instrument.

Pianissimo is my favourite virtual grand piano. The sound has a very warm, rich character, which can be adjusted to suit your needs.

The reverb that this ORB7000 plugin creates is very rich and adjustable. There are many parameters to set and change. There are of course the regular parameters for a reverb, the pre-delay, damping, room size, width, dry/wet mix make the foundation for the reverbration. The amplification parameters allow for a volume-wise differently timed and shaped reverbration ramping. The filter section comes with low- and high pass filter for the reverbrated sound. The reverbration generated on an octave below, the original octave and an octave above - adjustable in level for each octave - allows to enhance sound in a way that differs from regular reverbs.

The now released version (first version) of the ORB7000 doesn't work as good as the "personal" version I received after mailing with support of 123Creative, who created an excellent plugin with what it seems a buggy protection mechanism on top which crashes on multiple instances of the released ORB7000.

So, if you purchase the plugin, you could experience crashes, which for me was solved by their support by sending me a "personal" version. I hope they will fix this bug in the future. I had no problem with the purchase and downloading and registration.

So, it's actually an excellent plugin if the developers get it to work completely, or when you receive their working version.. (as on 2013dec17)

Still available for download as HGF NFG: https://archive.org/download/HGFortuneNFG/AvatarST-Pro-NFG.zip - full version, windows VST.
(from archive.org H G Fortune Nearly Forgotten Gems - H.G.Fortune passed away. His site is no longer available.).

This plugin is very valuable for the price it comes at. The Avatar ST synthesizer plugin costs 12 EUR / 15 USD. You get a whole world of ambient for it. A must have with (4) 2x 2x wave oscillators, sample&hold and 7 LFO's and step modulation (syncable to host tempo), granular transformation and 2x sound transforming 'mystification', reverb, filter, delay, equalizer.

The Avatar ST synthesizer plugin transforms sound with customizable settings of synthesis routines over 4 wave oscillators of which 2 oscillators have user loadable waves. It features a rich set of internal waves, and this Avatar ST synthesizer allows adjusting a patch with randomize buttons for the waves and 7 other groups of settings of a patch. Sound is constructed with logical settings in a clear construction of the synthesizer display panel.

The Avatar ST has many options to ambiently modulate sound. It it is very suitable for creating ambient soundbeds and soundscapes and sounds with tension. The Avatar ST does allow creating sounds with a shorter decay/sustain/release on the amplification and filter envelopes, although longer sustaining sounds more suitable as ambient sounds and pads are the thing that this plugin excels in.

The Avatar ST synthesizer plugin is stable, and has an understandable, not too long manual. It does not consume a very huge amount of CPU, although the manual suggests lowering release times for less CPU usage. If you want to make ambient sounds, (for as addition to) pads, get instant relaxation and tension with very customizable settings: the Avatar ST synthesizer plugin will blow your mind.

The sound this Avatar ST synthesizer plugin creates is beautiful and astounding.

Renoise is the most powerful and modern tracker sequencer there is.

The Renoise sequencer data editor is based on the "tracker" principle, which features a grid in which moments in time go from top to bottom, with note trigger data for (multi)sample instruments, VSTi's and MIDI sent on each row possible. It has the ability to use MIDI, Rewire, VST effects and VSTi instruments, as well as a powerful set of built-in effects and automation control devices.

- the workflow is much faster than any DAW:
Renoise mainly lets the user use the computer keyboard for entry of the sequencer data. A customizable skipped number of steps on entering note trigger sequencer data and continous paste makes creating logically timed sounds easy. Renoise features many keyboard shortcuts, for example the keyboard shortcut to interpolate from value A to value B with any effect/instrument parameter in the sequencer data. This makes entering a crescendo / decrescendo in automation or velocity a matter of a few keyboard hits. The keyboard configuration and shortcuts can be fully customized. Multiple automation parameters can be controlled via one "hydra device" effect parameter.

- many built-in powerful automation tools and effects, sample editor, full MIDI support, as well as VST effect and VSTi instrument implementation:
Renoise features options for sequencer data command following, visual track lane following, note-following, level-following and very customizable LFO following automation for as many (VST/built-in) effect parameters or VSTi instrument parameters or MIDI commands as desired.

- feature requests can be posted on the Renoise forum and when suitable they are actually implemented:
New features can be requested and discussed on the Renoise forum. The exciter, for example, is a built-in effect that got implemented by my request. The exciter will make your sound bright and shiny by adding adjustable subtle harmonic distortion in stereo or mid/side processing over 3 individual frequency bands.

- the Renoise demo version has acceptible limitations and lets you create / save / load Renoise projects like in the registered version:
There are only 7 limitations on the demo version which do not limit use of the sequencer to get started and create and save a full song with samples, VST(i)s and MIDI.

- there are good beginner tutorials ( youtube/LearnRenoise ) and a good manual which explain Renoise.

Renoise absolutely is a must-have or at least something to have tried for anybody who creates electronic music. Renoise is the sequencer you will have overnight success with after getting used to it.