10 Best Audio Software of All Time in the KVR Marketplace

I've been Cubase from the beginning with an Atari1040ST and later on I switched to PC.

Till today!I tried also other DAW's but Cubase is the one that siuts best for me.

It is easy to use, offers a nice workflow and has so many features that makes me save time.

Best DAW ever. I switched from Logic some years ago I never regretted.

Very good MIDI handling, Media bay is very well implemented and a decent set of out of the box plugins.

And now Steinberg seems to listen tu its userbase too. Well done.

Great sound and its easy to program. Although its an older synth its still one of the very best.

This synth can do pretty much every type of synthesis at this point. You also get tons of presets, which is nice. And there's lots of filter options and they sound good.

The sound quality sounds a little less "high-fi" compared to some of the newer synths like Avenger, Falcon, etc.

The built-in effects don't sound very good in my opinion..

The developer is pretty engaged and active on KVR which is always a bonus.

The main drawback is the interface. For me, it is very clunky to use. There are a ton of tabs and different screens to jump between. Modulation is painful to work with. Also, in general I find the envelopes in Synthmaster (and Synthmaster One) to be difficult to use.

However, for the money, you can't get much more "bang for your buck" than Synthmaster 2... it's a true bargain. Especially if you want to browse through presets. Other newer synths may have better interfaces or features, but there's a big jump in price for the synth and presets usually.

Obxd sounds great, there are a ton of good patches and banks on KRV and the GUI is large enough to see and use. It's a very usable synth. I love the S&H. Thanks to the developer and all those that contributed patches.

I'm running Windows-7, 64-bit with REAPER 64-bit. I'll try it on the Mac soon.

joel in Dallas.

This synthesizer is amazing; it's a very good, useful emulation of the OB8, from what I can tell, and it has the features I want an emulation of the Oberheim synths to have: clear, lush sounds, easy interface, unison, sample and hold.

The sound is incredible. It doesn't have a sub oscillator, but I haven't been able to tell if it really needs one; you can get the synth to grind low without much of a problem, especially with the unison mode.

There's not much that can be said about the user interface and features; it has a set of filters, the SEM's resonance and cutoff features that seem to be clear enough. (I don't have an actual SEM to compare against, nor am I really concerned about an exact match, personally; I just want the thing to sound good.)

All in all, a very worthwhile synthesizer; I use it with Cubase 7.6, 64-bit windows version, and it works very well for me.

10/10 for a clean EQ for technical and surgical usage with up to 24 (!!!) bands.

I use that clean, very versatile EQ every day on almost every channel at least as the LPF/HPF. It is my standard channel strip EQ right in the beginning before any other plugin.

Very helpful are the "solo" buttons to listen to the frequency range you're actually tweaking. Also awesome is that you can mark several bands at once and move them together in frequency and/or gain, whether you do it with the mouse or the knobs.

Thanks to the wonderful GUI, I also always use it to reduce resonance frequencies.

Want to work on MS? Easy done. Just change the whole EQ from L/R mode to M/S mode. Every band can be set separately to M, S or both, or respectively L, R or both.

The analyzer can be set to different settings (resolution) and on different signal path points: pre, post and pre&post. Very helpful.

On top of that, you can also choose between non linear phase with zero latency to different linear phase modes with different latency settings.

Although not my first choice for musical Eqing, the possibility to go up to 30kHz and work with a Baxandall bell curve can bring some nice high end shine.

For surgical and correction issues I wished you could switch every band independently to LR or MS. Let's hope that's possible in v2, although I'm not even sure if this is possible within one plugin ;)

And maybe Fabfilter starts to implement different GUI sizes in future versions.

Nevertheless: This is a must-have-workhorse-EQ for every DAW.

Pro-Q Vers. 1.23 is amazing channel eq, and on zero latecy mode sounds like it is in analogue phase mode. Sounds smooth, clean, transparent, and has nice stereo vibe. For cutting extremely useful, and has GUI one of the kind in the world of plugins. Also linear phase modes are under your command, if you need them. Practical, and flexible eq with unique possibilities of splitting bands between M/S, L/R what is very useful in the painting with sound over the sound picture. When you working with Pro-Q you always want to watch his display like magic is happening that moment. Analyzer is also very good without noticeable latency, and can be assigned to Pre, Post or Pre+Post. Pro-Q can be automated thru MIDI with great precision and flow without any audio artifacts. Highly recommended workhorse eq that sounds very good in the mix. Very focused sound, and in correction cut's keeps source's integrity very well. The most important fact is that is light on your CPU. For the next update V2 we expect to find 18db/oct. low cut slope inside hopefully.

10 out of 10 without any thinking.

Pro-Q V2 is now one of a kind with all possibilities that offers. Fabfilter did it again and released V2 of the well known eq with a lot of improvements in all ways. New mode "Natural Phase" gives extreme transparency and smoothness while retains cleanness and preserves transients even better from V1. Linear phase mode is also improved with quality settings up to the Max. Mastering on this mode is a pure joy. Zero Latency mode is also improved sonically. Full screen mode is so good to go into smallest details, and keyboard with notes that shows frequency of every note with +/- cents if you don't work on 440 tuning (sick) standard is really helpfull. Auto gain compensation, Optional Gain-Q interaction, Filter shapes: Bell, Notch, High/Low Shelf, High/Low Cut, Band Pass, Tilt Shelf, Different interface sizes and additional Full Screen mode, EQ Match feature to automatically match the spectrum of another track via the side-chain input, Phase Invert option to change polarity, Highly improved CPU optimization: Pro-Q 2 uses less memory and is more than twice as efficient as its predecessor! Built-in spectrum analyzer with Pre-EQ, Post-EQ and SC modes, adjustable range, speed, resolution, tilt and freeze, Spectrum Grab: just grab and adjust a peak in the real-time spectrum analyzer right away.

This eq is something that you will like at the first try.

Again 10 out of 10.

You probably can't name a softsynth that I don't own. And this is -- by far -- my favorite.

tl;dr: Reviewer gushes for several paragraphs.. .

Ultimately, this is a synth with two oscillators, two filters, two LFOs, two envelope generators, and two VCAs. Yes, you can patch anything anywhere. But before we even talk about that, let's talk about those five elements (or four of them).

Because really, ACE is a study in what happens when you try to make those five things as good as they can possibly be. The oscillators are among the best I've ever heard in any synth of any kind. Just absolutely luscious. Filters? Taken by themselves, they're probably not as jaw dropping as the ones in Diva (by the same developer) or Cytomic's The Drop (the only filter I've ever used that can actually bring your CPU to its knees if you push it hard enough). But they are gorgeous, and more importantly, it's very hard to put everything underwater with them. They just gel perfectly with the rest of the synth. LFOs and envelopes? What's the big deal? The former is just some kind of extra wave, and the latter is a fancy volume knob. Think again. The LFOs have as much character as the main oscillators, and the EGs are incredibly flexible (with a "snap" function that will tighten them up when you need it, and a "fall/rise" rate knob that basically gives you another stage). They can do lazy, and the can stand at attention. In other words, we're dealing with fantastic components.

My advice? Don't patch anything anywhere for a week. Or a month. Or a year. Because honestly, that sync knob will keep you occupied. Or the ring mod on the second oscillator. Or the mixer panel. To really appreciate ACE, you have to commit to exploring it normalized. It is just astonishing how good it sounds.

And after that? Well, what can I say. Everyone knows the drill. You can patch those EGs to anything. Those glorious oscillators can modulate each other or anything else (and you can stack each one eight voices high, with separate tunings). Or use the LFOs -- which, again, are as fantastic as the mains -- as oscillators in various kinds of FM configurations. Or run the filters in series. Or crossfade things through the mults (or do AM). Or glitch the thing out with crosstalk and simulated capacitor failure. Or use the mapping generator as. .. anything you'd like it to be. It is seriously endless.

And none of this really exhausts all of the little details that conspire to make this an incredibly flexible synth. Some days it sounds like a mini. Some days I can get it to sound like some kind of Buchla fantasia. Some days it's doing squeaky clean synthpop. Some days it wants to growl like an MS-20. Some days it's doing outtakes from a Tomita record. And really, all of that makes perfect sense, because as the dev put it:

"If you really want to compare ACE to a classic modular synth (or three), think of it as a pimped-up ARP 2600 using modules from a Roland SH-7 with (almost) the patching flexibility of an EMS VCS3 / Synthi A – but polyphonic."

As said, I own a lot of softsynths (including emulations of ARPs and EMS rigs). Like many, I have spent a lot of time and money chasing down "features." Eight oscillators! Four types of comb filter! ACE taught me how absurd all of this is, because at the end of the day, it's all about the Big Four. Essentially, ACE is a modular rig for the non-insane. Other reviews have echoed this sentiment, but it's really true. The fact that it's really "just four and four" is entirely liberating; it forces you to think about what you're doing and why, and yet I've never had more happy accidents with any other piece of music software. You will die at your keyboard before you run out of sounds to make with this thing.

A few other quick things:

1. ACE is not loaded up with FX, but the chorus is the most gorgeous I've heard in software. Its default setting (and the same goes for the delay) are beautifully subtle. And there's a phaser that manages to not take you instantly to Itchycoo Park (unless you want to).

2. The press was very insistent that this is an advanced synth that is emphatically not for beginners. I get it, but having spent a lot of time with this thing, I'm not sure I really agree with that. It would certainly require some patience, but plenty of people learned synthesis on rigs like this, and I have a feeling they were better for it. One of the consequences of being able to override the normalization is that you can isolate the components very easily. I can imagine a fantastic guided tutorial where we start by patching the oscillator directly to the VCA in gate mode and go from there -- adding one component after another and dealing with things in small segments. It would be really educational. It's certainly taught me a few things, and I considered myself pretty knowledgeable before I got it.

3. ACE is not "Bazille Lite." Seriously. The interface is similar, and Bazille has more of everything, but they are very different instruments. Bazille's oscillators, in particular, sound completely different, because it's trying to emulate and facilitate various kinds of FM/PM sounds. It's more accurate to say that Bazille is the "digital" complement to ACE's insistently analogue setup (though that's not fair in a way, because the one can imitate the other to a degree).

4. That said, there have been rumors of an ACE XL (or maybe just wistful requests for one). I suspect that's not coming any time soon, but the devs didn't dismiss the idea. I would buy such a thing in a nanosecond, but honestly, I don't find myself wishing ACE were more powerful than it already is.

I'm writing this review ultimately because I think this synth is massively underrated. It wasn't heavily reviewed, there aren't a lot of tutorials, it looks intimidating, and despite having hundreds of presets, it's never going to be anyone's goto rompler. I also think a lot of people bought Bazille without really realizing how different this thing is. It's an absolute classic. And a monster.

For me Bitwig Studio is the no #1 choice if you are an electronic producer who want to enjoy as much freedom as possible.

Bitwig is so "open"and versatile. There isn't any other DAW on the market that offers such a freedom. You can modulate everything and there are so many possibilities of customisation. Also the dev-team is very responsive, bringing constantly great updates and they are listening to the customers. It's a mixture of pure awesomeness and freedom. Thanks Bitwig.

Das Rating ist so, weil ich es für mich in dem Umfang nutzen kann, ohne größere Defizite zu haben. Weiterhin, weil auch die Lizenzphilosophie für mich aktuell okay ist. Die Bitwigger leisten sehr gute Arbeit auch mit der Community, die wirklich schnell gewachsen ist. Natürlich hat jeder Newcomer seine kleinen Defizite, doch ich bin sehr optimistisch, dass da noch einiges gutes ansteht.

Ich habe seit Jahren FL benutzt. Die losen Fenster, die grafischen Dinge vor allem, sind leider nicht schön. Dinge, die man auch nicht einfach modifizieren kann. Seit Bitwig als Nebenspieler zu Ableton, hat mich dann doch sehr überzeugt, eine andere Strategie zu versuchen und mich nicht mit dem umherschieben der Fenster zu beschäftigen. Wer schon mal eine DAW unter den Fingern hatte, wird relativ intuitive mit Bitwig arbeiten können. Sicher war es in FL auch nicht so kompliziert. Ich bin fähig mit allen DAW's wenigstens die Basics zu verstehen, da ich fast alle probiert habe. Somit war Bitwig kein Problem. Ich kenne DAW's die sind da anders.

Als nun Bitwig ins Haus kam, konnte ich relativ fehlerfrei meine Plugins implementieren, 32 und 64-bit, meine Samples einfügen und schon loslegen. Super einfach, mit geringem Grundwissen über das Programm. Die feste Struktur und GUI macht es sehr einfach Überblick zu bekommen und zu behalten. Die Chains sind wirklich wahnsinnig hilfreich, wenn man Effekt-Ketten hinter seinen Synthies legt. Das Anreihen von Tools ist einfach und übersichtlich. Und alles in einer Chain-Datei speicherbar. Somit hat man immer das komplette Paket und kann seine favorisierten Sounds jederzeit finden und wieder benutzen. Jedes Plugin wird in eine Bitwig-Eigene Form gebracht, die nur aus Knöpfen besteht, somit muss die GUI des Plugins nicht offen sein. Leider kann diese Knopf-Liste unangenehm lang werden, wo man sich gerne mal eine zweite oder dritte Reihe wünscht. Jedes Plugin startet in einer Sandbox, somit muss man bei Fehlern nicht das Programm neu starten, sondern nur das Plugin. Super .

Warum ich nicht Ableton nahm? Ich habe Ableton probiert, kam damit klar konnte es mir aber nicht leisten. Der Reiz des neuen hatte mich auch fasziniert und außerdem hat Ableton genug Nutzer, weswegen ich mich auch wirtschaftlich gesehen lieber für Bitwig entschied, das war kein Fehler. Die 12 Monatslizenz mag ein wenig unangenehm sein, aber wer es sich leisten kann und die Updatedate-Philosophie bisher okay fand wird gerne ein paar Credits für den next level sh*** hinlegen. Bitwig ist wirklich gut im Rennen und steht den anderen DAWs, bis auf wenige Dingen, in nichts nach. Es gibt da draußen sicher Musiker und Experten die evtl. spezielle Anforderungen haben, die Bitwig noch nicht erfüllen konnte oder erst noch wird, doch für mich reicht das zurzeit völlig aus, um komplexe Beats zu bauen in einem angenehmen Arbeitstempo.

Go Go Bitwig u have my Voice.

Cheers.

capracan/c.a.p./NOWISM.

An impressive synthesizer, clearly deserves top marks and used by the pros.

I've designed a Soundbank for DUNE 3 - please see below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=och0AI9uTLQ

Thank You Synapse Audio.

I've never actually owned a real virtual synth like this, all I've ever used have been freeware like Synth1. I've only owned Dune 3 for a short while now but I do not regret buying it, it is an amazing synth. Powerful yet runs even on my potato. Every time I use it, it makes me happy and I keep on returning back to it to explore more :D.