KVR Developer Challenge 2018 is Go

[FrettedSynth]

Hardest challenge for me to vote yet, IMHO first prize should go to both Full Bucket and Ignite Amps. I think they both deserve to go to the show and split the prize money. All this coming from a bass player, so take it for what it's worth lol. Thank you both for useful plugins, but damn who to vote first...?

[SparkySpark]

Just thinking... any chance of a prolonged voting period? Have yet some plugins to explore!

Also, should I vote for the ones I like best or for the ones that deserve most to win? For example, I don't use guitar software.

[DJErmac]

Easiest vote ever for me : there are only five plugins I'm going to keep, and only one I'll use very often. ^^

[Unidoubt]

I've just cast my votes

I've tested lot of the listings, but not all.
Time didn't permit to use/test them as extensive as I'd liked.
But here are my votes and general thoughts in my user experience.

My votes:
*nr.1 vote - dead duck deducktion

Pro's
First impression simplistic, but the sound is really great, easy to tweak, can dial in the way you want it fast!
Easy supersaw & nice fine detune to thick it up even closer to a hoover sound. A great palet of functions env, velocity mod etc. to diversify on to create many sounds, leads, pads, plucks etc. the fx are good sounding too, quality reverb, chorus & delay. glad it allows for dotted timings as well.
switching between 2 pages was bit getting used to, but is workable. Mousewheell support on knobs after initial clicking. Ability to use custom skins. Lightweight.

Cons: have to right click to see the values of knobs, i'd liked to have overview on what is set to what, when micro tweaking each parameters you kinda lose track at some point; right clicking turned a hassle after some time.
Not manually able to dial in values. it's nice that double clicking returns knob to default value, but double right clicking for data entry would've been a great addition in workflow.
I had a little problem with saving presets, as I am used to saving one soundpreset & move onwards tweaking from there to save a second. But after saving one, the second slot is default value. so couldn't work with presets the way I wanted. I saved every sound as seperate fxp, assignining them one by one into an bank later. Maybe someone has a tip for me on that? ^^
the unison detune only works on saw osc to get the supersaw sound, on other osc it's function seems total bypassed. was a letdown. So no supersquare possible. Crackling sound at times or at some settings combo. (sry didn't see the update & adjustments in forums till later]

All in all, i found it great to use & get my signature/fav sounds fast [more intuitive to me than most other synths]. And to me personally a nice go to synth for brainstorming & sound designs in contrast to my more complex synths use. So a real win for me.
Hope it gets improved, and more features added as more pages, third page or so on
Deadduck made nice plugs as in his free packs, but this one needs to stay to build further on imo. can be a featured full fledged pro synth. And I will try my hand at designing a skin for the first time, to inspire me further in using this great synth. good work cheers
[sry for the long write up on this one]

*nr2 vote - Full Bucket - MPS
Very great sounding synth, quality output across the frequncy range and no crackles whatsover.
A nice palet of 4 elements to make sound with & comes with nice presets. doesn't have any reverb or delay, so was using my own, and it sparkles great on qualit. It's very clear sounding when doing Ethereal soundscaping with this one, full wet on fx & it's still lush with no artifacts or hints of distortions. Amazed me.
Tho I didn't find it as diverse to sound designing as deducktion, it does a really great job & found this better quality made.
This made the decision really tough as MPS was indeed greater sound-quality wise to me, yet less diverse in sound vs deducktion. As I find use for deducktion more in my projects MPS comes as 2nd winner for me. awesome job Full bucket! [I like your other synths too btw ]

*nr3 vote - lkjb TinyQ

Good sounding Eq, does what it's supposed to for me. 48db is pretty huge workfield but does it quite nicely.
the initial tiny gui was entirely unworkable for me lol, it's ridiculously tiny. I had to switch to the normal sized one ofc.
Tho I found the gui awful to work with, gray on gray is awful-mudlike to look at for me.
But the sound is great, graph is also very good & useful.
Good quality sound just like the luftikus eq by him/them.
So I really want to use this, but the gui just makes me wanna turn my eyes away lol
Hoping for a gui upgrade soon or custom gui ability. this Vote is just for sound

*nr.4 vote Red rock eq560

This was a nice surprise for me, really good sounding of the api eq. Also in direct comparison like in his video very close if not same. I've gotten very nice results with this & was definitely my first fav of this DC. Nice it's horizontal instead of vertical like the original.
But the mouse response on sliders seems not properly calibrated. shoots up way too fast. Label font on values when hovering or drag sliders is awful thin to read. if the values just show up on the black panel above the corresponding graph, in same font as graphic, it would make a much better experience for me.
oversized gui makes me jump back & away from my screen everytime I call it.
4x larger than any other plugins next to it, and no output gain knob to tamper with.
Am sure guys who like to use gain staging with eq plugs must find this the biggest drawback.
Gui design and responds really cuts down on user friendliness for me.
if these were corrected would make my user experience better and more workable.
But again it DOES sound really good and am gonna try to use it, therefore the vote.
I don't know the dev, his plugs are new for me, but looking forward to see what he comes up with.
His sound quality has impressed me, if he can match it with user friendly designs in future,
then there's a nice spot for him in my daw ;D cheers

*nr.5 Tesselnode flutterbird

It's a nice little plugin for fx, simple to use, found this too bit oversized for my taste.
Recently seen this fx used in more expensive plugins. And I've already have one.
Tho this has 4 of those fx in series and a master fx knob to even effect them all.
Nice plugin, nice value. Kinda extreme fx not for my every day project use.
Vote for appreciation on good work.

Honourable mentions:
-InspireCC- nice cinematic sound, liked that, very complex gui, really need time to dive-in explore it's capabilities, tho so far seems to have one misty ethereal vibe overall. oh and 32bit only is a real bummer. 32bit a no go in this day & age tbh.
-Gogodzhu2 - loved what they did with first one but didn't get around to test this unfortunately, so can't judge on this one sry guys.
-Dystroyed - I found it too destructive for my creative use. It seems rich in features, but to me it's a non musical distortion, compared to my use of boz big clipper, izotope's trash2 etc. Maybe for others its very useful, depends on taste & genre I guess. plug works well tho & also light easy on cpu.
-ProFEt - I like ignite amps for their quality plugs in the past, but simply couldn't stand to look at satanic baphomet on this gui more than few secs. so skipped this as not for me.
-MSdevil - I have a general love mid-side processing but this one just didn't appeal when working with it. uneasy use, unclear overview of parameters & it's filters. No precise tweakability or dailing in the way I want. it's not for me, it doesn't make it to my stack of plugs.
-Monorepeater - was looking forward to use this plugin, but nowhere to be found/recognised after install. Seems issue was posted on forum by others as well but no replies from the developer. so this one was a no-show-no go.

others I didn't get to test & some are too horrible to even mention.

The prize pot is at record high this time, am glad I contributed.
Kvr has always been that special place, may this place live long
Great job to all devs contributing & the devs inspired to partake in the next one
Tho I do have a feeling that on past DC's the overall participants produced bit more to a higher quality standard, like indie developers delivering comparable to commercial products.
And I'm saying that very carefully, as I do appreciate all the hard work that goes into coding and making it available for free to all etc.
As well as my continued support to indie developers cuz I love you guys more than I can even write.
But just have to say that in all honesty, overall submissions does seem real indie class this time.
Curious to see who wins the prize & what other people liked most.
Hope there is a DC again next year & definitely will be contributing then as well.
cheers

[enroe]

Woaah, "Unidoubt" released a very detailed review about
his voting. Mine will be shorter:

1. Synth mps (musical parameter synthesizer): 5 Points

Reason: Too good! Marvellous! The new concept of
providing only a 2-dimensional area for creating a
sound works fantastically! Very compact, low CPU-load,
very good sound!

2. The haunted toy: 4 Points

Reason: Amazing sounds in a luscious GUI. This plugin
is small (as a sample-player only 29 mb!) - but it is very
great in having fun!

3. Distortion: 3 Points

Reason: Also here we meet a new and very simple
handling concept: Just a curve which can be changed.
Surprising: It sounds good! It can be used in a production
- well done!

4. Amp ProFET: 2 Points.

Reason: If you need full distorition power without mercy,
you only need this! Works incredibly good!

5. Delay Mono Repeater: 1 Point

Reason: There is a manifold of VST-delays existing. So why
does anybody need another delay? Answer: Because of the
intuitive fast GUI: Here you see immediately where to turn
the knob - at once! Very good GUI! Though at certain feedback
levels there's an unwanted noise ... (maybe this can be
corrected in a future update).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If I could I'll give every developer five points - but that's
not possible. Also I only checked those VSTs I would use
myself - and I left out many - probably elusively good -
plugins.

[idfpower]

I've voted a while back - very few choices to pick from (at least for me); enough said, all were synths.