Buy or wait?

[como baila]

Or, would you buy again?

I want to hear from those of you that have already bought Cream.

First, I am massively impressed by the basic concept of the instrument. I've had good results playing around with the demo.

FWIW, try sending midi input from Cableguys Midishaper (or similar) to Cream for spectacular results with CC manipulation.

Second, I see lots of posts about reappearance of 'bugs' supposedly eliminated as a new version rolls out. But, I would like to buy in to a pretty stable version.

Finally, ... and most concerning ... the developer does not seem available or responsive. There is no contact info on the Kirnu web page. I sent him a PM here at KVR with a simple question and never got a response. I asked a question here on the web page and he never responded in over a week, even though I saw by the dates of other posts that he has returned to this forum in the meantime. I see quite a few other unanswered posts in the forum that appear to be things that might have been quickly and easily answered.

I have no idea of the 'life' or 'time' demands on the developer. My life can be pretty chaotic from time to time. I'm not trying to be negative or personal, but I just find it hard to understand the lack of communication.

Como

[nexussynth]

i got in on the beta so for me i would of course, buy it again. it is the best and most useful 'arpeggiator' available, so much more than others.

it has bugs sure, but what softs don't? the developer is busy trying to perfect this thing and has been great about updates imo.

i would say just buy it. it's not too costly at it's current price for what it does. i'm sure this plug in will continue to evolve.

[como baila]

Nexussynth ...

Thanks for responding. I'm going to 'interpret' what you said, like this: 'Cream is already the best arpeggiator I've used. As it is now ... even if it never evolves, although I expect it will, it is perfectly useful and the price is good."

Do i hear you?

BTW, have you ever looked at/ used Home Grown Sounds Arp? It is musically very deep.

Como

[ZXOxo67]

its no mistake to buy it. a great tool.
it has some issues with loops. but if you know them, its easy to avoid this issues. (in fl, for example)
i think the kirnu team has a todo list with many fixes. and this bug will be fixed soon, im sure.

[Naiw]

Personally I workaround the loop problem by recording Kirnu's generated midi notes and bypass the kirnu instance.

[rasmusklump]

I am rather angry at the moment that I had to buy it in beta stadium without demo to get a better price.

ATM I can't work with it and consider buying catanya.

[como baila]

3 to 1 positive so far. That's pretty good for almost any software!

Yes, I noticed the looping drop outs while demoing. It must be that if the note or notes drawn in the midi triggering track goes all the way to the end of the clip, when it loops there is no 'note off' message, so that it cannot recognize the first 'note on' messages at the loop beginning, which would have been two note on messages in a row.

You'd think it could be programmed so that if it receives a second 'note on' message sequentially, i.e., without a 'note off' message in between, it would recognize the second one as a 'note off.'

Since this only affects the first 'note on,' I wonder if leaving a little gap at the beginning of the midi track, say a 1/16th note, or starting the loop a bit before the midi clip or data wouldn't over come this.

[edit] Actually, thinking about this a bit more, it seems it would be best to make sure that the final triggering note(s) at the end of the clip ended before the clip. That would presumably send a 'note off' message at the end before the looping. I'll try this later and see how if it works.

Of course, that would not help for live use.

Anyway, I just ignored the drop out and then hit stop > play if I needed to hear the first part.

And recording the midi data is always a great idea anyway. Then you can chop it up, mute notes, move notes, change the length, etc., etc., and use it for layering of instruments and arranging.

[paterpeter]

I use it mainly inside MuTools MUX in Studio One, and it works quite well. Arto, the developer, is top notch in my book (looping sections still seem to be a bit tricky at times, but I'm confident it'll get sorted out). I've had contact with him by e-mail a couple of times and he has incorporated a lot of the suggestions he got from me and others.

So yes, I'd buy it again without hesitation.

[como baila]

OK ... bought it.

[Naiw]

I am rather angry at the moment that I had to buy it in beta stadium without demo to get a better price.

ATM I can't work with it and consider buying catanya.

Now I haven't tried catanya (Was actually unaware of it until this post), however judging by the video and the info on 7Aliens homepage it doesn't appear to be an competing product by any means.

Catanya appears to come with tons of presets- Kirnu Cream unfortunately only has a limited amount.
But on the otherhand Cream allows for insane versatility, different patterns such as velocity, transposition etc can all be individually looped creating an arpeggio which doesn't really repeat itself for a long time and so on.

I think Cream is more of an really advanced arpeggiator while Catanya appears to be significantly simpler but has a lot of ready-to-go-patterns.
To me catanya seems more of an "arranger" plugin while Cream is a true arpeggiator.

I think Cream is great overall, but yes it does have some bugs mainly involving looping- but as posted above it's quite simple to workaround; Even though I hope it will be fixed soonish. Other than that I can't recall I'ven't encountered any bug that I noticed atleast.

[rasmusklump]

What benefit do i have from the better possibilities of cream when it does not make anything in my daw ?

Sorry but I feel cheated this whole thing with the presale went (...you have to pay more if you insist to demo first, and now its out of beta bit still acts like a beta here, with every update something else is broken)

[Naiw]

What benefit do i have from the better possibilities of cream when it does not make anything in my daw ?

Sorry but I feel cheated this whole thing with the presale went (...you have to pay more if you insist to demo first, and now its out of beta bit still acts like a beta here, with every update something else is broken)

I don't know what benefit you got from it, I'm a bit surprised you purchased something that you obviously are unable to use.

What do you mean "you have to pay more if you insist to demo first"? I downloaded the demo and paid the 35 euros as stated on the homepage, I haven't been betatesting so if betatesters had some special discount that's another thing- but I suppose you would atleast noticed if it didn't work before it turned into a release version. If it's something that been changed with the release it sounds like the kirnu team has to learn about about software management and especially take adventage of the betatesters.

I do however agree with you that there been some odd regression with some releases, but at the sametime I do understand it's difficult to test with each DAW but that's things one expects for a commercial product.

But do not interpret that as tested software is bugfree. But to me it sounds (provided you actually set it up correctly) that this is a bug which should been considered a blocker if there been any testing.

Also I can't help wondering what DAW you are using as no one else been reporting that level of malfunction? Personally I'm using Reaper the most, but I also tried it in Logic Pro 9 without issues (except Logic sucks arse to work with these kind of plugins).

Also note I'm not affiliated with the kirnu developers in anyway, I just purchased Cream after demoing it and it works alright for me- it may screw up timing at times etc but then again I have several VSTs that does that from significantly more established developers *caugh arturia* and Cream atleast allows me to record the midinotes it generates so it can be worked around without major difficulties and generally these things happens when playback starts in the middle of the song for all these plugins, so it could also just as well be a Reaper incompatibility.

[clipnotic]

What benefit do i have from the better possibilities of cream when it does not make anything in my daw ?

Sorry but I feel cheated this whole thing with the presale went (...you have to pay more if you insist to demo first, and now its out of beta bit still acts like a beta here, with every update something else is broken)

+1

I'm right there with you. I bought Cream as it was available in the pre release version. At the beginning I thought that plugin is a great idea and should be sponsered so that the developers notice that they are working on a fine product. But meanwile it upsets me ... I won't describe my problems with Cream here, because nobody will pay me for my time and it's not my job to fix others work.

I'm a VST plugin musician since 10 years and I bought many of them and most of the well-known, too. Before that I worked some years with hardware, too.

Today more and more manufacturers are thinking, it is OK to use paying customers as a beta tester. And of course it's a good idea to ask customers and do beta testing ... but that depends on the extent!

Don't get me wrong! Cream is a really great idea and has a huge capability! But now for me the game has changed. I will never buy again a product which is not really finished. I'm a musician and I want to make music, I'm not a beta tester. If a manufacturer wants my opinion, my knowledge, my time ... well, no problem, if they can pay for it!

PS: Sorry, my english is not the best!

[andreasg]

i would buy it again.. no question, kirnu is great!

[chardin]

i would buy it again.. no question, kirnu is great!

+1. I'd buy Cream again without hesitation. Cream is incredibly powerful and I also like the looks.