KVR Audio

tommyzai · Post by **tommyzai** » Sat Jun 29, 2024 7:50 pm

After playing with this for a couple of days I came to realize that it's a super-charged, latency free, aliasing free (almost) saturation plugin. It really enhances just about anything. I like it more than Saturn 2 for the increased flexibility, clarity, and performance.

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Sat Jun 29, 2024 8:54 pm

tommyzai wrote: Sat Jun 29, 2024 7:50 pm After playing with myself for a couple of days I came ...

Ploki · Post by **Ploki** » Sun Jun 30, 2024 9:47 am

tommyzai wrote: Sat Jun 29, 2024 7:50 pm After playing with this for a couple of days I came to realize that it's a super-charged, latency free, aliasing free (almost) saturation plugin. It really enhances just about anything. I like it more than Saturn 2 for the increased flexibility, clarity, and performance.

Everything kraftur does saturn does with "Subtle" and "Gentle" Saturation.
except:
- when you disable multiband, Saturn2 actually disables crossovers
- you can have 6 bands. Or 2. Or 1. Or anything in between.
- it has switchable antialiasing
- it has switchable linearphase crossovers
- it has m/s processing
- it has insanely flexible modulation capabilities including transient detection
- feedback
- dynamics
- EQ
- Much better CPU usage for less aliasing (when saturn is on good) (mind blown on this one)
- insanely better CPU usage (like 8x) when not oversampled (similar amount of aliasing)

Tell me just ONE specific aspect in which Kraftur is supposedly more "flexible" and in which specific aspect does it offer "better performance"?
I won't touch clarity because it's an audiophile term and i won't go down that hole.

pekbro · Post by **pekbro** » Sun Jun 30, 2024 10:19 pm

Heh, I bought this and MIA's multiband spark + I have Saturn , not to mention all the other dist/sat type plugins I have. They are all different...

*I wouldn't have bought either at their reg price tho, no doubt...

Ploki · Post by **Ploki** » Mon Jul 01, 2024 9:11 am

pekbro wrote: Sun Jun 30, 2024 10:19 pm Heh, I bought this and MIA's multiband spark + I have Saturn , not to mention all the other dist/sat type plugins I have. They are all different...

*I wouldn't have bought either at their reg price tho, no doubt...

not arguing at all that there's difference to flavour, arguing specifically "flexibility" and "performance"

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Mon Jul 01, 2024 9:29 am

besides their bad policies, what's this plugin good for? also it seems to have phase issues or something?

Gullfoss was really something special but this one seems to not get much attention, i need to check later. too bad the company is something i wont support atm anymore. and they seem to not care

vitocorleone123 · Post by **vitocorleone123** » Tue Jul 02, 2024 1:29 pm

Caine123 wrote: Mon Jul 01, 2024 9:29 am besides their bad policies, what's this plugin good for? also it seems to have phase issues or something?

Gullfoss was really something special but this one seems to not get much attention, i need to check later. too bad the company is something i wont support atm anymore. and they seem to not care

The policy isn’t bad if you keep the plugin.

dj ray · Post by **dj ray** » Wed Jul 03, 2024 4:32 am

El°HYM wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2024 6:58 pm Anyone compared this to KClip 3 yet?

Yes, I was using KClip until I demo’d this. K’ clip, see you around. I kid the KClip, it’s still swell, but Kraftur is just so gooey. If you have a good clean mix, it’ll get it up there with very little ‘thinning out’. I dig it.

El°HYM · Post by **El°HYM** » Wed Jul 03, 2024 8:10 am

Ok, thanks! Really need to check this thing now.

Kretch · Post by **Kretch** » Wed Jul 03, 2024 8:16 am

After more than 2 weeks, I’m still loving this. It’s a really helpful tool. Sounds great too.

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Sun Jul 07, 2024 7:33 pm

im wondering, i saw 2 nice videos about it, so besides the policies i read it introduces always aliasing, so is it recommended to use on a master bus for harsher tracks like EDM?

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Sun Jul 14, 2024 10:45 pm

Caine123 wrote: Sun Jul 07, 2024 7:33 pm im wondering, i saw 2 nice videos about it, so besides the policies i read it introduces always aliasing, so is it recommended to use on a master bus for harsher tracks like EDM?

no one? seems not much hype for this plugin?

Kretch · Post by **Kretch** » Mon Jul 15, 2024 12:06 am

I don’t do EDM but I tried throwing some loops together on a track for fun and used Kraftur. I liked how it gave more definition to the track, pumped it up, and it didn’t even sound harsh, cause I played with the Multiband sliders and just clipped it a little.

sokoleski · Post by **sokoleski** » Mon Jul 15, 2024 3:50 pm

Did anyone compare it against KClip 3 ?

(Which also has multiband BTW)

Andreya_Autumn · Post by **Andreya_Autumn** » Mon Jul 15, 2024 4:27 pm

I've tested this on and off for a while but haven't found the time to write about it until now. Came in with high expectations, as I expect we all did. Gullfoss was in a class all of its own on released and remains best-in-class IMO.

And yeah, this one isn''t on that level IMO. There really is potential for a super useful tool here, but unfortunately some strange choices bring that usefulness down.

Positives: Dry + Multi-band + single-band saturation all in parallel into a hard clipper is a useful setup. And their drive algorithm does sound good, even in a multi-band setup with shared controls across the bands. That's not a given! If I split Saturn 2 into 3 bands I invariably use different algorithms and/or different settings per band, one setting across everything rarely works well IMO. So they're doing something right here. It's easy to make sound good on most sources.

The three way blend control is a neat UI idea. It is a triangular interface on two automatable params. So it could've also been laid out as a square with dry sound all the way across the top. That would make the full/multi blend equally easy to control regardless of dry amount, which maybe would be better actually. It is a nice and intuitive idea aesthetically though, so that's fine by me. It has some issues though, more below.

For what it's worth, the UI looks fantastic. The color depth thing is not something I've ever missed and not a strong selling point for me, but it does look great.

Aliasing is unproblematic. Comparing against SDRR and Saturn both at their highest quality mode, with similar transfer curves set up in all, Saturn wins by a pretty wide margin. Kraftur is on par with SDRR. In clear terms that means you might *see* aliasing on a spectrogram, and you'll easily hear it on an obnoxiously loud 10k sine wave input, but would likely struggle to hear it in most real scenarios. Definitely good enough for me.

The filtering is also ok. It does indeed phase shift, making any external parallel dry mix useless. With the internal mix full dry, I can hear the phase shifts subtle effect on some material (with some crossover settings). Generally the difference is a neutral one. Only in one case (a drum bus with a sine-y sustained bass synth in it) did I dislike it. A linear-phase option would pre-ring and thus be just as likely to (subtly) deteriorate the sound. Still, would be nice to have an option.

It does introduce some stereo noise, slightly more so in the bass range. I consider this to be a very good thing! It's quiet enough that you wouldn't hear it directly (unless you OTT after or smth), but enough to impact the way it drives. If I set up a similar transfer curve in SDRR, I still get different results with its "drift" control at 0, but get a bit closer if I turn it up. Or if I add a tiny amount of pink noise before. I don't know if they were going for "analog feel", but this is the sort of thing people do if that's the goal. And the results are pleasing IMO.

Metering is also mostly good and useful.

Ok, here come the negatives. Most of which are in the UI/UX domain only for me.

First of all: The gain staging workflow is (very sorry to say) terrible.

In order for the aforementioned three-way control to function to its full potential, all three elements must have ≈equal perceived loudness. Which to be frank is darn obnoxious to set up given the gain/volume controls available. The dry signal is most problematic. It's not affected by the drive control so it often ends up quieter than the others, which means getting an even blend forces you over to the narrow side of the triangle where it's hardest to control the multi/full blend. This is by far the biggest oversight IMO.

The coupling of the hc ceiling and output level controls is *very annoying* to me. Moving one moves both, moving the other doesn't. I'm sure there's a reason for doing it this particular way, but I can't think what it is.

You also can't set the wide-band threshold, only offset the per-band ones from it. If you wanna change how much the full-band drives you gotta turn up the drive. That could be ok if the threshold reference weren't 0dB. Turn drive up that much, you're now mostly working with the hard clipper. Turn it off and you're overshooting. Turn output down the dry side of the triangle is useless.

Best results I got was when setting the hard clip ceiling above 0, and raising the input with external plugs (compensating after. That way the dry blend can be useful at all, and so can the input levels on the bottom (which go up to 18dB above 0, also a strange choice). But yeah.

Ok, metering.
I first thought those were spectrograms in the middle box. They are peak histograms. I'm not used to those, but that's a me problem.
I would've loved to see a level indicator on the transfer curves themselves. And indeed, would've loved to see the level meters go lower. I am well aware that I *can* work with input levels peaking up towards +18dB. But like, who does that?

If it were me (which it isn't), I would:
1: Make the input drive affect dry signal.
2: Add a reference threshold control. If that's not tractable post-release, maybe provide fixed options, say perhaps 0, -6 and -12dB.
3: Put an output level control in each corner of the triangle, so we can level match the sides pre-blend.
4: Make both the input and output meters range from -48 to +6dB
5: Make the output level and hard clip ceiling controls independent, with like shift-drag moving both. Or something like that.
6: Maybe a linear-phase option would be nice.

If some of these things could be addressed (by these suggestions or otherwise) I'd consider it really really good. As of now the workflow issues just gets in the way too much I'm afraid.

Kraftur by Soundtheory, a multi band clipper