KVR Audio

aciddose · Post by **aciddose** » Sat Apr 28, 2012 5:53 am

braj wrote:I think I could give a 'satisfaction' rating of 10, ie. for the purchase price, my needs, features etc. all things considered, how 'satisfied' am I with something? Even if I would give performance, UI or something else a lower grade.

that's the normalization i mentioned. it makes your rating meaningless to anyone but yourself.

ariston · Post by **ariston** » Sat Apr 28, 2012 5:59 am

hibidy wrote:
Anyhoo, I wonder how many of those reviews the people are still using the product (whistling)

Heh, this is it! Something like a "one-year-on" follow-up would be quite enlightening. Or "how soon did it end up on the market place after getting an ecstatic 10?".

I only wrote one review here, and now, about a year later, I've noticed that I hardly use the synth I reviewed (and gave high marks to). It's Largo, and there's a single reason for that: the laggy interface. I still like it, and stand by what I wrote, but working with it annoys me in a very small but significant way, so that I almost never call it up.

There's some very thoughtful posts in here, thanks for that. My overall impression is that the current system is not as good as the old one, and that words are more important than numbers. As Lotuzia mentioned, we can review the reviewers here, but I'm not really a fan of the anonymous one-click love/hate button. It's like: "how dare you pissant scoundrel give my favourite synth a 9?? You mock me, so here's some hate for you!" Adding the possibility of a discussion was a good idea, but it's rarely used, except to point out glaring faults in a review.

hibidy · Post by **hibidy** » Sat Apr 28, 2012 6:21 am

"embarrassing" does not quite state the state of how many times I've bought/loved and "oooooo'ed" on teh kvrs and then sold.

It's hard being addicted

_leras · Post by **_leras** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 11:44 am

AKJ wrote:I belivee it used to be better (= more plugins rated below 10) when the rating was based not only on a overall rating (as now) but had several subcategories (like sound, stability, presets, support etc.). This also had an impact the quality of the texts. KVR should reintroduce the old system.

Yep, this is very true.

I can give a score of 9 to sound and 5 to interface and people will get a better picture than an 8 overall...

A single score out of ten is just way too arbitrary....

Would be great if this system could be changed back...

ariston · Post by **ariston** » Tue May 08, 2012 6:45 am

I felt like bumping it this morning (I'm in a raised-finger mood). I also wish to applaud lingyai for tossing a brave and well-explicated 4 into the happy bubble bath that is the slew of 10s. Oh, and bduffy's nice and balanced review was a highlight, as well.

Richard_Synapse · Post by **Richard_Synapse** » Tue May 08, 2012 10:32 am

pdxindy wrote:That said, I think Diva might actually get a 10 from me cause it is easy to use, well designed, great presets, solid and a new standard of sound quality. I never thought I would think of a synth as a 10 cause there is always some area or aspect where I think it could be better but with Diva that is not the case. The dev just nailed it with Diva. But if one does not reserve the 10 for something truly special, then there is no way to make that distinction later if I give everything I like a 10.

It deserves 10/10 for sure. Of course there will be better synths than Diva, but that's irrelevant- it's good now, and does something unique.

Ihmo ideally ratings would automatically drop over time, e.g. a 10/10 rating would slowly reduce to 8/10 in five years or so. This would account for the constant improvement of plugins. A 10/10 rating that was given ten years ago is probably rarely justified by today's standards.

Richard

osiris · Post by **osiris** » Tue May 08, 2012 12:04 pm

I did like the old ratings system. Much more encompassing. Especially Value for your money. Oh course it's all opinions.
I give this thread a 10.

Gone soft · Post by **Gone soft** » Tue May 08, 2012 12:34 pm

osiris wrote:I did like the old ratings system. Much more encompassing. Especially Value for your money.

Well, I could never even consider making a review there as I never use presets and thus can't rate them (might be just as well, perhaps the KVR community has been spared that way).. That is a minor flaw though, this is worse... A system where one could choose not to rate some sections would be perfect, IMO. If possible it should show clearly when one looks at the review, a darker or paler or more greyish hue for sections not considered.

Was there any section for CPU hit there? I think that should be considered as well, even though it would lower the ratings on almost everything but Audjoo Helix... It's definetely relevant when considering which plugs to get.

osiris · Post by **osiris** » Tue May 08, 2012 1:45 pm

Good point but I think computers are so varied it would be meaningless. The hit I take on my dual core with 2GB RAM is going to be a lot different from someone who has a quad core. I saw this firsthand when I got the dual core and stuff that had been maxing at 50% CPU went down to 20.

braj · Post by **braj** » Tue May 08, 2012 1:48 pm

osiris wrote:Good point but I think computers are so varied it would be meaningless. The hit I take on my dual core with 2GB RAM is going to be a lot different from someone who has a quad core. I saw this firsthand when I got the dual core and stuff that had been maxing at 50% CPU went down to 20.

MAybe it could be a requiref field in the Performance review section to put down your machine specs? I do think it help0s someone understand the reviewer's comments though, I would rate some plugins extremely high based on features and sound, but would have to give them some sort of hit for CPU/RAM use. As a reader of reviews I would also find it helpful.

lingyai · Post by **lingyai** » Wed May 09, 2012 11:15 pm

ariston wrote:I felt like bumping it this morning (I'm in a raised-finger mood). I also wish to applaud lingyai for tossing a brave and well-explicated 4 into the happy bubble bath that is the slew of 10s. Oh, and bduffy's nice and balanced review was a highlight, as well.

It really was a tough call, as the underlying instrument sound (Pianissimo) is just stonkingly great, IMHO ... easily my favourite for piano lessons, noodling and low-RAM projects involving natural sounding piano. I've tried Pianoteq, which does sound great, but it sounds like it's on a stage and you're in the audience... whereas Pianissimo sounds like you're sitting at it. But...the all-but-crippling bug I mentioned, once discovered, was heart-breaking... like catching your firtborn in their first lie...

bailees7irish · Post by **bailees7irish** » Wed May 09, 2012 11:39 pm

lingyai wrote: like catching your firtborn in their first lie...

Aiynzahev · Post by **Aiynzahev** » Wed May 09, 2012 11:57 pm

I've updated my reviews and lowered their scores to leave room for higher scoring synths in future reviews and I've also added some notes with some after thoughts.

nineofkings · Post by **nineofkings** » Thu May 10, 2012 12:08 am

What if you load the project with the FX offline, then simply turn Piannisimo online before the others? I know Reaper has a "recovery mode" which opens the project with all tracks offline. Do other hosts have this feature?

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Thu May 10, 2012 12:15 am

ariston wrote: Off to write my "Iris - ten thumbs up" review now.... followed by "If Diva's a 10, do we have to mark down all other synths, or should we set it one louder... to 11?"

Diva's an 8.5, everything else, no better than 6. You want criticism, I've got it in spades.

BTW: I really like Diva, but, no synth is a 10, and it's only on REV 1.1, so it can't even be a 9...yet.

Reaktor is also an 8.5, but only scores a 6.5 on sound.

I don't like anything else...much.

The KVR user reviews - what a great age this is! Only 10s!