KVR Audio

FiloFi · Post by **FiloFi** » Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:37 pm

Two years ago I was quite impressed with soundtoys. Pretty excellent kit. Two years on, not so much.
My problems being. I want to try say Little Plate. I ask ST for a trial. They send 1Gb of everything.

Ahhh jeez. I install knowing full well iLok wont have been reset from last years trial. and will error on every single one. And it does. So now. I have to stop what im doing, get in touch with ye olde support at soundtoys (BTW you cant just send a email direct) you have to go on to there website message window) like we used to in 2005. Then you wait. They answer. You repeat your problem. Then you wait. Then they get it wrong. Then you repeat. Then you wait. Then you check and its done.

The actual plugins themselves are mostly. Way too small, clunky, fiddly, dark. works ok. But so does everything else now. I think you also have to pay for the upgrade to resize, the bloody nerve if you do.
Also there expensive. So you have to wait for a sale.

I think in summary I think they were the doggy doodads back in the day but now. Nah, For every single plugin they do there is something as good or better, usualy cheaper and quicker to flow with. Yes even echoboy and radiator. I would love to know how anyone else feels. If Im alone in this, thats cool.

Passing Bye · Post by **Passing Bye** » Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:53 pm

I feel they are overrated too, mostly because competition caught up and they pretty much stopped developing their plugins further, they were kinda must have not long ago, now you can get few Valhalla DSP's and ShaperBox and pretty much forget they exist.

martinjuenke · Post by **martinjuenke** » Wed Jul 21, 2021 5:13 pm

Exactly.

toitoi · Post by **toitoi** » Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:55 pm

Soundwise they are not overrated at all, but their interfaces need a plastic surgery they are too 90s-2000s

Funkybot's Evil Twin · Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:07 pm

FiloFi wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:37 pm The actual plugins themselves are mostly. Way too small, clunky, fiddly, dark. works ok. But so does everything else now. I think you also have to pay for the upgrade to resize, the bloody nerve if you do.
Also there expensive. So you have to wait for a sale.

There's no upgrade to resize. Not yet anyway.

Here's my take:

1. Legacy GUI's are too small and dark
2. Not a fan of how they implement their tweaks - too many options, fiddly to use
3. Plugins that saturate should get updated for oversampling
4. The rack just runs signals in serial. Only worth it to me if it had some fun routings, LFO's, envelope generators, global mix, etc.
5. Basic algorithms vary from good to excellent throughout - so that's a plus!
6. Has not kept up with the times. 8 years ago it was an excellent collection. Nowadays, it's just fine for the reasons above. But some new GUI's, a new Rack concept, and a little love to the audio, and these could really compete again.

ATS · Post by **ATS** » Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:49 pm

It's not very good arguing for your point to make your first point that the installers are too big. that has nothing at all to do with, well, your main point.

SHall1000 · Post by **SHall1000** » Wed Jul 21, 2021 9:07 pm

What do pre owned Soundtoys bundles sell for these days?

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Thu Jul 22, 2021 4:22 am

I take them in context that I got the full bundle for very cheap. They gave me a bunch of free plugins and those free plugins counted towards an upgrade for the full bundle. Do their UI’s need updating? Yes. Do some of the saturation plugins alias a bit? Absolutely. That said, the algorithms do sound good, and often better than some of the new upstarts. All the criticism is valid, but they still get a fair amount of use here. I’d love an overhaul, but I’m not going to stop using them.

kmonkey · Post by **kmonkey** » Thu Jul 22, 2021 4:50 am

In all due respect no they aren't.

Yes they could use GUI revamp and that's it.

The fact that forum members in order to get psyched need shiny new tools every month is entirely different subject. That does not count or mean that the company products are being overrated.

It only means that some of those people expecting "boost" every now and then - need to visit your therapist or eventually they need to clean their ears.

You don't change or update something which isn't broken (it's a broad generalization I am aware).

scaremony · Post by **scaremony** » Thu Jul 22, 2021 4:51 am

Yeah 100%. The appeal of course is that it's a bundle with everything you could want for "creative" effects, but in each category I've found plug-ins I like loads more and thus I sold the bundle a year or two ago. On sale it's still a great deal for anyone new to music making and in need of something beyond stock DAW fx

audiosabre · Post by **audiosabre** » Thu Jul 22, 2021 5:35 am

Well if the consensus is they’re overrated, I reckon they’re underrated. Get plenty of use here, & have for many moons.

LeVzi · Post by **LeVzi** » Thu Jul 22, 2021 5:44 am

Hell no they are overrated, they are in every single project I do since I got them.

Their sound quality is pretty amazing , the GUI's don't really bother me tbh, so ST get all the love from here.

DJErmac · Post by **DJErmac** » Thu Jul 22, 2021 5:58 am

Pro :
- they still sound as good as possible. Phase Mistress is a gem for example.
- I don’t care about the GUI, it’s totally usable as is.

Cons :
- usability could be updated. To me some plugins have this "take it or leave it" feeling. At first contact I distorted almost everything I tried to feed them with. The filters, for example, have a learning curve when compared to newer plugins that propose the same features : they need constant small adjustments to make the volume or the resonance right depending on what your settings are. Some definitely feel unfinished now to me when I compare them to what I have as an alternative, that have been thought to auto-compensate those small problems so the user instantly gets what he wants. The result is that I mostly use other plugins for fast work, I don’t want to spend 10 minutes tweaking things that another plugin makes perfectly.

Ploki · Post by **Ploki** » Thu Jul 22, 2021 9:06 am

imo they need HiDPI interfaces and oversampling to bring them to 2021.
It's not like saturation algos get "dated" - not any more than a classic piece of hardware anyway, but updating them would be nice.

until they are, i'm not buying them anyway

LeVzi · Post by **LeVzi** » Thu Jul 22, 2021 9:33 am

And its not out of the question to suspect they are being made ready for updates.

Soundtoys are they now overated? My thinking is...