energyXT

review for energyXT 2.7.

the fastest route between intent and composition. clean. minimal. tidy. lean not sprawl. about everything can be done with a left/right click pointer, basic and thus functional.

as a synth developer i mostly use my own VST and found it solid and reliable for years. absolutely sufficient for my purposes, possibly for composers who prefer the core process to simply support their selection of hosted processes. that is the beauty of energyXT that earns the devotion.

it does what i want a host to do. and that is all.

recently using 3.0, which doesn't seem to support vst3, but my VST 2.4 plugins work on windows 10 64-bit, it's nice not to lose decades of work. it always seems strange that this type of aesthetic is so hard to find.

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i hoped this would be a nice lightweight VST host / seq.....

but it will only run 32-bit plugins.

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EnergyXT is a great piece of DAW.

And I say that after working with it for 7 years and having tried many others and watched yt videos of almost every other DAW widely used. The functionality in terms of number of features can be discussed, there are definitely some missing that some consider essential and are common with most leading DAWs, but there are also some that eXT users use very much but are really unique to eXT, so unknown to others.

Probably the worst thing about eXT is its (public) reputation, or better, lack of it. Like, for example, this thread, the list of evaluations. The last eval here was written 10yrs+ ago. This is terrible! Not that it just seems nobody is using it, I know there are several users, but the last eval is about a dissapointment because the V2 is not an upgrade of V1. That could be called a marketing mistake from the designer but somebody should explain that here, or at least the author could call it for what it is. And unfortunately it seems that people loved V1 (I haven't tried it) and somehow got discontinued. However, the V2 evolved over time to V3 and now we have a decent and in some aspects a uniqely special DAW - IDEAL FOR AMATEURS with low budget - and not in any negative aspect of the word.

The GUI and usabilty are in most areas unmatchingly good. Of course this is felt only after you have used for a while. And then if for some reason you want to go somewhere else you just realize how valuable its usabilty is:

• Very clean interface ("less is more" logic) with all the functionality very easily accessible.
• Extremely low CPU usage - it literally works on any laptop or PC.
• Powerful and simple modular pane where you can combine more plugins in a visually clear manner.
• Small GUI elements (unfortunately not resizable) allow for very good use of monitor space (medium resolution monitors, laptops).
• Very simple, intuitive audio parts management (stretch, volume, tune, transpose, cut, split, glue, fade in-out, x-fade).
• powerful integrated drum sample player with:
  • unlimited sample pads (with inserts per each pad).
  • huge collection (30+) of sampled rhythm machines (Roland, Korg, Akai, Alesis ...) - from small to huge w. up to 180 drum sounds.
  • inserts and sends on each pad.
  • sampler playback functions (transp., filter, chop).
• strong PM synthesizer w. good sample player.
• quite some quality presets, samples and loops available on the product website.
• simple automation interface and support for automation recording from VST GUI.
• each track with integrated EQ.
• User friendly built-in theme editor, for nice colors and quite some custom themes available online.
• Complete set of customizable keyboard shortcuts.
• ...

I just tried to list some special features that are really well implemented and distinguish EnergyXT in the huge DAW world.

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[Version 2 review]

What was once a secret weapon inside the vst/midi arsenal (I was a power user of version 1) has become with version 2 something that I wouldn't call the dignified successor. While version 1 always left the feeling of already being somewhere near to completeness (despite the couple of bugs that always seemed to appear after a beta update), now XT2 leaves me pretty much left with only a select few of the features of V1 (needless to say there's no backwards compatibility), and overall disappointment.

The modular area is quite poor and misses almost all the little tools that made it quick to get something going. The sequencer on the other hand got an impressive overhaul but still feels like there needs to be done a lot more. A lot of the intuitivity of V1 got lost somewhere in the development process.

Positively remarkable is the new cross-platform orientation. Now not only Windows but also Linux and Mac OSX are supported. Nevertheless, this additional work seems to also be negatively reflected in the quality of the software which differs greatly between platforms. In general, bugfixing and support has come to crawl compared to "the old days". Hardly any sign of the developers and the (also in the licence mentioned) community support is (compared to the XT1 days) non-existant.

Overall a disappointing experience.

The patience for the promised compatibility to version 1 projects is running low on power. Maybe the aim of the energyXT project changed in the middle of the progress ? I wouldn't know. I'm only sporadicly checking for any news for it nowadays. Maybe the deal with Behringer will bring a bit more wind into the sails of XT software again.

If you find a copy second-hand, it may be worth to get because of XT1, which was at 49$ good VFM at that time.Read Review

This is without a doubt the best sequencer for your money. It's gorgeous UI is inspiring. It sounds better than cubase. I'm getting a great clear sound. There are a TON of features and there is a new version, XT2, on the way!. I found XT easy to learn since I also use synthedit, alhough video tutorials are available, can't beat that. There is also a dedicated forum for help which usually is quick. For what energyXT does there is no better deal out there. energyXT is also a lot more stable than cubase on my system. I wont penalize for presets because I really don't believe it applies here.

I have not tried energyXT as a VST plugin yet, because it works so well as standalone application. I simply ditched my old sequencer for this new wonderful application. I am very greatful for the low price that I could afford. I feel as if i'm building my own virtual recording environment when using energyXT. It's quite easy to get comfortable using it because it's so customizable. There are many skins to apply on the GUI and if that's not enough you can even make your own! I honestly don't know what I'd do without it.Read Review