energyXT

Wow, what a fantastic product. I can't believe there is not a whole pile of reviews.

First I want to say that you should not be fooled by the simple GUI when you first open it. Part of it's power is in it's simplicity, but I have to say this very simplicity fooled me into initially thinking it was less then it really is. Once you have snapshots of your instruments and FX taking the place of the standard icon in the main workspace, you have increased the workspace size, added your favorite skin, opened the mixer, arp, audio part editor, envelope tool, etc., it is VERY apparent that you are working with a VERY powerful environment.

Basically EnergyXT acts in standalone mode, VSTi mode, or VSTfx mode. It let you chain together VSTi and VSTfx in any manner imaginable, and if you are using a host, treat this whole setup as an individual VSTi or VSTfx in your host. There's a built-in mixer with sends, so really you can set up the routing between modules to be as flexible as you want. A really simple application that EnergyXT breezes through is setting up multiple copies of the same synth, all responding to the same input, to create thicker sounds. Of course you don't have to use the same synth, and you can chain or send effects as well.

What really makes things cool however are some of the included processing modules. There's an amazing arpeggiator that you can place in front of a VSTi (or in front of a bunch of VSTi's!). I love this arp, it's got everything I could ask for: sync mode/poly/hold mode lets you have multiple patterns when you play chords, or a single pattern moving though the chord keys, whatever you want. You can have 'per channel' arp patterns as well, triggering different patterns with different MIDI channels. You can have one arp play two different patterns on two different VSTi's, just by pressing one key on your keyboard! The arp also lets you create MIDI CC patterns, so along with your arp'ed notes, you can also pattern control synth parameters like envelope cutoff, resonant frequency, etc. Very powerful.

Another great module is the Envelope tool. It's your standard 'draw n' drag' envelope creator, and the envelope you make can be mapped to any MIDI CC#, and can be set to 'Legato' 'Sync' or 'Run', awesome for automating parameters.

There's also an Audio Part tool, I suppose this is similar to products like XPhrase. You add as many samples as you want into it, they can each be triggered by midi notes, you can cut them, combine them into parts, change the end points on them, etc. Very very cool...I just got into this today and I'm sure I only barely grasp the power of this feature.

About my ratings - 8 for UI as I had to play with the UI a bit before I loved it :)

10 for features as I keep finidng new things!

7 for documentation. The online manual covers enough to get you comfy with this app, but not everything.

10 for presets - it doesn't have any and shouldn't.

VFM is tops! $39 a STEALRead Review