energyXT

Wow! Who ever thought that little energyXT could put such a whipping on the big giants. This little inexpensive host\VST kicks major ass. I originally bought it to have as a simple arp to us inside of FLStudio, now I find myself using it all the time for all my major music projects.

GUI: To me perfect! No fancy this or that just pure and simple icons that you click on to bring up your editors. The simplicity of the GUI keeps work space nice and tidy.

SOUND: The sound quality is excellent whether being used as a host or a VST. I have never had a problem out EXT with any of the hosts or VSTs that I have used it in (Sonar 3P, Orion Plat, FLS). I also like the fact that if I create a song in EXT in one host it's very simple to tranfer it to another host. Only sound problem I have is that setting up multiple outs using EXT as a VST is confusing and cumbersome. It needs a simpler way to choose multiple out configurations.

FEATURES: This is where EXT kicks major ass! Programable arp and chord components that you can layer and split across your keyboard. A mixer thats user defineable, create as many channels,sends and subgroups as you like.An envelope component thats assignable to any cc to modulate any control. A sequencer ( I haven't had a chance to dig into depth with it yet!), midi parts and audio parts. The features inside EXT is what makes it so great and fun to work with. You can route the components, instruments and effects any way you like making your creativity unlimited! Where in a lot of programs you build your music say linking patterns or tracks, in EXT you can do set ups where your midi keyboard can trigger your sequence parts for killer live jamming! The only thing missing in EXT is the much anticipated sampler that should be comming soon, for now audio parts do a decent job of handling your wave files. Cake Walk,Steinberg,Synapse and Image-line beware!

DOCS: This is the one major negative about EXT. It needs more detailed docs. The help files online are incomplete and kind of scattered here and there between different sites.This is understandable as with updates and new features being added like every week, how can Jorgen have time to sit down and write a manual. Id rather have him working on EXT doing amazing things with it then writing a manual. A newbie would have trouble using and understanding EXT, but music veterens should be able to get around in EXT very well.

PRESETS: There are no real presets in EXT! Who needs them, it's a VST host! You can make your own presets for the many different components or for the situations you use it in.

SUPPORT: The support is excellent! The KVR forum for EXT well answer any questions about EXT you have.

VFM: Best VST host there is for £39! It beats the pants off of a lot of $200 - $1000 ones too!

STABILITY: No problemos! Solid as a rock! Never had a crash or weird error message yet whille using EXT with my 2400 AMD XP.