Tassman

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Tassman since it was included in my purchase of Sonar XL. The Origional DXi version was full of problems. I eventually paid for the upgrade to the full version and the VSTi Tassman was a bit more stable. I now have version 3.02. It is more stable than earlier versions. The only other problem I’ve had with Tassman was the Pace protection they used. Customer service is also pretty bad. I get better response from posting on KvR than I do posting on the official web site. But, lets move on to the sound.

There is not real competition for Tassman that I am aware of. It does physical modeling, and does it well. Some hardware manufacturers do physical modeling but it is limited and expensive. Once Nord Modular G2 is released this may change. The Tassman sound is pretty good and it is much easier to construct instruments in Tassman than in Reaktor or Vaz. I will say that both Reaktor and Vaz seem to have more routing and modulation options. The available instruments are good but you will not find an ep that can compete with LoungeLizzard. If you have a collection of VA’s modulars, FM and additive synths, then physical modeling will give you some variety. Tassman can do the VA bit, but not as well as Reaktor or Vaz. The effects are just ok and the GUI takes a bit more space than necessary.

One problem to note, many included instruments have the polyphony limit set way too low. Especially the ep’s. There is also a repeatable bug that I encounter when using sustain pedal on ep’s. It seems to affect the filter. I have reported multiple couple of times but never received a response.

Pros:
Sound
It does physical modeling
Ease of constructing instruments

Cons:
Customer support
Challenge response copy protection
CPU usage is a bit heavy but getting better with updates
Occasional bugs

RobertRead Review