Vibra2000 features a powerful arpeggiator, filter and Oscillator and the classic Koblo sound found in many trance, progressive and breakbeat compositions.
Features:
A one-trick pony synth, in every aspect. All you're really going to do is choose Pulse (which allows Mod to work, for PWM), or Multi, which is a supersaw or unison type sound. It has a early softsynth vibe--a particular character of the synth, and I suppose people have given it the moniker "that classic Koblo sound", perhaps it was used on some early 2000s dance tracks.
I can appreciate limited synths as a welcome challenge, and I can appreciate distinctive synth character, but this one irks me a bit. It doesn't sound bad, the multiosc paired with external LFO controlling pitch does make for a fairly compelling retro-y trance line, but all the presets end up sounding the same, hence one-trick pony, you're ultimately going for a specific supersaw sound that this Viibra2000 offers. And I'm sure it holds up in some ways for simplistic leads and basses. But it's stability issues make me not want to do much more with it. Couldn't they have added a dead simple LFO for vibrato and PWM!?
Honestly, I found myself more impressed by the variety of preset names rather than the sounds themselves. It takes talent to think up all those names for what's basically just different pulse widths and saw envelopes.
Anyway, a big problem it has is that it goes crazy with polyphony, and uses a ton of CPU on a single core. I'm running a brand new 2022 Ryzen 5600x, it's insane. The usage I was seeing does NOT at all proportional to the sound delivered. If I want to see 80% single core on a single instance on a modern CPU, I'll use the beast Repro thank you very much.
Another problem is that I've experienced crashing. I almost never see crashes, even a lot of similarly old plugins are more stable than this, so there's no excuse - it's some sort of programming error, a shoddy ASM subroutine exception no doubt.
Perhaps if it were free or open source (It's $30 - at this point, 100+ free synths vastly surpass its pitiful abilities!), self-contained in a single DLL, and didn't use so much CPU when release is high, I'd give it a proper chance. All in all, a very limited and skippable synth. This only made me nostalgic for Reason Subtractor or a classic Nord Lead, which both have a similar vintage digital VA character, but way more versatile and usable.
Edit: Another problem with it... it wont let you choose the last preset in the list! And there's no Load button to choose presets manually.
Read ReviewDoes anyone know how I can reactivate my Vibra 2000? I replaced my hard drive and now it says it's unauthorized. Not fair! I bought it fair and square when there was still a Koblo website to handle the registration, which has now gone altogether.
failing that, is there a comparable synth out there?
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