Product Reviews by KVR Members

A nifty track helper that gives you absolute panning control and m/s tweakability. The clipping and filter controls make this particularly usable.

I recently stumbled across one of the best finds I have made on KVR in a quite a while. The modular synth Fathom. Fathom is in it's early stages and is already more polished and capable than many fully-baked synths you'll find on KVR's marketplace.

Why give it an 8? Partly for what it is and partly for where it's going. Fathom is already developing a warm, enveloping character that is tremendously flexible. The intuitive visual module routing allows for biting leads, lush pads and everything in between. The UI reigns in all the flexibility well so the user isn't overwhelmed by the host of options.

The dev is very amiable and welcomes criticism. Those of us who have been here for only a few months have watched Fathom steadily grow and change as the dev responds to user input. The dev is no newb who just started with some synth coding library as a hobby. He worked at Ensoniq previously so he's been in the biz. He knows his DSP and it shows in the design. As a professional coder myself this dev's chops are impressive.

Certainly, Fathom doesn't tick every box at this point, but it covers a lot of ground even at this early stage of development. If development stopped right now it would still be a worthy, unique addition to your stable of plugins. I have no doubt Fathom will be deserving of 9+ reviews in the near future.

Do yourself a favor. Invest what you might spend on a lousy lunch and instead get a great sounding synth that will keep you experimenting into the wee hours of the night.

NOTE: I'm no shill. I paid for Fathom, no special discounts, I'm not related to the dev or anything of the sort.

I use it on every project as the fader on my Master bus. Essential for the smooth fader, metering and RMS peak detection.

I started with electronic music in the early 70's with modular synths, Arp 2600, Steiner-Parker and a few others.

I was using just hardware synths until recently and only started replacing the hardware with plugins when I discovered that they are far easier to deal with and in many ways more musical.

I was happily using many excellent plugins and only recently found out about Bazille. The fact that it is very modular and can run on Linux, which is my preferred OS, meant I had to try it.

It sounded like a dream come true to me.

I tried the demo and started patching it like I would a hardware modular synth and fell in love. I eventually purchased a license and have been using it as my preferred synth for a while now.

It very much feels like the older modular subtractive synths, but includes digital methods of making sound as well.

The sound can be very much like the 70's modulars, but goes way beyond that very easily.

Like the classics, it is very easy to get have bad results. Unlike most current synth plugins, you can step outside of the safety zone very easily and not understand what is going on. You can push the filters into oscillation, overload circuits, max out the cpu, get brittle digital artifacts, ....

But take the time to learn how to tame the beast and you have an extremely flexible synthesizer.

I have read other reviews and wanted to add my opinions.

1) People complain about it being too CPU intensive, .

Bazille has a lot going on and if you go crazy and try to pile everything on, you will max the cpu. Most synth plugins are far more limited and so your not so likely to go overboard as is possible with Bazille.

The more I use Bazille, the less CPU my patches require. I find many ways to optimize. I rarely need to pile everything on and don't need a ton of polyphony. It becomes too much anyway when things get that busy.

2) It sounds digital, .

It can sound digital, but it does a very good job of sounding analog if you limit yourself to sounding analog.

There is tendency to bring in some of the digital tools and then you end up with a digital sound. I have had very good luck creating patches that sound like the 70's, when I stick to subtractive synthesis rules. The delay can sound very much like classic Echoplex or Space Echo, the reverb sounds like a classic spring reverb and the distortion, which I almost always use at least a little, adds to the classic character by adding the traditional dynamic control the way the classic synths did.

3) It is limited to sounding like a classic modular synth, .

I suspect some people limit it to that, but it goes way beyond that. It can sound very contemporary and includes modern synthesis methods.

The flexible patching means it can produce sounds that you won't find with other plugins.

Anyway, I still use my other plugins from time to time, but Bazille gets used the most.

Why does the review box limit the OS selection to Windows and MacOS?

My system: Debian Linux, Bitwig, Zebra2, DicoveryPro and many others.

KLÜSTERJUNKK is a collection of eleven different instruments rolled into one Kontakt instrument library, with deceptively more under the hood than you might first expect. All of the eleven instruments are listed on the PORNOFONIC website, as well as here on KVR, with a clear explanations on each, detailing how they were made and offering general usage suggestions, so I'm going to skip that and just focus on what this thing does.

In short, this is a collection of 11 percussion instruments that requires the full version of Kontakt 5.5.2, in order to run. The UI is clean and simple to use. Each of its five panels lets you affect the sound you hear in different ways and each is pretty much self-explanatory...but it's when you start turning those dials that the depth of this thing really hits you.

To be honest, when I first saw this I thought it was another "one trick pony"..a collection of sounds you can use with your usual ASDR thrown in for good measure..but that's not the case at all. KLÜSTERJUNKK comes with 120 custom impulse responses that gives your sound, as is stated on the site..

"..added dimension: deep, thumping club ambiences, digital glitches, film, vinyl, and digital static, analog echoes and delay/special effects, stereo images, microphone effects, and gorgeous multi-tap delays at 60/70/80/90bpm."

When you couple this with the solid built-in reverb unit that comes with it..as well as the Delay, you start to get some real sense of what this thing can do. Within 5 minutes of firing it up and just messing with the dials, I was able to get something that sounded remarkably like those big, industrial sounding drums Jean Michel Jarre used on his 1988 "Revolutions" album..and from what I've seen so far, you don't need to be an experienced sound designer to get this thing to really work some sonic magic.

The sound quality is excellent and can easily be used "as is" in a project, without much additional post-editing. One thing I really liked was the "Humanize" feature that, as it says on the site..

"..adds life by randomizing velocity and adjusting quantization relative to tempo."..ie: more at slower tempos, less at faster tempos.

Also, to anyone who does buy this, make sure to check out the "snapshots"..they're a powerful feature you shouldn't overlook, as they can really transform a single sound into a pulsing rhythm in its own right.


FEATURES
1,608 individual stereo percussion samples
Lossless compressed 24-bit/48kHz files
11 Kontakt patches
Up to 33 individual articulations per patch
6 round-robin layers
88 instrument snapshots
120 custom convolution impulse responses
Fast loading and low CPU load
Klüsterjunkk requires the full version of Kontakt 5.5.2 or higher (these instruments cannot be loaded in the free Kontakt Player)


DETAILS

120 custom convolution impulse responses:
Multi-tap delays (6): Delay IRs at 60/70/80/90bpm
Multi-tap FX delays (6): Special delay IRs at 60/70/80/90bpm
Multi-tap reversed delays (6): Reversed reverb/delay IRs at 60/70/80/90bpm
Club FX (9): Boosting frequencies and adding color
Glitch FX (6): Boosting frequencies and widening the stereo image
Analog echoes (6): Vintage echo effects
Static FX (6): Smudge and blur frequencies
Special FX (6): Various sound transformations
Stereo Images (9): IRs that widen, raise, and thicken the sound
Mic FX (6): Adding color

In short, this is a sneaky little gem that should find a home in everyone's musical toolbox, able to give you rhythmic sounds and elements that could have come from the score of The Dark Knight or been plucked right off of a Trent Reznor / NIN album..and that's no over-exaggeration either..trust me.

(Note: The developer has since communicated there will be a free sample pack of this instrument featured on www.audiopluginguy.com later this month 9August 2017)..so interested parties should make a note of this.)

Price: $27.30 (intro price), which gives you a 30% discount, which is good through 8/14 (..a the time of writing this)
Link: http://www.pornofonic.com/
Format: NI Kontakt (full version of Kontakt 5.5.2 or higher required)

I found lots of inspiration from this.

Lot's of good original uses of Bazille's features by someone who seems to really knows how to tweak it.
It really shows off the benefits of Bazille's modular approach.

I learned a few new tricks by studying the patches.

One unusual feature that I really appreciated is the fact that most of the patches are lean on the CPU usage. It is very easy to max out the CPU with Bazille, but I had no issue with any of these patches.

It is especially good for soundtrack/atmospheric styles, but I can see a lot of use in many styles of music.

This is the very best Organ software period. I either own or have tried most of the organ products on the market and this Blue3 simply blows them all away. It reminds in a way of a Nord that just sounds fast and super quick load. I honestly am so impressed with this product and I load it up on every template. The presets make sense and all just sound freaking awesome. This is a five star product period and considering the low CPU I would say it is clearly first place. GG Audio I am very impressed with your work. I cant imagine not working with this thing now.

ARTPyrite is not just a most fascinating software synth:- it is also a transporter that will waft you to ethereal interstellar realms through its dreamy flowing atmospheric soundscapes. There is no attempt to be an emulation synthesizer, presenting versions of the classical instruments known to us for centuries, but rather like Omnisphere, this is a synthesist's synthesizer, a VST that highlights the sonic landscapes that only synthesizers can produce.

The program offers an extensive array of sounds, with 10 soundsets, most of which have the full 128 creations. Within this generous offering you will find a diversity ranging through fluid cinematic pads and textures to gutsy pulsing impacts and rhythms, all easily editable from an extensive diversity of sound-samples, and an accessible and user-friendly interface. The artwork of the gui is also commendable, with the graphics showing another dimension to the incredible skills of the sound-designer, Vera Kinter, who some may know from their experience with the much-missed Alchemy.

Another feature which makes ARTPyrite so highly commendable is the superb and readily-offered care generously given to her customers. A sign of this is the free demo version that has been made available. In all ARTPyrite is a quite unique gift to us.

I tried out many modular apps on iOS and couldn't resist on the highly praised audulus but I am disappointed for the following main reasons:

- no multitouch support (REALLY?!?)

- the UI is nice to look at but very hard to work with. You always have to zoom in and out.

- no real XY-Pad.

The community is great but that's all for me. It is not intuitive and counter productive. Sorry.

this is an amazing synth esp. when considering it is freeware.

the whole interface is in one compact and clear interface. and it sounds amazing even if you just play with the presets. and it is CPU light. i use it on almost every project now.

a great all round synth esp. for someone like me who is perpetually skint :)