Product Reviews by KVR Members

I've been involved in reviewing the three major orchestral libraries in the Garritan Personal Library. Of the three Garritan gets thumbs up on quality, quantity and expressiveness of sounds. I'm on the Win XP version and it's too bad Tennessee Vic is having problems on the Mac though I have not seen others with the problems he's experienced. Even Macs are getting to the point where any given 'non-factory' component may play a factor in how well your synth will work. Then again, there seems to be a continual problem with Macs and N.I.'s Konakt based sound engine on some machines.

Actually, a major thumbs down on the unimpressive Kontakt interface. I understand the idea was getting the included software to work and while that is certainly a good thing, I miss Kompakt's more capable and otherwise similar synth engine. I'm a Kontakt user and was very disapointed with the front end of Garritan. Kompakt is a more appealing front end and easier to work with as it's set up to be a multitimbral synth. Still, the samples are excellent for the sub $300 range and have more than their share of capabilities.

Another quibble boardering on annoyance are the arpeggiations being midi files. Most libraries I've tested including the 32 mb Siedleczeck EMU ROM kills GPO for the number of harp glissandos and techniques. Similarly Prosonus - The Orchestral Collection and East West Silver's musical sounding though limited glisses.

Here's what it boils down to. You get variety and the need to learn how to play orchestral instruments the Garritan way. It's actually a good way, but can be so insistant that at times it's frustrating, especially depending on your mod wheel which is used to control volume and timbre at times. The good side, ride the mod wheel and you can articulate notes wonderfully well, but you will have to aquire this skill, or at least a lot of people will. It's not hard, so it's not that big a problem.

Sound quality and overall gesthalt goes to East West Silver. What it lacks in articulations and instruments it makes up in lush, wonderfully recorded samples in place within the orchesra and with the instrument's acoustic character with hall reverberance. It's the heavier hitter and not as capable at all around sound as GPO. But East West raise the hair on the back of your neck and the sounds are absolutely wonderful if working with emotionally charged material, and of course, film. While I prefer it's sound, I need GPO's variety. You can't do small orchestrations well in East West and forget quartets, quintets, etc. This is where GPO can really shine, but of the libraries I've played, it's the one you actually have to do more work to get the sound.

If you don't want to have time to do so this is a problem. Prosonus and East West do a better job of getting an instrument to sound right and both are very dramatic, more so Prosonus but at a sound quality loss.

And that's what we're here for, to judge how easy/hard GPO is to use, how good it sounds au natural and what you are using a orchestral library for. No offense to the demos but I dislike most of them. I don't use this to listen to demos or other people's work though and if that's your reason just go general midi and don't waste your time. This isn't meant as a eletist, smug comment. The way I see it, you work harder in GPO for a sound, you think more too. And once you get it right, there is nothing in this price range that comes close for many kinds of composition.

If you are positive you'll be doing film there are options you should look into. I prefer East West Silver for broad film work and Prosonus - The Orchestral Collection for it's genuine charm and absolutely wild orchestral effects. If sonic purity is an issue you're back to East West Silver or GPO. But if you are working as a rock musician, film/soundtrack or even ambient with an occasional ochestral vibe, I'd go East West.

If you want to create symphonic works or listen and or write your or other's scores you won't get a better package to work with - period. GPO is as good as Devon says, but only to the degree on which you use it.

For the classical composer on a pipsqueak budget GPO is astonishing and rewarding. It's great for film, even if I went off about East West Silver. In fact, GPO is the most serious program of the lot as it does it all - well.

You can't go wrong with GPO considering what I've outlined, and really, it has so much value added things like scoring software. The only thing that really annoys me is the terrible representation of Kontakt's capabilities, which are vast. I use GPO more than East West Silver, but only because Silver is not currently diversified enough. A new upgrade will change that, at $300 or so extra. That may make East West more useful for a large enough area of works for you, but as a musician you will have to make that decision. All anyone here can do is point you in the right direction.Read Review

M42 Nebula was the the first SynthEdit creation that really convinced me the platform had come of age. Except for some extreme individuals the following will be true; M42 is a wonderful, advanced pad and spacy sound synth.

Based on a soundfont oscillator and traditional oscillator through a signal chain of digital oscillator to filter, to amplitude filter, to mod envelope and into the interesting stuff - the LFO, Pulsar (a specialized arpeggiator) and finishing with a mod matrix. Replace the DCO on oscillaor 2 and put a soundfont front-end with nicely selected samples and followed by a effects engine featuring chorus, cross delay, pan controller, synth mixer and finally, the warp control which enables you to program functions to a x/y controller. Not to be forgotten, the global section allows for splits, layers and variable pitch control per oscillator.

I often have concerns about soundfonts. It's not that the format is bad, more that most sets I've heard are not well designed and often are a hodgepodge of sounds made as a "thrilling experience of REAL sounds". Fortunately, the set included with M42 are chosen for use within M42's thematic standard with high quality samples that bring out the most in M42's design.

Don't forget the non-sampled oscillator. It also has lots of character and a quality that lends itself to evocative sounds. Combined with the generous soundfont library and the modulations, arpeggiations and general synthesis capabilities available in M42 it is a testimant to good synth design.

More importantly, there is vision as to what a pad synth does. M42 is based on proven techniques in synth design with one hidden weapon, a generous set of presets by Tim Conrardy. In it's own way Tim's programming and mastery of M42 Nebula make this similar within context to synths like Albino, where a developer works in concert with a synth designer and sound programmer make for a synergism that makes learning and playing M42 Nebula vastly easier than the wealth of controls available.

At $45 this is a steal if:
* you actually enjoy pads, spacy sounds and overall capability in synthesis
* keep an open mind as to what this synth's purpose is
if you long for the synths of old where all sounds seemed possible and probably were

If a more established company's name was on it the price of $99 wouldn't be unexpected nor unreasonable. At $45 it's a killer synth.

I put M42 Nebula in the same special catagory of synths like Rhino, Albino or z3ta+. Yes, each is a monster synth whereas M42 is more focused on one area but it is priced suitably and is testimate to what a motivated SE developer and excellent patch designer can do when working together.

Note: M42 is not a harsh sounding synth and as such might not work for those looking to do industrial. Listen before buying. The demo is very good and will give you a good idea of what awaits you in the full version.

Highly recommeded!Read Review

If you are looking for a realistic sounding orchestra you've found it. Dr. Johnson has a flair for recording orchestras and you get to play with a truncated version of his vision. Truncated is an important word here as you get less of everything and you will notice it. If you want to do quartets look elsewhere, there are no solo Viola timbres.

While short on articulations the reason for purchasing the Silver library is because of it's taste of the symphony orchestra. You get Native Instrument's Kompakt synth. For most situations you probably won't need it or want it. The oarcestra is set in the stereo width and depth fields. It is a stunning sound if you want a hall sound as part of the orchestral instruments. Look elsewhere if you want dry sounds.

In genereal the lack of articulations may send you to the synth parameters to fake some perfomance articulations. Still there is a charm to this library and in part it is the recording and that hall, the beautiful hall that just screams play it fff or for the rest of us, play it loud! Good for film and punchy enough for rock, electronic and dance.

Weaknesses, several important articulations missing, some instruments missing. No single instrument pizz. Still, if you are writing for orchestra you can get your sound. This is a great learner's set and is affordable. It is big sounding and for the positives, gorgeous sound. The expressive instrument naming convention is true. Heartbreaking violas that can run though all types of expressive instrumnets. Sections include 10 and 18 first and second chair violins. 10 violas, 10 cellos and 9 conrabass strings. Winds feature 3 clarinets, 3 oboes and 3 flutes. Each of these have varying playing styles with the strings more articulated. Solo instruments include Alto Flute, Bassoon, Bass Clarinet, Clarinet, Conra Bassoon, English Horn, French Horn, Concert Flute, Piccalo Flue, Oboe, Trumpet, Trombone and Tuba. Some with varations and different articulations. Solo strings include Violin, Cello and full Orchestra pizz, a disappointment, not to have individual pizz instruments ar stacatto. There are work arounds but it's a work around! More instruments though, concert Organ, several Choir sounds that are quite impressive. a great sounding Steinway B piano, a large battery of percussion and Harp.

As you can see, this isn't exactly light on sounds, but it is far from generous. Thankfully the quality is uniformly excellent. For personal work Silver does the job but does miss some timbres that I would gladly have lost the Organ, Harp and even the great choirs. They do contribute however so it's a hard call. And that is problaby exactly what East West had to deal with. What can the "budget" orchestra do without. Keep in mind there is a Gold and Platinum library that get more complex and detailed. You can upgrade for the price you paid for sliver, still, it's $700 upward to Gold and $3000 for platinum.

All said, a great set of instruments for a very reasonable price.Read Review

Zero-G wins with this simple and ready to go soundscape and ambient sound generator. There area 3.2 gigabytes of data to work with in Kompakt's synth engine. The engine features a great deal of visual feedback, better than average synth features and acceptable effects, if you even bother.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of atmospheres and rolling, boiling, moving sounds that are easy to assemble your own patches and MULTIS. A MULTI is nothing more than using any of the 8 channels available polyphonically. They can be set to all one channel or eight different ones. There are many strategies you may try. In any case the MULTI strategy is a good one as you can set up animated sounds with each sample you use. While not much for leads or basses Morphology is great for mood. At $160 street price you aren't going to do much better and for the price of a few loop libraries you can do your own and best of all, since the CPU use is light you can do so with very great detail.

A must for film, ambient, even harder music styles that need drones and sounds that make impact they are here and they are super easy to program. In terms of value, incredible value. In terms if you need it, ask yourself if you can make similar sounds. If you have a lot of synths and time to make perfect loops then you dono't need Morphology. If time is valuable to you then Morphology is close to essential. Keep in mind this is not phenominal sampling, more like great taste in general.

And if you are a Kontakt user, you will be able to work with Morphology providing you purchased the 1.5 upgrade. It is a worthwhile synth even when it becomes apparant the samples are highly developed. Forget that and listen to what you have to work with. It can be a humbling expeience.

Here's what it comes down to. There are sounds, even pitched ones, that are of use in many styles of music and you can do a good amount of your own programming. If that worries you a day with Kompakt and reading the manual and you'll be much more confident. Unlike the loop libraries so many people purchased, you don't have to sound like everyone else as you can find your own voice within the aether of floating sounds and jackhammer noisescapes.

Recommended for anyone interested in all types of ambience, new programmers wanting to learn without messing up - it's hard to do so in Morphology. If you like this kind of abstract work Morphology will keep your work fresh and unlike others, even other Morphology users.

Simple, but simplicity is often the makings of vastly complex sounds. This is a specialized synthesizer but Morphology could easily be the one synth you need to compose with. As a composer I like changing timbres around and can strongly recommend Vapor by East West as a companion synth. As a specialist Morphology is wonderful, as anything other than it's specialty Morphology is two dimensional. If moods of all sorts is your thing you will be very happy and lost in Morphology's depth of sonic worlds.Read Review

Vapor is a 2.2 gigabyte sample collection bound to two volumes on your CD and will only work in the Kompakt instance designed for it. This is how most of these libraries, if not all, work. Kompakt is a decent synth engine with about as much to more synth power than Sampletank 2, but Sampletank 2 absolutely kills it in the effects department. Most effects are very simple with as little as one parameter to change (chorus). Where this interface shines is the hands on approach to envelopes. Again, because I'm a Kontakt user it seems slim in terms of flexibility but for a $100 synth with 2.2 gigs of samples you can't expect more. Want to really work with it, consider purchasing Kontakt, it is vastly more capable and very difficult to learn. Intensity of programming seems to create complexity in tweaking.

So, we have an acceptable effects section, a good midrange priced synth engine and a bunch of really good sounding samples. Unlike some sample programs that let you use one channel get ready to layer, split or tweak existing MULTI patches. Kompakt has 8 channels of instruments. The typical MULTI uses 3 patches but not a lot of CPU. Think of Vapor as a hipper, vastly cheaper rompler that has lots of presets, some easily capable of use alone. They are in catagories of
ARP, 56 samples
Bass, 52 samples
FX, 125 samples
Lead, 95 samples (may have 16 duplicates but it probably not)
Pad, ~350 samples

Quite simple really. Vapor is very much a modern synth that takes old style samples and mixes them with newer technology samples that are not on your average workstation or mid level keyboard. In return, don't look for great pianos, organs or drums. If you need this on Vapor pass. Look at the more expensive Sampletank 2, Atmosphere (which is a specialty synth in it's own right, Sonik Synth and so on. Keep in mind you can but 2 to 3 of these synth libraries for the same price. So, although there is a lot of sound capability and sounds hin Vapor, color it a specialty synth. And while it ain't analog, it's not icy cold either.

The presets are deep with lots of arpeggiations, many with sustained segments that turn into arpeggiations. A bit of work with the ADSHR in the amp and you have a really nice backing sound for a textured, moving pad or lead. In particular, there is nothing stupid or painfully dated here. This is a great alternative to hardware type synths minus the meat and potato sounds but insanely high on the useful pad, lead and bass sounds. Kompakt is almost idiot proof and anyone can learn it. The included 30 page manual will have you up and running quickly. Should you want to keep safe harbor with MULTIS there is at least a full bank of them.

A simple and highly effective synth that does for electronic what Triton did for meat and potatos. There's no drums or beats but for electric music or even for flavoring a track, look no further. A clear bargain at $100 and one you should take advantage of.

Verdict: must buy for electronic music artists.Read Review

BFD is the cumulation of what a sample based drum VST instruments can be.

fxpansion has created an organic drum machine that can be played/programmed, and is the first serious drum synth to address programmed grooves that aren't hackneyed.

A drum kit is pictured in the upper middle part of the interface. Click on it and you see the kit outline you will design. You have choices, tons of them. The easiest is to load one of 7 preset 'kits'. These kits contain a typical studio drum setup with layered, ultra-high quality drum samples. You can make your own kits by selecting each drum/cymbal. When loaded, the included kit samples are astonishingly detailed with hundreds of samples. Each drum has enormous sound potential with samples cross layered using velocity maps. Any given drum can contain four or five musical techniques. This provides for extreme realism. BFD offers total control with stero, all drum tracks and all mikes for each drum. Nothing comes close to BFD's attention to detail.

There is a section for microphone settings including direct, overhead, room, pzm and master sliders. These settings enhance realism and sound shaping. On each side of the interface there are icon buttons. The left has icons of various drums such as hi-hat, snare, bass, toms, cymbals (3 including either ride or crash). It's important to emphasize BFD's character demonstrated in these individual drums. You can play selected drum to hear it's timbral changes. Pan, pitch, dynamics, trim and tune controlss are available per drum.

To the right are many options for control of drum kits including key mapping, system options, play options, quantizing and humanizing for velocity and timing. The options are stylishly graphic and at times fun (a beatnick turns into an alien as you change velocity/timing). And for automated use you can select grooves, fills and shuffle...and this is just setting up the drum kit and how it will play. If you have drum pads or a kit like V-Drums you get an even better feel for the quality of BFD's multisamples. Playing live, the articulations have a 'real' feel to them. Add that you can save your own kits and we've covered only half of what BFD does.

There are hundreds of grooves and fills in all kinds of musical styles. You drag and drop, program or edit grooves too. While pre-programmed grooves may sound like the cheesy drum machines of old, BFD is vastly different. You can use these grooves as is or create your own gooves and fills which save as midi files.

CONCLUSION
The drum kits are beautifully sampled with many noted drummers playing or programming the grooves. Think of a style/kit and you'll find it. There are several ways to create performances. Play them, use grooves or a mix of both. Even if you are rhythm challenged BFD delivers with great sounding drums and styles that work better than any drum solution available. It is a must have if you take you drum tracks seriously. BFD offers many features found nowhere else.Read Review

Albino 2 is one of the best virtual analogs to be found. It's approach to making sound is direct and elegant. Although a semi-modular design Albino 2 doesn't go overboard with features, it stays focused on what makes a good virtual analog synth.

In terms of sound Albino 2 is clean and beautiful. There is a smooth and liquid sound that most synths lack. That's not to say you can't get squelchy and huge with Albino 2 but in general it's a great all around synth. A one trick pony Albino 2 is not. Furthermore, Albino 2 has it's own signature sound. Think of signature sound like you would a Prophet or Jupiter or Oberheim. In terms of quality Albino 2 sounds as good as any hardware synth on the market.

Albino's features include up to 4 oscillators, 2 filters, 4 LFOs, a great arpeggiator and modular matrix. The design is in partnership with LinPlug who've been using mod matrixes in their synths from day one. Buttons represent oscillator pairs although they can be used from 1 to all 4. Similarly there are button banks for the 4 LFOs, arpeggiator and mod matrix, a tidy way of keeping everything on one page while staying cleanly designed.

Other nice features are the analog/digital/noise options per oscillator. Digital oscillators have 60 waveforms from sine and saw to 50 spectral waves. The analog oscillator features a wave and spectral dial for many combinations per oscillator. There are 6 LFO waveforms, and 27 routings of 33 synth functions in the mod matrix. There are more complex mod maxtrixes but few built to function as gracefully.

Included are 5 stage envelopes for amplitude, each oscillator, the 2 filters and modulation. There are 8 effects from modulation to delay and an excellent effects based filter. You can do everything in Albino 2, exprssive leads, phat basses, pads, FX and extressive soundscapes not to mention the arpeggiator which is available in the mod matrix.

Being in the middle price range ($199) users will expect reasons for purchasing of Albino 2 and there are many.

First, there are over 1000 presets in 22 smartly classified catagories programmed by Rob Papen, world class sound designer. Another benefit is getting to have a look at how a in-demand synth programmer makes his sounds. You can use them 'as is' or as starting points for your own creations. Make no mistake, these patches are superb, several reminicent of Papen's work on EMU's Orbit 3. The difference between the Orbit and Albino 2 being a VSTi specifically built to accomodate Rob's vision of how a synth should work. In return you get top notch, ready to use sounds. Patch libraries of this quality often cost as much as Albino 2's price.

Everyting about Albino 2 represents quality. It sounds good without the effects which speaks highly for the LinPlug based synth engine. Due to it's intuitive design you will be up and running quickly. Whether a novice or pro, Albino 2 offers good value.

The overall quality makes Albino 2 a must have for your studio.Read Review

Now maturing nicely ConcreteFX's Ethereal is taking on a life of it's own. If you didn't read the specifications let's discuss them. The oscillator can be one of 22 well designed waves along with 6 storeable user waves for pad, effects, soundscapes and the one note wonder type of patch that are so much fun to play with. It is also possible to store up to three samples per patch. Fortunately you can use wav files and the ones included in Ethereal.

ConcreteFX have been using multi-form interfaces within the shell of a modest sized master VSTi form. This enables access to the formidable sound engine without making a mess of programming.

One of ConcreteFX's first synths there are familar interface aspects, labeled tabs with specific controls to that tab such as envelopes 11 in all, 8 for the available waveforms and 3 extra for the samples as needed, LFO, modulation matrix, effects, 8 sequences and additive manipulation of sample data. Once again ConcreteFX shows depth of features while maintaining an easy to learn synth engine that yields quick results.

Etherial is best suited for pads, effects and evolving timbres. It is a nifty pad machine and at a bargain price, $40.

The patch library is indicative of the styles of patches you can create with Etherial. One interesting feature is the Evol or evolve area where the original patch sits in the middle of the form with eight different sounds based on the patch. This is a great way to look for new ideas as well as learning the signal flow and engine of Etherial.

Another nice touch are the effects sections where different types of similar effects can be selected. You'll find a number of chorus, modulation and delays, all that can be adjusted in the interface.

Sounds are thin to lush and with the addition of samples they can be just about anything you want. The sophistication of ConcreteFX's work is impressive let alone at a pocketbook friendly price.

If you like pads, need unique sounds or want seemingly endless evolving sounds Ethereal does the job. As the name implies, the sounds have an etherial feel to them so if you want a simple pad synth you may want to go elsewhere....or perhaps not. Ethereal's sound is clear and somewhat digital with a nice amount of warmth thrown together via ample timbral choices such as filters including comb and ring modulation.

Ethereal is a deep synth with a fun interface allowing for exploration. It is hard to imagine anyone not finding use within their music unless they aren't interested in atmospheric sounds and in today's music that is precious few.

Try the demo, it speaks for itself. One of the more mature ConcreteFX synths, one wonders why they aren't spoken of more frequently. Of late that seems to be changing which is good. This is one value packed synth worth your time to try.Read Review

What is less appealing that an 4 operator synthesizer? Days of cheesy (in the worst sense) game cards or last gasp Yamaha DX27/100 clones. You name it, it doesn't sound all that good. If nothing else, I hope this review convinces ConcreteFX to change it's marketing strategy and give it a sexy re-write on it's information.

If unike me, you actually had a look at the feature set then you'd know Digital is anything but a throwback to boring FM synthesis. Instead Digital is an exciting synthesizer in all senses. Yes, there is a 4-op FM engine but it goes in directions far beyond a lot of FM synths try to do and this is something that is great about ConcreteFX in general. They make solid synthesizers at reasonable prices with feature sets that make one wonder how they got into that modest sized interface.

Interface:
Everything you need is on the interface or one of it's multiple tabs. Click on a tab and you're at the FM algoithym page, move to another and you're at a 8 track step sequencer. Everything is in one screen and it's easy to learn and easy on the eyes.

Synth Engine:
4 operators with 15 algorithms, phase distortion synthesis and waveshaping, 10 filter options, one per the four oscillators available. 18 waves to run the FM OSC through, 8 envelopes, an extensive modulation matrix, excellent effects and high quality sound. No one can say Digital is lacking for features.

Sound:
Excellent and expansive come to mind. There are multiple synthesis techniques that expand upon another while not getting in the way, simplicity to complexity in ways that make 6-op FM seem almost simple but most important, the sounds are there to get and they are easy to get to. Don't go into Digital expecting to program a masterpiece in 15 minutes, make no mistake this is a programmers synth but also a generous one with 160 patches to learn from. They are good representitives of Digital but it is your sound that will matter once you get the engine down. And the sound engine is pretty easy for such a complex synth.

And So?:
Recommended on all fronts. Moderate learning curve, lots of features, a good amount of presets and of course great sound make Digital a easy to like synth. At $65 it's a whole lot easier to afford as well.

ConcreteFX have created their own interface which has been used successfully in all their synths with some variations as neeeded. Learn Digital and you have a major advantage on other ConcreteFX synths.

This is a winner in a lengthly winning streak for ConcreteFX. If you like digital sounds they are here. If you like the way you can take digital and soften it up and do twisted things normally thought of with samples, it's here. Either two features would make any competent synth worth your purchasing attention. To have so much firepower at your disposal for such a reasonable price is extrodinary.

Try it, learn it, this and most ConcreteFX synths I am familiar with are equally worthwhile, a fact many are starting to realize.Read Review

Whatever the composite number for Ugo's Motion 2.5 ends up being you should check this out.

First, although the interface a bit too blue and monochromatic it is still somewhat striking and highly functional.

There is an element of surprise to Motion 2.5 in that you know what to expect from Motion's interface and you get it but often a bit differently than you expected. That too can sound negative but it's not, it's a pleasant surprise. There is a responsiveness to Motion's interface that makes it feel comfortable very quickly.

It's use of phase distiontion and virtual analog with FM make for a nice sound palate. The things that add to the sound quality are the waveshapers, multiple LFOs, 16 step sequencers for pitch, filter and gate really liven up the programming and create some very complex and useful timbres.

If this weren't a free synth it would be worth considering purchasing within the $50 range and goes up well against synths like Space Synth in sound quality and creative use of interface. Great for pads, phrase type patches, evolving timbres and effects Motion is a must for the budget minded (free) user and for those able to afford interesting synths like this.

SynthEdit synths are widely available and as users we sometimes take these people for granted. Ugo has done a teriffic job here and his praise is well earned.Read Review