Product Reviews by KVR Members

Ive been a Native Instruments customer for close to 20 years, and I had a brief 4 year love affair with the Maschine2/3 + mk3 hardware workflow in plugin mode inside my DAWs. I think that affair is probably over, although Native Instruments and their new private equity bosses could probably earn me back if they put minimal effort into smart decisions.

Maschine3 was just released, and Ive been waiting patiently for promised updates to maschine for many years now while I used 2.xx. At first routing inside a DAW was clumsy and difficult, then as time passed it improved and reached a place where I thought it was maximal yet acceptable. Then, as more time passed, the integration seemed to get worse and more problem-prone, and I found myself using the mk3 hardware in "midi mode" (without the plugin) because of those problems, and ultimately choosing new drum machine/sampler software.

Then I saw the message about Maschine3 and I rejoiced! I couldnt believe it, and I assumed the update would solve many long-standing issues, such as the lack of polyphonic AT control on the mk3 hardware despite having polyphonic AT pads, the routing struggles, maybe an update to transport control, etc etc. That's why the update costs me money, right?

Wrong. They added stem separation, a new color scheme, a handful of minor changes that mean nothing to people who use maschine inside a DAW, some stuff for marketplace support, and they ignored a list of like 20 frustrations that people have had with maschine for the better part of a decade.

Ive tried very hard to continue using this product + my NI hardware in my workflow, and I honestly *love* the mk3 control surface and workflow, but NI continue to let me down when it comes to basic stuff- and this is on TOP of all the other fires raging in my relationship with NI as a brand (their killing of important software like Absynth, ongoing scheduled obsolescence of so much hardware, etc). I wont be spending any amount of money on Maschine3, and if some day NI pull out of this tailspin and improve just a couple things here (many others have many more concerns than I do - Im only worried about like 2 things), then I can come back and try again. 2 stars for the MK3 hardware itself, which is still pretty rad, 0 stars for NI.

StutterEdit2 is a super cool glitchy, noisy, hardcore live effect player/engine that Ive probably used in over 100+ project by now. The price of this, along with how quick and easy it is to set up for your average DAW make it a great value.

EDIT: wtfffff??? When I got this, I paid $30 for it on sale. Now its $199??? I just removed 2 stars because that's just ridiculous.

Of course iZotope/Native Instruments will probably discontinue it and remove it from their product line any day without telling their paying customers a word anyway. : /.

I love this synth! Iris2 was one of my first bigger(more expensive lol) synths from ages ago, before I had much experience with a lot of other products, and even though its been a while since it was released and a LOT has happened since, I still enjoy Iris2 and throw it in a project here and there.

Trouble is, like with many other products from within Native Instruments (they bought iZotope, began retiring synths and products that represent good value, replacing them with sample instruments) ecosystem, this is also being retired.

I came to write this review for one of my favorite synths and had a hard time finding the product page because... it is no longer available. I dont know when NI pulled it from the lineup, but it isnt for sale anymore and I assume this means there is only a matter of time before my copy stops working.

Eff NI for this, and for killing Absynth, and Super8, and ruining 1000s of NKS instruments from various vendors. This is too much.

When I found Shaperbox1, it was an interesting multi effect sequencer plugin with an ok amount of effects. The sequencing of effects together in chains is a nice method of building motion into your tracks.

Then, Cableguys sent me an ad for Shaperbox2 fairly soon after Shaperbox1 was released. They claimed to be giving me Timeshaper2 as an incentive to get Shaperbox2. Ok. This felt a little too soon, but the features of Shapebox2 seemed better and the incentive was ok, so I jumped into it.

Then, Cableguys sent me an ad for Shapebox3, less than a year after Shaperbox2, and its basically the same thing?

I cant tell, but Im tired of this sort of cash-grabbing nonsense. Shaperbox2 was an ok effect sequencer with an ok list of stock presets and sound shaping abilities, but the difference between Shaperbox1 and 3 is far too minimal for all this and this motivated my review.

Note: I see the dev replied and disputes the dates their software was released. In my email inbox, I have 3 tiers of offers from Cableguys for Shaperbox 1, 2, and 3. Shaperbox 1 was new TO ME in 2020, offered to me via PluginBoutque and sent via Cableguys to my registered email - registered since 2020. Then in 2021, I received the update offer for Shaperbox 2, and then in 2023 Shaperbox 3 -- all sent to my registered email. My point stands, and all 3 of these are still too similar to be 3 entirely separate products.

I received this, um, hiphop drum instrument/pattern player plugin for free and found that it is very much like everything else in UJAM's lineup -- its not deep, after an hour or so you've heard everything it does, it likes to play itself, and it has minimal overall sonic character.The 200 presets included dont always sound very different from one another.

Your kits are "DRY, FRESH, DEEP, HIP, FAT"

Your mixes are "CLOSE, BROAD, BRIGHT, PUNCH, RATTLE, PUMP"

And your effects are REVERB, SATURATE, MAXIMIZE.

You can trigger intros, fills, endings, breakdowns, etc from this palette. For more serious drum machines or samplers, look elsewhere.

Turnado has been in my collection for a long time, and I thought I would say a few words about it.

This was, for years, my go to effects rack/live effects rig for a variety of projects and its still in most of my stuff. The interface is extremely easy to use, packs 8 effects into 8 modules, everything is documented well and just immediately useful and playable, and it sounds good.

This is a very basic, simple delay. It works. I got it for free as a loyalty gift from an online seller and added it to my growing list of very basic, single purpose plugins.

Avenger 2 is a massive synth, and can do SO much it is unreal. The stability of Avenger, the massive features(drum sequencer??!) under the hood, quality of audio, and overall enjoyment of playing this synth immediately sends this to my top 5 synths.....

But.....

I would really, really, really like more musical genre representation in the stock presets and premium packs. Do any NON house/trance producers use this synth?

Can Avenger2 do anything? Yes. Do the devs represent that in stock presets? No, and I wish they would. =P Oontz oontz gets tiring eventually.

Any criticisms I have of this awesome synth have nothing to do with playability, sound quality, features. This synth gets 5 stars for every category except stock content.

Motion: Harmonic is a nice sound processing tool that I enjoyed well enough to spend $30 to upgrade from lite to full. The software is solid and does not crash (Bitwig and Cubase), and CPU usage is low.

This effect rack/motion plugin is good, but it is not spectacular. The filters and effects are interesting and useful, though not the most unique effects Ive ever seen in a multi-effect unit/processor. The motion blob in the center responds well to mouse movements and generally reflects what direction the unit is going on sound-wise.

The animated blobby thing is nice to look at.

Dehumanizer2 came to me by way of a trial for Krotos Studio + Simple Monsters. I tried out those tools and found I dont have any use for full Krotos Studio (I dont do audio for cinema), but trying out Simple Monsters introduced me to Krotos' powerful vocal processing suite and got me more interested in Dehumanizer2.

I purchased the full Dehumanizer2 license with Halloween in mind, and it absolutely delivers. Some of the deep, roaring, gigantic, wet, heavy-breathing monster sounds are awesome and really stand out from other vocals effects processors, and I immediately recorded hours of myself doing spoken word and processed it all with Dehumanizer. Many of these presets are dynamic/reactive and allow you to do monster voice acting that sounds believable, with mouth and breath sounds, etc, all captured and enhanced.

This works well as a real time effect (if you wanted to use it for haunted house voice effects) and does not use too much CPU (Bitwig 5.2.5 and Cubase 13.0.41). I plan to do the whole scene thing with strobing and black lights, etc, and I will use my studio monitors to blast monster voices out the front of the house!! :).