Product Reviews by KVR Members

Lo-fi processors seems to be simple devices, but it ain't right. Becouse they're basically donwgrading the signal, it's easy for them to make it unlistnable. It's interesting when you see one that is actually very musical. :)

Time Machine sounds musical and it's nicely featured also. All kind of bit reductions, samplerate reductions are available. Aliasing knobs are really fun!

Great feature is that highpass filter that stops your low signal from alering the effect too much.

I personally miss Jitter (Yeah, but really just becouse Deadmau5 said in one video it's important feature. :D) also low pass filter and dry/wet buttons could be handy, but If you're in Ableton, simple rack solves this problem right away so no hussle here.

All around great sounding and free, I recommend! :)

Saturators are cool thing, but demoing lot's of them kind of throws you into unknown water as you (probably) don't know how tape/gear/tubes and such should sound. We, who were lucky enough to live part of childhood with tape records have at least little hint. (I believe kids of 1992 and more may not even remember old MC tapes, wallkmans and such. :D) Lot's of saturatos came close in my demoing madness time, but best I've tried was VintageWarmer, Ferric and Ferox. (Didn't try all of them though.)

Now, I find one problem with saturatos, it's low end response. They add so many harmonicss that low end just becomes less and less vivid. (Painfull on kick track...)

VintageWarmer solved it by internal multiband processing, but firstly it's expansive as hell and secondly the flavour it brings into the signall is so intensive that it can mudd your mids really quickly while mixing. It also wiedens stereo image quite heavily, which can kill all your efforts in that area.

At the first sight, Ferox seems like it suffers from that harmonics problem too, but it's trick is in output volume. Other saturators add harmonics, so sound gets ritcher, but louder also. If you notice you'r lowend's suffering, you can't do much about it. Ferox, somehow, doesn't. It's output goes even slightly down as you saturate more. That means, that it seems like you've lost some of your low end, but when you compensate that volume loss back, you've got nicely fat sound with good low presence again. (Great on kicks and bass! ...when not overdone.)

Also sound is nicely clean. It reminds me my old MC tape listening times even bit more than VintageWarmer. It's actually similar to Ferric, but it can go harder, not so subtle. Roolls off highend by 1 or 2 db btw, but I found this less and less surprising. Even VW solved this hardway ... by adding EQ. :D

EDIT: It's single band, so it is still better for individual tracks instead of master. But usable too. I'm not into bussing that much so can't report anything about buss behaviour.

Those are my first impressions and again, there is "yeeeeeyyyy" effect that may couse me to overreact, but right now, 10 fo sho... :)

Cheers.

Delays are really hard to get around. You see all that bilion dollars toys from big companies ... and can't stop yourself from thinking: Hey, does it REALLY needs that huge prices? I mean, it's just repeating for god's sake... Somtimes with some saturtaion or nonlinearity, but come on, just repeating!

For that purpose you have pretty good plugs in your DAW already and there is plenty of free ones. Problem with those is, that they are made either in SynthEdit, or coloration isn't nice, or it lacks some feature, or it's pain to operate. I know what you expect me to write right now: NastyDLA is exception and has none of those drawbacks! ...aaaand nope. It actually falls down to "lacks a feature" category. But rest of the delay is so awesome you won't need some payware stuff for a long time I swear.

It may look like I've got a little VOS obsession, but it's not that true. For example I'm not much fan of Epicverb. But this delay is absolute spot on. Normally you'd have one ping pong, one double mono, one tape delay plugin and so on. NastyDLA has one huge heavy knob and you can select any of those modes LIKE A BOSS! :)

It also features really cool processing of the feedback route. Really nice coloration. VOS's Tessla and Ferric are top of the freeware saturators, so you can expect this coloration is sweat. (But watch out to not overuse it. You don't hear saturated echoes in nature, do you?) Also chorus and modulation of the feedback signal. LP and HP filters that I think every delay should have. (!!!!!) Internal ducking. (!!!!!) Even adjustable background noise. Hard to imagine it more versatile than that.

Aaand the sound! If you go too much crazy you end up too oldschool, but when saturating and modulating gently, it sounds great, really bright and ... "positive", can't describe it properly, but it sounds cool.

Now what's the missing feature? Reverse! This is HUGE delay powerhouse. It's really sad it has no reversing. I'd be absolute killer with it. I mean ... there has to be some buffers inside that could be read backwards. :)

I know, I'm repeating myself, but I really wanted to give this baby a 10! Really did! ...but It's so close to perfection i need to give it a 9 and hope it punch VOS a bit to adding that function. :p

Anyway, download it! It's a order! er! er! er! r! r! r! r! r!

:)

Lets tallk about this little gem!

Again, while finding low cost good sounding solution to my mixing problems, I found that huge amount of people recomends (sorry for comparison again, but I think this one is needed) SPL transient designer. I dont know how you guys, but 200 bucks is huge amount of money for me and I'm always feeling wierd about plugs with two buttons and such a gigantic price tag. So I went comparing.

I took little saw note with no dynamics at all and tried to watch on osciloscope whats happening when processed by Bitter Sweet and demo of SPL. I was interested mainly in steepness of reaction and overall shape of attack effect. I found that both used curved shape of attack, not just linear ramp. Good. I didn't meature precisely by any means, but as far as the attack steepnes went, they both didn't "click" right to highest volumes. They "climbed" there. At the first SPL seemed about 0,3ms quicker, but after some repeating both designers ended up in "1-2 ms" range.

Now if you look closer, right under Bitter Sweet big button is time adjustment slider. By listen I wasn't sure what it affected and yeah, it was length of the decline. This is feature SPL doesn't have. On the other halnd SPL has a sustain phase adjustment that kind of raise level back again. This is something Bitter Sweet could use in next version, yes. :)

Any other differences? Well if you send more notes in (= signal that just "bubbles" volumewise), they behave pretty much the same. Wait until it drops down doing nothing and then waiting for another attack. Both can do ridiculous spike heights, but in that area, SPL can do a bit more ridiculous ones. But I think nobody will use this feature anyhow.

Only serious character difference I found was by getting them overdriven. (= attack clipping) SPL shows that it really has some analog code inside and it slowly saturate the signal in kind of pleasant way. Bitter Sweet limits it self by some soft limiting if at all and tries to remain original character of the sound, which could be good thing too. When you have already saturated material, you don't want another coloration.

So, it can stand up to it's 200$% more expansive oponent. It miss sustain feature, but attack phase is adjustable by even more flexible way with similar results soundwise, sometimes even cleaner.

Now I know what you're thinking. Try Dominion, it can do it all. You know..., as far as I love Digital Fisphones, Dominion didn't do as well. It is much more featured than these two, but attack is slower, decline not so elegant and main problem is that it saturates really quickly and not so pleasantly. It brings up even some DC offset into the signal. So Bitter Sweet is actually better choice to mimic the SPL attack behaviour.

For all "I need some transients and don't have bloody 200 bucks!" guys like me definitely a musthave! :)

Cheers.

VOS is slowly becoming my favurite Freeware daveloper. While demoing lot of stuff recently from tube EQs to all kind of character compressors, I (sorry for comparing, but I really need to :/) found out VintageWarmer. Instant: "Aaaaah, so that's where they get this flavour!" Especially if you listen to lots of EDM, this "flavour" is everywhere. Unfortunately price tag was still a bit problematic, so I went to find something that could replace it.

I had a simple layered kickdrum and AB'd PSP's master piece to all kinds of custom made chains. Closest I got (still not much, but anyway) was with DAW's EQ, Compressor and little bass enhancer... But there was still something missing. Then I remember Ferric. That was it. Still not even 50% same and I know if Iturn even one button on VintageWarmer, it would make another cool colour I'd be recreating for hours, but fact, that this little freeware was capable of those results was amazing.

...so I tried to use it on it's own an it's great. It's amazing on wash out hihats, where (cheaper) tube saturation makes just some unpleasant hiss. Or on little subtle undisturbing, but pleasant bass saturation. Didn't try too much free tape saturators though, just few in past and can easily say, that Ferric is the best of them.

It has few downsides. Easily overuse-able as it has just one character. Would be cool to have more tape models, circuit models, but that's just neatpicking. Also on some material is efect too subtle. It could be good thing, It stops you from using it too much, but still. Sometimes is nice to hear how it sounds in extreme settings, just for good overview, but Ferric can't go that far. Anyway all together it just is amazing tape saturation. Just dowload it! :)

There are just really really really few freeware developers that could compete with payware, but this guy (guys?) is definitely one of them, if not the best.

I've been searchin for good (and cheap) character compressor recently. For that, one must demo a lot of stuff. :D Density didn't fall into that category that much, but it sounds amazing even compared to stuff I demoed and I'm kind of sad it has no reviews. :)

It's not a pure model. Demoing OldTimer you get much more of character. But Density makes it's own magic in it's own way. Sometime, especially where you have lot's of creative distortion, I can imagine, character compression could oversaturate your material. But what if you want it pop up a bit anyway? That's exactly what's Density amazing for. It really feels like some combination of analog model and DSP.

Density brings interesting "clearifying colour" to your material. It's not saturation, it ... "something" and it sounds great.

Can't it explain really as I'm a bit newbie to "out of DAW compressor" compression. :D But it's free so nothing stops you from trying yourself. PS: If you need some saturation anyway, look at Tesla, another magic plugin by this developer. :)

Diversion is another synth with big chance to become huge in the future. Quite a few of them recently appeared. So how it stands up?

User Interface 10/10

UI is amazing! It is really clever at connecting to the function part of the synth. For modulation reasons. And it really pays of. Whatever sound you make, you can make it twice as fast here then in any other synth. Author obviously noticed, that these "how would it sound, if I modulate this by that?" thoughts last just for a moment, so he made modulation assigning really quick. Very clever and really amazing idea.

Features 10/10

Featurwise Diversion's true mosnter. Reminds me of Massive, but with few bonus features.
Really clever bit is these filters per OSC. It allows you really subtle polishing of timbre, which is good. OSC FX are great too. It's obvious that author is fan of Zebra. (I'd even like this SUB fx on Zebra's oscilators. :p)

Another amazing feature are these X/Y controls. It does different thing for every waveform. It could seem like nonsense, but did you ever expirienced this situation, where you have nice filter settings, nice modulations, only OSC's doesn't fit the sound? In simplier synths, you need to redesign whole patch again. Here you just move with that X/Y thingy and new color is in...

Bit of FM too. You can modulate everything you see (and even few things you don't). All really quick. Full score here 4 sure.

Sound 10/10

Diversion = creamy. Everything you ever imagined something "creamy" sounds like is in there. It has several drive and distortion stages, that can set this cream on fire. Sound is not Massive-like at all. It's not too digital... or too analog... it has it's own character, but really cool one. Like if AAR had a synth brother.
What I don't like is built in chorus FX, but it has surprisingly good reverb for example.
What I absolute adore is this "acid" filter type hidden down in menu. It really sounds like 303 filters. It's killing with all that OSC and modulation features!

Tip: Don't forget to set the highend setting right to your sound.

Stability 9/10

Few tiny bugs here or there. Nothing dramatic. Only bad thing is CPU usage. It really needs some big optimalisation. Especially unisono engine. I wouldn't mind "unisono per OSC" aproach, becouse on my 2,3GHz i5 is unisono using even 50-60% of CPU with spikes that make Live crackling... It has plenty of other features to make amazing sounds, but with CPU-lighter unisono it'd be almost unbeatable.

Value for money 10/10

I got Diversion as a gift, but this synth deserves the price really well. It's fresh, modern, silk, bit heavy, but perfect. But best bit is it's quickness. Really nice pleasant and complex sounds from scratch in terms of minutes. Included presets are just a delicious cherry on amazing cake. Love this one. :)

Let's face it. Most of the freeware synths are lame, becouse if they weren't, they'd be payware. Logical thing in this society. But every rule has it's exceptions. In this case NovaKILL... (aaand TAL, but that's not the story now)

User Interface 9,5/10

I've always been fan of Novakill. You need to get used to their interfaces, but as far as estetical thinking... top notch. Amazing designs! I wonder who does graphic for this. Rreally cool.

And layout? Well as soon as you find it, you'll see it's very logical! :)

Features 9/10

NEOkiller is more like classical synth, but with amazing mod matrix, distortion and such. It's not any modular beast, but in terms of freeware, you can't got any higher. I own payware synths with much less features than NEOkiller. Absolutely no complain.

Sound 10/10

HOW? HOW?!?! I mean... how is it possible they don't want to make money on this? It's amazing. I try it calm down a little, but in it's true core it's just hardcore killer for big distorted leads. Almost no CPU consumption so no problem to layer it as hell too.

Stability 10/10

No crashes.

Verdict:

Everyone not using these don't know about them. Nothing in between. One of... no... THE best FW synths ever made. Synth1 is cool, but this kick butts in really big style!

I wonder why this beast doesn't have any reviews?!?!

Ok, let's fix it! :)

User interface 10/10

Cool. Initial skin is not that pretty, but it has second one which is killer. Behaviour of “length” button could be wierd at first, seems to me it has a bit longer tail than other reverbs with same value on. Also Gain button could use more of positive values, but now I’m just neatpicking....
Love that little hints and direct value input.
Layout is well touhght. Not much to “not understand” or something.

Features 9/10

It’s typical algorythmical reverb, so you got early reflection and diffusion stage. Both nicely controlable. Nothing wierd here, which is cool.
It has a little downside. Lack of input filters. 112db promisted them, but they had really sad personal issues, so …. But you can use output shelves or just add your DAW’s filter before reverb. Same thing with wideness control. Really minor glitches.

Sound 10/10

Here we go. MASSIVE sound. I’ve been demoing it A/B against AAR and space this adds is amazin! :) When “copying” presets from AAR you can even get to that lushness. But huge bright spaces are where this reverb really shines!
Only thing to watch out is early reflection engine. It’s cool, but you need to watch out difusion. When set too low or too high, it generates a little delay.
But other than that, sound is amazing. I use it all the time. It really adds to sound of instrument a lot. Lot’s of people were comparing it even with mighty Lexicons. :)

Value for money 10/10

It really opens you a whole space in a mix. If that's not what reverb should do, then I don't know what. :)

Twin 2 is really interesting VA. It is VA, but it's absolutely ignoring every atempts of recreating sound of something. Which is good. It has it's own character. If that's good... I'll get to that later.

Gui 10/10

Beautiful. Really love the looks. So "fluid". It's pleasure to look at. It's also well thought and laid. Especially modulations. This gets me to features...

Features 8/10

Interesting how features can be thing synth can sine at and fail at at one time. What's amazing is modulations. Really well tought layout with modules "hangign" at the bottom of the page.

The bad thing about features is oscilators and envelopes. Can someone tell me, why it has phase retrigger when there's no phase modulation possibility? Invert button would be also nice.

Envelopes are cool, nicely tought but with one major drawback. Minimum decay is 30 ms and that's toooo long. Absolutely kills any chance of snappynes. And when PWM and Hardsync modulations are only ways how to shape OSC's sound before filters, some snappynes to make sound a bit interestng could be really handy.

Sound 8/10

It's warm. Really really warm. Simply most smooth and warm filters period. And that's what wows you at the first place. Amazing for basses. But after some time you realize, that it could be handy to be able to make Twin a bit less warm, bit more bread and butterish. And there it set's you another pointless limit. Warmness is probably achieved by some saturation. I gues there is ton of waveshapers under a bonnet. Especially in filter stage. No metter which filter type you set, this warmness doesn't get away.

Value for money 9/10

It is good. Really is. But it has really "windowed" sonic range. Not limited smo much, but "windowed". You can do leads, plucks, basses, pads, bequences, rythmical stuff... It just always will be warm and not snappy, so no "synth for whole song" type of thing. It's more like spice of certain kind at this stage.