Product Reviews by KVR Members

I've been watching SM's development for qite a while. On the first look it could seem like another "look at me, I can do anything!" kind of synth, but there is something cool about it. It uses classical synthetiser "methods" but by it's own very inspirational way.

User Interface 9/10
You need to get used to, but it happens in every "bigger" synth. Pretty clean setup if you consider it's solid structure semi modular with so many features. Unusual thing to see in synthetiser like that is this cool "NI-like" preset browser with sorting. Mod matrix is in front of you all the time, which is a good thing and if you like more "modular-ish" approach, you can route modulations by left clicking on buttons, wich is really comfy... This velocity curve is nice detail too. All around nice and user friendly interface.
If any bad thing, then that these pop-up rolling menus need to be "collapsable". With so many waveforms and modulations, you need a lot of scrolling especially on smaller screens. Also some minor UI bug appear once in a while, but SM is in active development, so I'm not worried about this at all.

Sound 9/10
There it get's interesting. Out of the box, SM sounds airy, light, a bit digital-ish with little VA flavour. Cool already, but while messing with it you start to notice this "little" interesting features like editable OSC drift, editable distortion in filters, in ensemble FX, filters in bit reductions......... and then you get it. Normally designers would set some sweetpoints in this setings and let you live with character they made. SM doesn't limit you like that and lets you kind of build it's character on your own. In my opinion that's where it differs. Expecially the filters are really fun to mess with. Still a tiny bit harsh to my taste, but nicely shapable and editable.
I think SM suits mainly that "glassy" kind of ambiental plucks and some energetic but light distorted grooves.
Downsides are fact, that you need to find that sweet spots, which can take a while. Not much of that "analog thicknes" right away....and the volume levels. You need to watch it all the time, becouse SM always keeps adding new ellements to the sound (like unisono voices, distortions) without any normalization. Also onboard unisono could be a little smoother. But it's really small glitches considering how you can shape it. :)

Features 10/10
...and there it gets mental. (in a good way :) ) A really big toy!
Talked about filters already. You can distort them by custom shape and change slope continuously (!!!). Then some other types. Classic digital, formant, combinator etc... Then OSCs. Huge amount of waveforms (some rally nice vintage wavefomrs here), ability to import your own as sfz or just add new "one cycle wavs" to the folder... Good sounding multi operator FM, AM, phase distortion, little additive engine. Morphing between waveforms is fun... Modulations are huge. Additive, multyplying. The number of sources and targets is mindblowing. Modulating even by unisono index? Really? :D I don't like apregiators that much, but thisone is amazing! Multistage envelopes, 2D envelopes (yep, as wierd as you've just imagined it, but "complexing" fun), keytscalers, cool versatile LFO's, saving presets for every module... You name it. All that in 2 layers and with some sweet FX for polishing per instance... It's may be the most featured "solid structure" synth I've ever touched. And as far as I love Zebra-like semimodulars, sometimes you just want to have some "rich" fun right away with not so much "engineering" in the way. You don't get much better synths for that than SM.

Documentation 10/10
Manual is clear, edited by user base and it covers the synth well. Sometime it uses picture of older version, but nothing confusing. I like how it explains all import options to the oscilator.

Value for money and presets 10/10
Absolutely. Demo it and see for yourself. Good to be synth geek to really apriciate your investment, but even beginners will love SM, becouse presets are amazing. Made by people that you see in the area for a long time. All kind of styles, all sorted, nice sounding. In some synths presets need lot of editing to become contemporary. Not the case here. Preset users will be entertained for qite a wihle, especially thanks to in-synth online exchange. :)

Stability 9/10
Cool. Before 2.5 I remember SM was a really buggy. It's far better now. Really stable and usable. Not a single crash. Only bad thing there would be the CPU usage when using global unisono. Even relatively small indexes can raise CPU load a lot. This could make SM bit limited for some users. Also few minor bugs here or there, but I'm sure these will be fixed as Kv33l does lot's of updates.

EDIT: About CPU, there is second unisono engine inside each OSC which is much more efficient, so don't worry, I was just blind. :)

Conclusion: All around really cool monster with nice clean shapable sound, lot of features, lot's of great presets and reeeeealy fun to make sounds with. If you lack a bit of "fresh feel" to your production, there's one for you. :) And what's important, it's in active development with nice and friendly user base. (as opposite to one really famous synth out there :p) Author is really keen to help and concetrates on every single issue, so I guess it'll get even better and better.

Btw tip: Filter KeyTracking is set to 100% by default, which I like, but it's not comon, usually it's 0 and beginers could be little confused by filter behaviour then...

Ok, my original Zebra review was really crappy. Also I've used this synth for ages now, so I thought I re-iterate.

Zebra is one of the most versatile synths out there. It hits perfect balance between usability of pre-wired synth and capabilities of modular. Experimenting wit all kinds of signal route topologies is so easy and so much fun in Zebra. You can filter your OSC, then mix another OSC to the filtered signal, then filter it again... It's really awesome.

There are also some really cool modules. FM-modulated filter, keytracked tuned Comb filter, some cool distortions were added lately...

It has few flaws though. Recent skin-design fixed a lot of them, but I'd still love to see a little sample playback module, granular one, perhaps and the Unisono engine could use some inspiration from U-he's own Hive synth.

All and all, though, if you give it few days to understand this beauty, you'll find it's one of the quickest way for experimental sound to leave your head and end up in your actual project.

I Love Zebra. ...and absolutely understand why Hans Zimmer loves it too.

Sylenth1. On the first look ... these days ... it's kind of week one. Few oscilators, filter and few effects. Just a simple thing.
But what get's you is, how reliable and "bread and butter-ish" that synth is. There is almost no CPU load!

It's sounds are simple, but extremely well generated. Warm, thick, crispy .. as you want them. Especially for trance production. On lot's of phorums they say that: "It's shit, becouse it can do only trance sounds...' I say: And what? Come on! Listen today pop music! Trance synths everywhere!

What Sylenth1 really shine at is it's unison. This beast can make the best unison leads you've ever listened to.

What I miss a bit is PWM, becouse that is realy lot used feature of synth's these days. And of course more modulation targets.

But for me is Sylenth1 THE bread and butter synth now. I usualy start with Sylenth1 and then build up a rest of song. :-)

Btw: I'm attending programing school. We always shout, why we learn assembly code these days? It's pontless and old. But after bought of Sylenth1 I can see why. Lennard is really great programmer and he has my respect for writhing this whole masterpiece in that really difficult language.

WOW! You know ... there just have to be somewhere a few freeware synths which sounds great. First of them was synth1. Next was Helix. But when Helix came commerical, this beast appeared!

Oh my god! There is every button I need. It does simply everything what you could expect from V/A synth. It's not something special. There were tons of free VSTi which wanted to do everything. But this one can do it with great sound! Fat, clear ... not as much as Sylenth 1 or V-Station, but really high class.

The CPU usage is very low. It depends on used modules. Of course with unisono and more than one key pressed it will rise up.

User interface is not much comfortable, but really quick! And I like it! Nothing aboud "discovering" a synth. Everything is on one page. That's good for playing for fun or just for some quick ideas.

Possiblites? WOW. There is even tuning a single notes! OMG! There is nothing that this synth can't do. Great PWM, great Unisono, Great Effects (specially filtered delay). And the best is integrated waveform-drawer!

Just love it! :-) GO and get it! It's free and great!