Product Reviews by KVR Members

This is a big meh. If I had spent even $20 on this, I wouldnt be happy.

Got this for free, along with the Loopcloud Sounds promotion. They claimed if I signed up for even a free trial, I would get this synth, so I went ahead.

I immediately noticed the UI seemed a little thin, with lots of wasted space and large knobs with labels like "bright/dark", "fast/slow", or "effect" and I saw that there are lots of "dice" icons everywhere to.. randomize. The number of presets included with the basic "USYNTH core" is right around 100, and the interface immediately goes to work trying to get you to buy new preset packs from UJAM. Paid presets say "available for download" without any indication they are premium preset packs, and if you dont know this and click to download one, then UJAM yells at you and demands you buy this pack.

The sounds that come from USYNTH are mediocre. Some are thin, narrow, 1 dimensional and I believe I heard a little bit of digital distortion crackling on a couple of them. Meter was not in the red. Not all the sounds inside USYNTH are weak, and I did indeed find some nice quality stuff, but overall the value just isnt there compared to many - if not most - other software synths. The playback mode is sort of nice (it plays a lot like UJAM's Carbon or other guitar synths, where you have keys that are switches and mode buttons, and then keys that trigger note/chords).

If this synth was $20 (or free), it would feel priced correctly in terms of the shortage of presets and the pressure to buy more. If UJAM added some more base content and really warmed up/expanded the synthesis engine, it might be worth trying out, but as of now it isnt super good. Im not entirely sure what sort of synthesis it even uses, and it might be a sample player for all I can tell. : /.

If you are someone who searches for more and more refined, purpose-built effects and/or transition sequencers/tools/toys, this is among the very best out there.

This brings to mind plugins such as NI's "The Finger" (a Reaktor-based effects sequencing tool), Sugar Byte's Turnado, or Cableguys Shaper Box, but imo the interface, sound quality, and overall feature set of Transit are more refined. The transitions and/or effects sequences you can design with this are attention-grabbing, mind-melting, liquid audio-style sounds, and I am immediately a big fan.

One star removed for (apparently) no MIDI mapping or binding?? I see a menu item that says "Randomize MIDI assign on/off/DAW", but I see no other options anywhere, including right click/context, that allow me to map anything. This was just released, so hopefully a patch? I cant possibly be missing something so obvious, and I've put some time into reading docs, etc. Ill add the star when I find MIDI mapping.

Update: dev got back, doesnt seem super interested in making MIDI map features any better, and Im not sure if this is just in Bitwig or all DAWs. I can make Bitwig and Cubase map MIDI directly and overcome this issue, but it would be nice to have a native right-click or mode switch MIDI map function for efficiency.

This tool, like the other similar tool from WA "Chords Pro", has a DAW playback issue. I reported the issue to WA when I got a free copy of Chords Pro, and they denied the issue and asked me to "record video of the issue happening" but made it very difficult to upload a video so I gave up because the tool was mediocre and free anyway.

So I heard that Loop Engine was supposed to have the best aspects of Chords Pro, and a more stripped down Instacomposer sort of thing, so I decided to try it on a sale. Loop Engine has the IDENTICAL issue that Chords Pro has:

Load Loop Engine as a plugin in your DAW - any DAW. Connect it to a polyphonic synth. Load any content in Loop Engine, or build your own. Press play on your DAW while the DAW transport is in loop mode. Loop Engine plays your notes as intended, until.... every time the currently defined loop ends and repeats. Whether it's a loop length of 1, 2, 4, 8, etc, Loop Engine always goes silent for a portion of the first note of the loop. It sounds like when you set "note length" to around 50% in an arpeggiator.

As long as your transport never loops, Loop Engine (and Chords Pro) continue playing chords and notes as intended, but as soon as you put your DAW transport in loop mode, the issue begins. On top of the loop playback issue, drag and drop export from Loop Engine does NOT work and partially freezes any DAW (Cubase 12, Bitwig 5) I've tried it in.

WA seems to ignore these issues, and the only reason I still give this 2 stars is that it works when not in looped playback mode.

If the dev doesnt solve this (and the issue with Chords Pro) soon, Ill come back and drop this to 1 star. How hard is it to get your "Loop Engine" to loop and export audio properly? Edit: its been months, and instead of a fix, the dev released a version 2 of Loop Engine.* Im not sure if I'll ever buy anything from WA again after this.

Ive had over a year with Rewind now, and its been great! All prior criticisms were addressed by the dev, long ago, and this software is standard in 100% of my projects and templates now. The dev is awesome, and this tape machine solution is awesome.

I dont know of a single other retrospective solution, whether a native solution like what is in Cubase, or a 3rd party like that 'MIDI-cap', that is as complete and useful as this. This really can grab EVERYTHING at the same time, you totally forget its there, and now it appends project BPM into the track name! This is THE retrospective solution right now.

Ive been a music production hobbyist for 25 years, used cubase as my only DAW for 23 years, and I've used a ton of other software from many brands in the VST ecosystem. I have very high standards for stability, performance, and quality in a DAW and I never thought I would find a DAW that could replace cubase, but I am happy to say it's Bitwig!.

I've had Bitwig since just before 5.0 launched(about 2 months), so I began on 4 and just migrated to 5. Everything has been great, the application is rock solid and I love the multithreaded sandboxed plugins!!!! The main application comes with a large trove of goodies such as instruments, interesting MIDI 'devices' and modules, this very cool modular environment called "the Grid", and a load of other stuff that allows for very interesting, efficient, modern project workflow and musical expression.

It took me a few hours to understand my workflow and find my musical space, then just a few more hours of practice to already feel confident that I can do everything I need to do in Bitwig and much more. I am free of steinberg, at last, and I feel like Im trusting my large library of plugins and content with a DAW that is less likely to crash catastrophically and cause me headaches and lost time.

I cant recommend Bitwig 4/5 any more strongly, and so far I've had zero issues with anything Ive plugged into it or thrown at it in any way. The browser can be a little slow sometimes on startup (mine is set to check for library changes on startup). I love this DAW.

After nearly 2 years of experience with Synthmaster 2 and with the dev, KV331, I have decided to revise my review and drop it to 1 star. I wont be working with KV331 any longer.

Synthmaster 1 and 2, and soon 3, sound very nice and offer a lot of presets. When I originally purchased SM2, I knew it was buggy and had many longstanding issues (you can read about those issues on the KVR forums, inside the KV331 forum), but I chose to support the dev and try it out anyway.

I immediately noticed that SM2's modwheel did not work unless I clicked it onscreen, and the "midi learn" feature would crash the plugin in Cubase. Manual assignment within SM2 also failed. I tried various ways to fix this including reaching out to the dev, but I was never able to solve it and the dev ignored my questions.

Recently the dev emailed all customers about Synthmaster3, and offered a new upgrade deal. I considered this, but wanted to make sure the modwheel issue was resolved before spending more $$, so I asked questions on the dev's forum here on KVR. The issue was denied, it was blamed on Bitwig (I started using Bitwig 6 months ago), and then finally it was very curtly blamed on VST3.

In the end, I have no idea if this issue still exists in SM3, but it certainly exists in SM1 and 2 and I am not interested in working with this developer anymore. The responses to my questions and then later to my frustration were inappropriate and dishonest, and I dont have time or patience for dishonest devs. Im done with KV331.

After spending a few days with this fun, approachable synth / workstation powerhouse, I've begun to feel like what some people say about it might be at least somewhat true - - that it is tailored mostly toward house & trance artists.

I really enjoy many of the sounds that are included with the stock version of this synth, I like the embedded sequencers, and I like how easy it is to bind MIDI in standard and creative ways, but... As a general sound designer and someone who makes mostly music that ISN'T trance or house, I keep feeling pulled by Avenger toward making those genres.

It feels like it's harder to make other styles, including ambient, drone, bass music, glitch hop, etc, and that the dev really built this for eurovision fans lol.

I am undecided. I'll probably keep it and use it for rhythmic melody and creative inspiration, but I would like it if more categories of sound inside this synth felt general purpose.

This is a good physical modeling synth.

The sounds that come from this are good, they are subtle and detailed, they are 2 and 3 dimensional, textured, and organic. The synth can manage a wide range of sounds, and its fun and fairly easy to do sound design with. I wouldn't say this synth is as deep and wide as something like Pigments or MassiveX, but it's good for its price and a quality physical modeling vst.

Edit: the dev fixed the earlier MIDI binding issue I reported, and MIDI binding for the sliders now works.

This is a mediocre, disappointing synth. What I read about it pre-sales made it sound useful and fun, but most sounds that come out of it sound similar, flat or 2 dimensional, or noisy and clumsy, and everything from MIDI learn to UI/UX is a step down from most other VST synths that I own. Perhaps with some updates or new versions this can get better? Dont recommend it for now.

I will come back and update this after the dev gets back to me on my support request. Im using this on Win10, on Cubase 12 pro as a plugin.

First impressions: very simple, colorful, intuitive software with an easy-to-understand workflow for designing and generating chords and note progressions. I was able to quickly set up and register the software, and routing and playback was no trouble (I also use other MIDI generator/chord/scale plugins and they all route similarly).

What stopped me in my tracks is that I couldnt get Chords Pro to play back the right number of notes per bars when my DAW was in cycle mode, no matter how many times I tried or how I approached it.

When my DAW has cycle mode off, Chords Pro will continue playing without interruption, playing back(looping) the number of bars specified at the speed specified.

When cycle mode is on, when the play head returns to the start position Chords Pro goes silent for a whole bar every time.

Also, whether cycle mode is on or off, I get a stutter note when Chords first starts to play. Every time. Instead of only the first note or chord of the pattern, it plays twice in rapid succession. This never happens again as long as it keeps playing. Ill come back later if the dev fixes this.