Product Reviews by KVR Members

this website needs to make a correction - Saint Mike DSP is still promoting his Ceiling Fan plug-in as "free" not 24.95.

Hello! I highly appreciate you providing such a gem for FREE! With so many in-depth control, it does wonders, as well as your EQ and Splitter! It even outclasses most paid plugins! IMO, its only competitors are MTurboComp and pajSoil EiS (and its paid version but it has gone missing). If possible, I'd like you to enrich this Comp. even more! What I guess would be great additions are.

• "Preparation", gradual gain reduction before attack (like release function on the other side), another type of lookahead without need for adjusting peak-hold. It's implemented in aforementioned pajSoil and Kilohearts Compactor.

• Delay option for sidechain signal.

•"Step-hold", peak-hold that doesn't preserve falling edge of signals creating sharp cliffs, in addition to the current "True-hold".

• Inifinite to 1 ratio and negative ratio up to -0.01 : 1, an option to fold signals beyond the threshold (I've never seen this implemented intuitively except in Eventide Omnipressor and pajSoil), featured here: Negative Ratio Compression.

• Extreme parameter range e.g. infinite range, -144dB knee, 10000s RMS length...

• S-shaped reduction stage (intermediate character between exponential and linear).

• Magnitude analyser for sidechained signal.

If ZLComp. currently didn't have FIR filter, I think it would also be an improvement.

Again, your Comp. is magnificent! Thank you for your plugins and constant updates.

Bitwig is a breath of fresh air for a unique creative focused DAW that truly empowers you to focus on creating music.

This instrument shows promise. It includes a good amount of sounds that, despite the other reviews, I actually think sound good or could be made more useful with enough external processing. However this plugin seems to be much more unstable then the other plugins I have used from Stagecraft. Normally bridging would help with performance issues like with other Stagecraft plugins, however in this case it seems to break the plugin occasionally. Switching between sounds, which is the most important part of an instrument like this, is also very sluggish and makes it much less fun to browse.

This has been my best experience with software from this developer so far. ReContour is a compressor plugin which can be used as a distortion by setting the attack and release to zero, which other compressors are able to do. This plugin lets you create custom compression/distortion curves however, which allows it to create some really interesting effects, and it also allows for upwards compression. On top of that, you can morph between two different shapes. It is a plugin that, to me, is perfect for loud and sound design heavy music, which is the only thing I ever make. It does cause frame rate issues in FL Studio, however bridging in this instance fixes the issue completely and it runs smoothly.

Very fun and interesting plugin. The concept is simple, it makes modulating EQs and filters easy, which allows for really interesting effects. You can also use it like a dynamic EQ, which makes it really good for mixing as well. It does have performance issues inside of FL Studio 2025, however it can be fixed by simply bridging the plugin.

After recent updates the modulation windows no longer get stuck on screen and are usable now. Thank you for these updates, great plugin overall.

Very fun synth. It is versatile and comes with plenty of sound design features to work with. If you like using presets, it also has plenty of those as well. It is a bit unstable, and it does seem to be slow when opening, however it is for the most part usable. It also does cause performance issues in FL Studio 2025, but those can be fixed by bridging the plugin.

I already have a lot of saturation/distortion plugins, but most of them I hardly ever use. So I did not expect too much, when I installed this one. But I was very positively surprised.

Wonderful sounds, which both can be used subtle and intense, the different types match the characters very well, only Bitcrusher is not so much my taste, but the setting does, what a Bitcrusher should. Class AB and Class A Tube really sound different, Tape adds more smoothness in a very musical way, while Overdrive adds the typical transistor/op-amp bite with reduced bass response.

Drive and Mix allow really perfect intensity adjustments, Tone does exactly, what it should, turned to the left, the sounds become warmer, but not muddy, turned to the right, brighter, without becoming too shrill or too harsh. The additional HP/LP filters allow even more fine adjustments, while Rip and Analog even add more flexibility.

The sound quality is excellent, as a guitarist (mostly) I could even imagine, to use this plugin instead of an amp plugin, maybe even with two stacked instances. Add a cabinet IR behind and you get excellently sounding (amp) tones easily, if you look for clean to semi-clean to vintage crunch sounds with a lot of - well adjustable - character, what you can get a some almost perfect pedal platform tones, which even standalone sound great.

What I really like are the very organically and naturally sounds, the results - if properly adjusted - do not sound digitally at all.

Also works great for bass or keyboards, synthesizers, too add some more character to the sounds. Most probably also for drums, percussion, vocals, ..

Already made some positive experiences with ViatorDSP plugins a while ago, this one is for me a masterpiece for good sounds or professional sound improvements, some kind of swiss army knife in some way for additional harmonics, saturation, overdrive, distortion, tube or tape character.

Highly recommended and for me much more than just a distortion plugin.

As dated as Gladiator my seem to some, this little warrior can still hold his own in the arena. I like synths with their own character, and this one des that well. I have and have tried many of them out there believe me. Firstly, the ocillators, mods, and how one moves through them are unique to this synth alone. The filters sound fab. Albeit the mod matrix and effects sections aren't as robust as other Tone 2 products, there is enough there to take you to uncharted territory. Sure, there are plenty of what some may argue are more modern, feature ladened, and even free ones out there in this day and age. But to me...Gladiator just has a certain character all it's own that stands out, compared to all other synths that basically to me all do the same thing. I love Waldorf Largo for the same reason, those old PPG and Waldorf Q wavetables just have a certain sound that seemed very well thought out and give it a unique sound. I will take simplicity and character over a million features any old day. Not to mention I can run many instances of these older gem plugins without hardly any strain on 15 yr old PC. I Also have Icarus, Electra and Saurus. All of which are not the CPU hogs like the more modern synths of today, but all VERY capable of holding their own weight all these years later. The new Icarus 3 is a beast by the way. But that is just my opinion. You do you!!.

this is actually a really cool idea! I know of no other easy way to create these vivid sound scapes. Ok, I could probably build my own cross-feed / side-chain / whatever setup for this, but Pentimento makes this a million times easier and more intuitive :-) Can't wait to experiment more.