Product Reviews by KVR Members

update 12.27.04

With the release of Battery 2 Native Instruments had a lot to live up to. Drum synths like FXpansion's BFD and LinPlug RMIV went far beyond the original drum synths or sample playback programmers.

Good:
* lots of new capabilities for editing the actual sample
* 3.5 gb library of extended drum sounds including a fantastic sine wave kit and orchestral percussion as well as the standard all around useful drum kits.
* you can program kits or even specific drums; say all your snares in the 72 cell interface. the cells can be reduced to a row of 12.
* easy drum open, previously used and import/export handling
* cell, map, mod, filter, compression and loop windows in a tabbed area of the interface
* more import options like Rex and Intakt files loading as individual drums

Bad
* still no drum programmer!
* sometimes hard to find where you are in the interface

The thing that makes Battery 2.0 vastly better than it's prior version is the depth of editing one can use. If the list of features weren't enough the cell area has improved as well. Mouse over a kit and you get the basic information on each drum including assigned key. Right click and there are many utility and workflow capabilities.

The sound is better as well which is good because everything is exceptional from Battery's competitors.

What it comes down to is how you work.
BFD has a 3 part system, drum selection, studio modeling and grooves. It also has 2 expansions, the 22gb BFD XFL which adds to the real sounding drums in a huge way, and the 12gb 8 bit kit, the latter a great combination of African and Latin percussion mixed with truly inspired TR808 and 909 samples, some played through studio speakers and the room miked. The 8gb of original sounds are also wonderful and deeply designed with four to six different articulations and many humanizing controls which can be abused to make wild sounds.

RMIV has a similar GUI to Battery but features more drum sounds of high quality but less layering. That is made up by the generous library of beats available along with a great output section with a very respectable distortion that sounds warm to mean.

However Battery has stuck to their guns and developed the apex of drum tweaking. You can use a sound as a pitched instrument or drum kit. Sampled sounds are still 128 levels, do you hear each one? No, but your audio software can prove it. If you want to tweak, think differently or want to be the master of your drum's domain Battery 2 is for you. It is a wonderful tool for making songs using looped segments or just triggering song parts and with the addition of more cells, the ability to play a song or kit that essentially gives you a song in a system.

Samples are 24 bit and able to use all kinds of bit configurations and imported formats. This will end up being a big area of contention in 2005 I suspect.

The review before is similar but still mostly is true of the Battery concept. The time spent on the competition was spent out of respect, as they have their own unique features, but Battery has made a comeback. The once neglected drum kit is now a bit ahead in it's sample editing functions with a good set of features and quality sounds. It will appeal to it's old audience and should pick up a few new drum mavens.

The only serious omission is a drum programmer. I can't think of a drum kit more deserving! Ah well, at least N.I. has a contender again.

- - - -


update 2.21.03

An excellent drum sampler but much more, battery can do a number of smartly developed sample based effects including looping, sample manipulation, pretty much everything you'd want from a drum synth, better yet Battery can be far more. You can set up pitched sounds over as many intervals as you want, you can use huge samples, you can layer and modulate at will, and you are doing so at the sample level.

The interface is good if not a little like a spreadsheet but it's very functional and simple to learn. There's enough here to appeal to users at the novice to pro level. As time moves on Battery has some serious contenders to deal with, particularly Fxspansion's DR-008. The thing serious drum designers will love about Battery are it's huge number of layers per cell. The included samples and kits are impressive as are the new sample libraries.

Pros: good interface, smart selection of editing and effect tools, low system resources
Cons: a bit large but with 54 cells, aging quickly and seemingly neglected

I've created orchestral sequences, rendered to .wav and mixed classical music fragments in Battery, pretty cool for a sampling drum machine. :) You can easily develop entire songs in Battery.

Depending on your sampling needs this may be all you need. Not to be too harsh but user requests have been requested yet a year has passed and no improvements have been made. Smaller companies are able to dedicate their resources so even though Battery is still a fine drum sampler some users may feel abandoned.

You set up ping relationships, weird as that sounds what it means is you get a percussive kind of synth that can get impressively complex. Good for dnb but begging to be used in experimental tracks, OnePingOnly has a different kind of learning curve although once used to it has high fun factor.

Pros: unique sounding, unique means of developing percussive sounds
Cons: no GUI, supposed to be coming soon :)

It's a hard call, some people I've suggested get this free VSTi simply hated it. I played it in the context of a song the same people liked it.

Maybe I'm a easy touch but when creative ideas are made free for me to have fun with I'm greatly appreciative. Cool idea, thinking differently will get you used to the OnePingOnly world.

I have a lot of commercial or shareware synths but it always amazes my when a synth like the JX220 comes along and makes some great sonic noise.
Smooth filters, fat sounding and good filters that make the JX220 useufl for pads, leads an bass.
Lacking in programming features but good for basic building block type sounds.

Pros: free and a GUI, creamy high quality sounding timbres, low processor resouces
Cons: limited feature set

This won't make you sorry you bought a Pro-52 but great for quick sounds that work in mixes.

edited 10/14/02
Latest impression, not so terrible.

One big thing going for USM is it's efficent use of CPU. 16 tracks took under 10% on an Athlon XP1700+ with 512mb ram. It's sample qualities are still questionable but for checking out the occasional GM sequence it's worth having and it's free with Cubase VST 5.1.

Let's put it this way, I use it now and then whereas at the time of my prior review it seemed a waste of disk space.

- - - - - - - - - -
First impressions, bleh.
Second impression, bleh but I see some possibiities for net collaborations and jamming which is cool.

First off, it's free but this synth doesn't sound like it uses 70 mb of samples. Not horrible but come on, you can do a lot more with so much sample memory.

GM was ok until every manufacturer's designs were incompatable and sometimes didn't even meet the GM design. USM (which isn't even GM 1 compatible) might change things for the positive but the timbres are lacking character and with 70 mb of samples that's a real shame.

Pros: it works, the jam and collaboration potential is unique
Cons: 70 mb of samples? You'll never be able to tell

Several years ago there was an ad in the U.S. regarding hamburgers at fast food restaurants. An elderly lady looked at a bun and seeing little to no meat says, "where's the beef?" I expected much more out of USM.

Well intentioned and if the net jams are working possibly a good first step for Cubase 5 users.

Guitar is my first and primary instrument. I've been playing synths and teaching electronic music for 20 years now and think we live in incredible times.
The VB-1 is impressive, there are enough controls on it's nicely designed UI. The actual sound is decent, you can make interesting tracks.

Pros: interesting sound capabilities, free, big fun factor
Cons: if you aren't familiar with playing a bass it will take learning the ideas behind bass playing to get interesting patterns (more below), minimal controls

Here's the deal, real instrument VAs depend on understanding the instrument that is modelled, that said anyone can learn much of this by ear, just listen to music with the instrument you're trying to emulate and you'll pick it up.
A lot more could have been done with VB-1 and in time we will see VAs that do a better job. For now the VB-1 is an interesting start.

Some people don't think much of Neon but here's how I see it. It's simple to use encourages people to play around and (maybe) learn something about subtractive synthesis.
Neon lacks in performance features but makes up for it by sounding good and for free sounding good works for me. Capable of good pads, modest leads and pads, not good for Fx and weird, typical analog weirdness.

Pros: good sounding, free, simple but effective editing
Cons: could have been more feature laden, doesn't do many of the fun features associated with subtactive analog (of VA)

It's free with Cubase, maybe even free on Steinberg's site. Worth checking out. Good for meat and potato synth timbres.

edited 10/21/02...

The new version is nicer just for the GUI. More to come as I update but this is a weird synth that will bring a touch of strangeness to any project you're working on. Effects like delays, filters and distortion really synergize with Sick Synth

.....................

I was working in the studio when my bandmate of 10 years walked in for the session and said, "wow, that's a sick sound" which was meant with admiration. That is the essense of Sick Synth, it makes really weird noises as easily as the mouse twist of any given paramiter you touch.
It just gets more twisted as you play with the non-interface. You can get normal sounds from Sick Synth but the reason it gets use here is because it's one of the few synths that makes you want to see how weird you can get while enjoying yourself.

Pros: wildly creative on it's own terms, useful timbres result from playing with the synth, free
Cons: no interface, more documentation would be helpful

Leave it at this, if you like weird noises and making sounds for the fun of it you can't ask for much more without rolling your own in a Reaktor or similar virtual modulars. Of limited use but a 10 for what it does.

Although there are no presets with the DX10 there are plenty on the net and many of them are great. Since they are in essance 3rd party you can appreciate how powerful DX10 is.
I use it for frequent FM-ish kind of timbres. A full DX7 this is not but the timbres it produces are useful. The Fruity version looks intereseting, a interface will help DX10 considerably.

Pros: interesting sounds, simple to use, free
Cons: no manual, no presets (but readily available)

If you are looking for bells and sharp digital sounds look no further. If nothing else you will get an idea of how a subset of FM synthesis works.

This isn't a $100 VSTi or huge multisample, it is a simple electronic piano synth that does a convincing job of emulating the Wurlizer and Rhodes sound, you can get a tine, FM kind of thing but surprisingly the emulations go more toward vintage gear.

My keyboard player from years ago had a Wurlitzer. Within a few minutes I was able to get his sound down with mda ePiano. Again, like other mda synths they are tweakable enough to sit well in almost any mix.

Pros: excellent sound, easy on the processor, works well in mixes, it's free
Cons: an interface would have been nice and worth paying for.

Love the distortion, very creamy. Try it, it's free and most probably given some time playing it will find it's way into one of your recordings.

Update 4.21.03

16 months later and with Kontakt as my main sampler I still use VSampler. It is easy on resources, easier than Kontakt, and I have a large library of AKAI and personal samples that have been saved as presets. What makes VSampler most impressive to me is that it's value has not depreciated. In fact it has increased! As of this update version 3 is in the last stages of beta testing. The test was substantial and explains why there has not been more features added to version 2.x. To be honest this version is very solid and should be judged in it's own right. All developers should follow this example and take their time before releasing their work. VSampler is still a great sampler at a great price - read below for more details. As for stability, the machine used on the original review was a Celeron 600. On a Athlon XP1700 VSampler is rock solid stable. Good things not mentioned:
multitimbrality
VST plugins can be used within VSampler
VSampler is also a DXi
can be used as a stand-alone unit


Simply put there is nothing of greater value for traditional sampling. The interface is excellent using tabs to save space, good filters, good manual and support. Also a ton of samples available online.

I tried .sf2 files without trouble but there may be problems on certain libraries. I tend to use other formats with VSampler.

I have had a few crashes as a VSTi and in stand alone mode but they could have been my mistakes, still a good program protects users from crashing it.

Pros: flexible and good sounding, total package is good, good value for money
Cons: occasional crashes on my computer