Product Reviews by KVR Members

They are enhanced versions of built in Waveform free stock plugins. They have the same problem like rest of Tracktion software: filters/eq do not sound good compared to best in class products. Rest is average, easily replaced by free plugins if you don't mind their GUI.

while UI is very nice, I would buy it only if you are beginning and like bundle price. If you get 50% off this small plugin pack may help you start building library of effects. This pack is part of waveform pro.

Idea behind this is pretty neat. It may be occasionally helpful during polishing mix.

You can use standard limiter instead of this but maybe this will make your work faster.

It's decent for certain types of music. I don't recommend it for general use but it distorts sounds in quite unique way and it's very easy to use. If you look for inspiration use it instead of synth built in effects.

Excellent idea. Some DAW have project notepad while some didn't. Once you start writing notes to project you will miss that feature in other products. Get this to fix the problem.

Bad:
It eats CPU for dinner. Danger.

Big downside: No DX7 imports. No way to load own Waveforms or WT into FM oscillator. Can't do keytracking over 100% (Even Polysix can do).

Like in rest of Tracktion software filters and effects are not good sounding, they about same low quality free Vital have. Serum is at next level. Replace effects with inserts.

No way to get support. Too small user base to get reply in forums and Tracktion support will ignore your ticket.

No developer made site for sharing presets with preview.

Good.

GUI is nice except mod matrix / modifiers / macro part.

Good useable internal compressor.

FM sound is good.

Lot of configuration options.

Multi part modern envelopes with repeat.

2 Sample oscillators.

one noise oscillator.

Modulation matrix is flexible.

4 layers, each with 8 FM and 16 unison detune. Complex soundscape will kill CPU.

FM oscillator can do SAW as well. Due to weak filters do not expect much subtractive synth fun.

input filter per layer.

verdict: if author fixes serious problems and get better filters/effects then yes I will recommend it. It might be top FM synth around. It's simply not there yet and it's single developer synth. Looking at other Tracktion synths I don't think it will ever get there, once released they just minor bug fixes. If you like FM and synth in its current state then buy it, but do not buy it with mindset that it will become better with updates over time.

This synth and others from same author are specialized on EDM music. It's sounds good, not average bad sounding free VST.
Main advantage I see is that you can make your sounds faster then in more general synth like Surge. I recommend it to people doing EDM and designing own sounds.

I do not like idea to combine spring reverb with bit crusher. It's best to keep them in separate plugins. Spring reverb is just very basic one - use it if you do not have anything better but bit crusher is actually quite usable for current lo fi music craze.

There are better free spring reverb plugins, and yes there are better bit crushers too. Both parts of plugin do something but not much while crusher doing more then spring reverb. I think crusher is included to encourage people to distort not very good spring reverb.

If you are not perfectionist you will use it, everything fits into current EDM and if mix quality is bad you can call it lo fi. Overall it's just average quality we see in free plugins, nothing you have to download.

Plugin does not sounds bad but it is nothing extra that you can't get from another free plugin.

Requires iLok and should avoid these plugins. In current competitive audio environment there is no reason to annoy customers with iLoK rootkit.

While synth itself has lot of modulation sources and especially envelopes are very well made working with banks and presets is pain if synth can't write to its VST directory. I found that best works to use patch/bank load save from DAW (if your DAW supports this function).

While modulation sources are excellent sound is just average and because of constant problems with loading / saving banks and patches I moved to another synth. Its not actively maintained, last version is from 2016. I recommend other Crystal users to do the same. We have much better free synths now.

Very good synth, its similar to KV331 Synthmaster1 and its free. It means that there is a lot of patches available. Sound is very good - it has 2 layers. FM is bit limited but with envelope modulation you can still do interesting FM sounds.

Its must have synth.