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DUNE

Reviewed By muLperi [all]
December 28th, 2011
Version reviewed: 1.42 on Mac

You may think that you don't need another subtractive synthesizer... but I suggest you try the demo version!

Developers have clearly paid special attention in making the interface simple but effective. Just like in Sylenth1 - you only have the most essential knobs in front of you and even though it may not look like much, it really is well enough.

What sets DUNE apart from the competition is it's special feature where you can do (modulate) whatever you want with the selected unison voices from 1 to 8. I'm only starting to get it myself and see all the possibilities but it really adds a whole new dimension to the synth.

In about 2 seconds you can create a lush, panning multioscillator analog sweeping beauty pad or nice pwm lead (for example). It actually has some patches that sound a bit like physically modelled.

It comes with the most essential FX. 2 EQs for fine sculpting the sound, reverb, delay, chorus/phaser and distortion.

And a very capable arpeggiator!

LOTS of usable sounds and 64bit compatibility both Mac and Win. (VST / AU)

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M1

Reviewed By muLperi [all]
March 15th, 2011
Version reviewed: 1 on Mac

I'm lovin' it!
I think it's underrated. It's good value for money, It has lots and lots of usabe patches, especially if you like retro sounds. This is definately one of my favourite synths.

I haven't really used a real M1 but I guess they use the exact same waveforms so it should sound exactly the same.
It sounds so good and nostalgic, it comes with all the original presets and the extra soundbanks as well.

It's stable. Never crash on me.
If you love the sounds of the past. Buy it.
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Sylenth1

Reviewed By muLperi [all]
March 15th, 2011
Version reviewed: 2.3 beta on Mac

Probably one of the most hyped soft synth out there and I must say, I find myself loading it up almost every time I start a new project.
It's fast, light on cpu and straightforward to use.
With free soundbanks I have hundreds of usable presets for electronic music.

User Interface
As I said, straightforward and simple to program.

Sound
It sounds good, sounds analog and hi-quality.
With it's onboard effects you can really polish your sound.

Stability
I don't think it has ever crashed..?

Value for money
Yes.
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Stylus RMX

Reviewed By muLperi [all]
November 6th, 2009
Version reviewed: 1.9 on Mac

EDIT 2011:

You can buy Logic Pro 9 cheaper and it comes with more loops and drum kits than RMX.

That alone is a deal breaker. One of the worst investment I've made.. At the moment it really is outdated.

And also now I now the quality of the support also: It's been a month when I contacted Spectrasonics support and asked if I can sell my license. They are "reviewing my case". They think I don't fully know how to use the plugin. Just telling that they have a great future ahead for all products.

My advice is to avoid Stylus RMX at the moment. If they drop the price to 99 dollars, then CONSIDER.

Original review in 2009:

What can I say... I too started using loops.
I bought Stylus RMX xpanded about a year ago and have found myself using it quite a lot. Perhaps lately I've used it mostly on some shakers, congas spicing up the backing track in various ways and those kind of little things but still. Very fast and effective way to do it.
Also for cinematic / action sequence music it's very good and has some great presets. And overall the presets sound very good.

User inteface is clear. I think the "graphics" could be more appealing for eye but it does the job.

I don't see anything special about Spectrasonics hyped "Groove control" or in the way RMX handles the tempo change. For example if slowed down to very slow tempo. You can clearly hear the slices starting and ending as you would imagine of course.

You can use Stylux RMX as a loop player where you can have 8 loops running simultaneously in MULTI mode.
Or you can use it as a drum sample player in KIT mode where you can construct your own 8-part kit from the Stylus RMX own library.
Importing own samples is not an option once again. Fortunately the onboard library is pretty big.

Never needed customer support really. Crashed 1 or 2 times.
Value for money... Well I think it could be a bit less expensive. Maybe 199 eur is more realistic for the whole pack imho.

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Alchemy

Reviewed By muLperi [all]
July 11th, 2009
Version reviewed: 1.10.6 on Windows

Alchemy really is a "synth powerhouse", very deep and you can achieve
for example huge complex pads and drones with ease.
Alchemy features additive, spectral, granular, resynthesis, analog modelling.... Actually I had to do some studying because I wasn't familiar with all of them before. That's also one good thing about Alchemy, you can learn and try many different styles of synthesis.

The interface: CamelAudio really has done great job designing an intuitive interface. Perform controls, X/Y Pads and 8 Morph Pads (like Kore) are just perfect for altering the sound and for live use as well. You can go to "SIMPLE" mode where only the Perform controls are visible.
It's easy to do modulation routings, just right click a knob and that's it.

The sound and features: What can I say, it sounds great. It's very interesting to import your own samples and just resynthesize the crap out of them. It can produce supersaw in a second if you like trance :D
I think Alchemy has everything I need. The sound is built from 1-4 "Sources" that can be an imported audio file or a basic waveform produced by Alchemys analog modelling engine. Alchemy comes with actually a quite good 2 gigabyte sample library that can be mangled in many different ways.

Presets: With the free bonus preset update I think presets are perfect now.
Actually I always try to build my sounds from scratch so they were always good to me.

Support and stability: The CamelAudio crew is almost always online and you can get help from their forum here on KVR or by email.
I've only had one problem and it was with the Alchemy installer. I'm from Finland and I am using Windows in Finnish language and the installer didn't understand that my license key file was in directory called "Työpöytä" and not Desktop :D But that was fixed easily. No crashes or anything.

Value for money: Alchemy really is one of a kind. There's nothing quite like it on the market so in my opinion it's worth the money.

Try the demo!
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Z3TA+

Reviewed By muLperi [all]
July 8th, 2009
Version reviewed: 1.5.3 on Windows

EDIT: This review is for the first zeta, not z3ta+ 2

User Interface:
Looks professionally done and cool.
Actually it looks a lot easier to use and more simple than it really is in my opinion.
I'm not a pro but know some basic things about synth programming.
What is best in zeta is that it's so easy to create your own soundbanks,
fast to change presets back and forth and there are several very valuable features for live use.

Sound:
It sounds good. In the price range it sounds very good, pops out from the usual VSTi crowd, mostly beacause of the good presets.
It comes with lots of patches. Majority of the sounds are leaning towards harsh digital coldness.
I would have wanted more simple VA type leads and basic pads. Also in my opinion too few of the presets utilize mod wheel.
It's not a one trick pony, it can sound very analog and very very digital if you want and know how to program it.
It has not great but ok effects section that gets the job done.

Customer Support and stability:
As I undestand it, z3ta is not being developed anymore and that's it.
Crashed only couple times when multiple instances loaded in FLStudio or something like that. Maybe once in standalone.
My only gripe is that the midi file import feature does NOT WORK! It just doesn't and
it's a known fact and I should have studied the product better before buying it because
Cakewalk is never going to fix what's wrong with it. I would never have bought it.
Cakewalk told me to use some kind of work-around but I wont.
Also some of the 3rd party preset banks that I load up sound like the low sound quality setting
is turned on or something like that. Very weird, this doesn't happen with the factory sounds though.

Value For Money
I got it for some sale price about 79€ from cakewalk couple of months ago.
I wouldn't pay the full 126 € that it costs at this stage. If zeta would be developed more, maybe then.



plusses
+ Some great presets
+ Good for live use
+ Standalone included

minuses
- For me, building a sound with zeta is a bit hard. Not so easy and straight forward.
- Not developed anymore
- No OSX support (not issue for me but for some)
- Some irritating "bugs" that are not being fixed ever
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Omnisphere 1

Reviewed By muLperi [all]
December 17th, 2008
Version reviewed: newest on Mac

Edit 8.9.2014.

Omnisphere is still one of my favourite synths (maybe favourite). Having used almost all the synths out there. Omnisphere hasn't aged single bit. It doesn't use CPU as much as many other synths out there now. Great 3rd party libraries. I have also started to appreciate more and more the easiness of building your own sounds. Very stable and good work horse.

EDIT 16.3.2011
Spectrasonics has released several updates that include hundreds of new presets and has dramativally improved Omnisphere. Also they offer control apps for iPhone and iPad for free! Really great service in my opinion.
And who knows what's still to come.

------------------------------

PROS
+ Lots of new and unique sounds
Well yes it does have 50 gigabytes of samples.
From that alone you should find many usable sounds.
Include very capable manipulation tools and you will definately have unique sounds.

+ Rich in features
Multi has 1-8 Parts
Multi has it's own "global" effects.
You can play Multi in several different ways.
Stack mode (split and layer parts), Live mode or just normal Multi
where every Part is assigned to it's own MIDI channel and you play one part at a time.

Part has 1-2 Layers
Every Part has it's own arpeggiator, effects, portamento control etc.

Layer has a Soundsource
Every Layer has 6 LFOs, envelopes, filters and stuff like that.
Soundsource can either be a sample file or virtual analog waveform.
So it has analog modelling synth also.

You can save your own Multis and Patches and share them easily.

+ Simple
Very simple to use and makes you want to craft your own sounds and really
get into the synthesis world also.



CONS
- Sample library almost too big (but not)
Installation took literally hours, about 6 of them. So be prepared. Hope I don't need to do that often.
Some ppl using laptops have to use external drives.
But nowadays I don't think it's such a big deal. Better lots than few.
Dunno if it could have been possible to fit them all in a smaller package.

- CPU intensive, long loading times
I have a Acer TravelMate 5720G laptop running Windows XP. Core2Duo at 2GHz and 2GB RAM.
I have been using Omni about month now, I think it has never crashed.
Many people have complained about it being unstable but not to me.
Only sometimes there has been strange peaks in sound.
Takes about 8 seconds to load the plugin. A bit slow startup and
loading big Multis can take up to about 10 seconds or so.
But I think this is acceptable considering the size of the samples and the whole plugin.

- It may be hard to find something really specific sound
I would love to have some kind of favourite-feature for sounds.
I think the browser is a bit over hyped, I almost never use those descriptive search parameters.
If I want to find kick drum, I will search "kick" and for some reason I don't find any.
Because ppl who made the search tags, were thinking differently.
Luckily you can also add your own tags and edit existing.

- No sample import
You cannot import your own samples at the time.
But Spectrasonics has said that they will not "rule that feature out" in the future updates.
And with all this content, it's not the first thing you'll probably miss.

- Bread and butter sounds
Doesn't have that many "normal" sounds like basic dry piano sound.
Some good guitars but then again, it's for new and unique sounds...



CONCLUSION
It's my "go-to-synth" at the time.
Omnisphere is definately not all-around, and not here to replace every other synths.
It's to get new and inspirational sounds, good making atmospheres
and ambient sounds. It does have good guitar samples and classic synth sounds also
and good analog modelling synth inside.
It's very simple and easy to use and good for live performances.
It has great amount of potential and with those tools and features,
I think factory Multis doesn't even show all what it can do.
I recommend if you have money to spend, if not, check also Camelaudio Alchemy.

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