Product Reviews by KVR Members

Wqay too many reviews for such a beast of a DAW.

When I first came across Ableton Live many years ago I actually was disgusted by it: none of it was the ways I was used to (left track pannel, routing) and the colours were way too bright for my taste. And ten years had to go by to really take another look non it.

So 2 years ago I got Live 11 and 12 Standard with Max for Live. And what can I sa everything except one thing is a blast.

The Sampler: best stock sampler ever.

The stock synths and fx: just so great in design and capabillitys.

The MIDI fx: a bit overwhelming, but made for every unconventional idea you might have.

The browser: just the best of any daw (please fight me), it comes with colour coding taging, splice integration, groove save space and the ai driven "search for similar sounds" function (it's actaully a good use of ai).

The ways of manipulating audio are insane and I have yet to find a DAW that can match Ableton in that regard. The same goes for midi.

So what's the one thing that doesn't work well: latency free audio recording! Allthough they have the option to record any track latency free, this feature still doesn't work reliably (specially with bigger projects).

And if it wasn't for that it woulld actually be my main DAW.

Prisewise it's definetely mor on the heavy ite, but since they started their own rent-to-own option, it has become way more accessible (also the new tutorial mode is something every daw should have).

So, highly recomendable.

4,75/5.

I recently bought a used license of Omnisphere and upgraded it today to V3.

And what can I say... there is no better Synth than Omnisphere 3 (even though I love Serum and Vital as much).

You can literally do anything (granular, analog, additive.....). It took a tiny bit to understand how I can program my own patches (a week approximately) but now that I'll do it's even more amazing. The sounds are amazing and lightweight and CPU friendly and the round Rubin system is out of this world (I literally set up an arp with no velocity - no machine gun sound). And the new Mutaions feature is just so much fun especially with your won patches.

And though I know it's expensive, but after serum this should be your next investment, especially now where you can use Omnisphere's fx in your DAW.

Only downsides are, that there are barely some useable pianos (though with V3 there are some decent ones in there), because for that you need to buy Keyscape (for which I wish there would be a discount if you own Omnisphere 3) and that you can't favorite your sounds outside the big sound browser.

Asside from that, Omisphere is just the GOAT! So truly buy it - it's worth it. Also once I have like 50 patches I made myself I will publish a free and a 2$ pack.

What can I say: the standard - the legend.

I have been using Kontakt since version 6 and alllthough it's been a rough journey, I still love it.

And since the last version is finally stable and faster it's even more fun than ever.

Version 8 has maybe not the most revolutionary new features but it definitely has its charms.

I really love the new chords, pattern and phrases tool (though it really took me some time to figure out their use for me).

And 11 year old past me would have loved Leap.

But the biggest and best new addition is the new browser and sidebar - it just works, uncomplicated and uncluttered.

One of the only bad things I have are the factory sounds which range from good to very bland. Though the Orchestra and choir is done pretty well... and for the rest I suggest to find some stuff on pianobook.

Overall Kontakt really shaped my career as a musician in a lot of ways and I'm pretty great full for that. I still miss the slice function but maybe it will come back and overhauled one day.

And since it's actually become more affordable than ever through sales, it's a must have.

Though I actually pricewise I suggest to buy Komplete Standard, to get even better libraries and useful stuff. But even on its own it has become a steal.

Simply put: the best bitcrusher on the market. It's easy to dial in the different bitcrushing algorythms work realy well and in conjuction with the dry/wet slider it's really easy to get the result you desire. Plus it's really lightweight on the cpu, which makes it one of my go-to-plugins-i-would-take on-a-lonely-island.

Just tried it a couple of days and I think it will become part of my arsenal.

First of all the good:

• Very good sound. Every sample and Osc sounds amazing, no cramping or aliasing so far.
• Very, very excellent presets!!! I tried all of them out and they all sound amazing.
• very good Fx, with just a few tweaks you get what you want.
• Simple but yet fun interface.

Now the Bad:

• No arpeggios.
• Starting from scratch not easy.
• No separate browser for searching sounds per genre.

Overall there are some misses when it comes to sound design from scratch, but the excellent sound of itself and all the presets make it more than worthwhile.

Starting out with Music Production I used to only dream about owning these plugins (I had a crack that annihalated my back then PC) and now I do (At least the Standard Version).

I always struggled with the decision and now I know I was a fool. I also own Max 3.5 from IK Multimedia and compared to one another Komplete 14 is way more stable and usefull (at least on the instrument side).

When it comes to production and writing K14 just gives easy to use sounds that really sound amazing and the new Kontakt Orchestra is a blast.

The only critic I have is with the standard synth sounds in Kontakt, they aren't that good, but since you get Massive, Massive X and Reaktor there is still a blast of alternatives that leave very less to desire.

Tiny warning at the end for newbies and oldies: you need at least a mac from 2018 or a Windows laptop/pc with a CPU of 4- 6 reaching 2.5- 3.2 GHz minimum and 10 GB of RAM minimum. Everything below gets wacky.

Also installing on an external SSD works like a crush.

Overall I'm considering switching to Ultimate... let's see how that goes.

Update 21.07.2024: I finally got Ultimate. It's worth it: from libraries like Piano Colours to the Reaktor FX Molekular it's amazing. The orchestra essential libraries are great, lightweight, roundrubin sampled and offer a lot of variations and playstile.... a must.

Both "driveshaper" and "drivefactor" became instant favorites:

versatile, easy to use and yet filled with a lot of options like a phase invert button and a limiter to prevent one by playing with them to crush one'S speakers.

These two plugins are a must-have. Overall: just lucky to have them.

Both "driveshaper" and "drivefactor" became instant favorites:

versatile, easy to use and yet filled with a lot of options like a phase invert button and a limiter to prevent one by playing with them to crush one'S speakers.

These two plugins are a must-have. Overall: just lucky to have them.