Product Reviews by KVR Members

Now here's a nice little plug. I know many are sceptical of stereo enhancers, and I am too a bit, but this one is just too useful to ignore.

Essentially, Wider Boy simply takes your mix and widens its stereo image. The trick is that it offers some flexible options to make this effect subtle or extreme, and different algorithms for how much it "colours" the sound. It also avoids the "disappearing bass" problem by enabling you to leave the signal mono below a predefined frequency, and lets you boost it if you need to.

I'm not technically adept enough to explain all of its features (sorry). All I can say is that on my current tune, used subtly, it has slightly widened the mix to make room for the bass in the middle. Suddenly it all sounds better with minimal effort. There are some more extreme settings that might be useful in other contexts too.

For the next version, it would be great to see more frequency bands that could be processed independently. But as it stands it's a very useful plug.

Bottom line: it works, the price is excellent, and you may find it really helps breathe life into a mix. For a tenner of yer English money, you can't go wrong.

[EDIT - it has a decent PDF manual. I just haven't read it - haven't needed to so far.]

Now here's a nice little organ VSTi, not often mentioned but capable of some very nice sounds.

This is an electric organ, so none of your classic B3 / B4 noises are to be found. Instead, you get a variety of (often cheesy) organ sounds that sound a bit like an old home keyboard I owned in the 80s. Also reminds me a little bit of Combosister (although it's less versatile than that). Don't let that put you off, these sounds are often great for lead lines and can cut through a mix really well.

It comes with a small number of decent presets, but if you want more it's easy to create them. It has a "reverb" which is actually a delay on its "long" setting, you can't vary the speed of it beyond "short" and "long" (as far as I can tell) but again this is all reminiscent of those ancient home keyboards. If you want tempo-synced delay, you can always use any of the dozens of freebies out there in your host.

There's also tremolo, vibrato and "swirl" settings to manipulate the sound, plus simple "tone" controls.

I couldn't find a manual but honestly, you don't need one. The author is often to be found in the KvR forum in the unlikely event you need support. As for stability, there's been no hint of a problem yet.

All in all, a really nice little free synth that's genuinely useful. I really like it.

A quick review to support the last one! - I really like this little VSTi, it has a smooth sound and is extremely CPU friendly. It isn't right for everything - forget about rock tunes, for example - but in the right context it works extemely well. The author has a very good demo tune on his website which shows it off nicely.

Ratings...

User interface - it certainly isn't confusing and it's incredibly easy to use - it doesn't do anything!

Sound - very good in the right tune.

Features - there aren't any. Don't worry about it.

Docs - I think it has a basic readme, but to be honest you don't need any docs.

Presets - there's only 1, but it's good.

Customer support - disagree with the first review here, as it seems a bit harsh to criticise the author for not adding features on a free plug. The author often frequents these pages so at least he's there if you need his help to use it (you won't).

VFM - it's free!

Stability - never crashed.

Bottom line - it's free, it's very easy to use and in certain contexts it sounds great. What more can you ask?

Ok, first review time and for a plug that I like more and more. I've always wanted to use rhythm guitar in my songs, but I can't play a note and haven't time to learn. Virtual Guitarist looked fun, but at the end of the day it's all samples - and I wanted more flexibility. Slayer was pretty close, but you could only strum downwards and its amp modelling was a little variable. I despaired, until...

... enter Revitar. A simple interface (that sadly looks nothing like a guitar) hides tremendous "tweakability" and a cracking string sound. You can mute, damp the strings, damp using your "palm", change the tone of the strings... and best of all, strum a wide range of easily from your keyboard. All of these controls can be manipulated via MIDI, so if you work at it you can achieve some very realistic rhythms.

All of this is great, BUT... the real killer is to use it with an amp sim. As I can't afford Amplitube, that means Green Machine or JCM9000. Now we're cooking. Lovely distorted rhythm to chug along with your tracks. Combine this with high quality lead and bass guitar samples, add a dose of drums and away you go - your very own VSTi band.

It's cheap, it's great to use and it's a lot of fun. Highly recommended.