Product Reviews by KVR Members

A great subgen!
It can like a lot of other subgenerators certainly be very brutal - but I'm very pleased to use it on acoustic material that lacks a little bottom. Because it works with four frequency bands that can be quite narrow (or wide and even overlapping), you can add just that little extra that brings out a double bass or a bass drum in the mix without the sounds feeling artificial or dominant.
In addition, you can tame the sub frequencies with a smart compressor plus the plug has a saturation drive.
The music I work with doesn't require the thunderous, brutal dance bass, so none of the other sub generators have really appealed to me. But this one brings out the acoustic feel from a recording that's a bit too bass-poor. After testing the plug for a couple of days, I bought it.

Brief description - a collection of TC Electronics' famous guitar pedals. 'nuff said.

TC has, as far as I can tell, succeeded in recreating the old pedals in a good way. I once owned the Chorus and Phaser pedals that I used for my Rhodes, unfortunately both were stolen...
But the plugins recreate the sound in a superb way - I have had the opportunity to compare with an old recording. So for everyone who liked TC's sound - a collection of legends in plugin format.

Vintage Guitar Pedal Bundle includes:

Stereo Chorus+ Flanger Native features chorus, pitch modulation and flanger modes.

Booster+ Distortion Native features clean with boost with EQ and distortion with EQ modes.

TC XII Phaser Native features smooth and thick phaser goodness with 4 / 8 / 12 filters.

Dual Equalizer Native features turbo-charged EQ for sculpting perfect tone.

Sustain+ Equalizer Native features endless sustain with sophisticated EQ.

The Mastering HD Native Bundle contains both Brickwall HD (a limiter) and Master X HD Native (a multiband compressor/expander/limiter).

Both are very good sounding and have fine presets right out of the box. Easy to tweak from subtle to dramatic. Not processor hungry. Recommended.

The Midas 3000 is one of the standard consoles in the PA context and TC Electronic has done a good job as far as I can tell. Sounds good, uses little processing power, is stable - what more could you ask for?

Danish TC Electronic has made a name for itself with high-end products and these four plugins are no exception.
The Icon Series Legacy Native Bundle contains the following plugins:

TC 2290 Legendary Dynamic Delay, a magnificent software version of TC Electronic's iconic delay from 1985.
TC 1210 Unique Spatial Expander, an equally iconic effect from 1987
TC 8210 Classic Mixing Reverb, a reverb with some classic algorithms from the R4000
DVR 250 Digital Vintage Reverb, some algorithms from the System 6000 based on the EMT 250.

All four plugs sound exquisite. Luxurious effects where the TC 1210 stands out as a shimmering guitar effect, a favorite of Andy Summers and Alan Lifeson, and TC 2290 who was made immortal by The Edge. Add to this a wealth of clear and warm room tones from the 6000 series. Yum. I was once lucky enough to play around with a hardware version of the TC6000, a legendary device that is something of a dream in recording studios.

When KVR had the plugs on sale I couldn't resist, and they fulfilled my expectations 100%.

Besides the sound and well-balanced presets, the effects are economical with computing power. Highly recommended.

A bit outdated, I think it was released in 2007. This is noticeable in several ways, but especially around nuance. What was top of the line almost 20 years ago feels old-fashioned today, especially when it comes to the nuances of music. A lot has happened since 2007 and it's noticeable that time hasn't stood still when using functions from newer libraries...

The quality between different sounds is also somewhat uneven, especially when it comes to dynamics. The three accordions are good - dynamics and nuances play less of a role there. For cimbalom and guitars, the age is somewhat noticeable, OK but not much more. Very good function in a mix, but hardly a solo instrument. Same goes for the violin.

On the positive side, the Opus engine is unusually low on CPU and GPU resource on a modern computer, so many of the sounds in Gypsy can be great starting points for experimentation.

Quite affordable as "bread and butter for European traditional music" on a sale price but hardly at full price. I think East-West would benefit from either making fairly radical updates to its older libraries or ensuring that prices are always lower to attract customers to its more modern libraries. East-West has the option to do a trial subscription for all products where you can fill a larger hard drive. Then you can pick the icing on the cake for the libraries you really need. That's good.

Several decades ago, I had the privilege of playing a little on Yamaha's flagship, the CS-80. The price made it impossible to buy, but in connection with a recording session, I was given access to a copy for a few days. My experience was the CS-80's musical softness, an almost magical shimmer while at the same time it could be somewhat brutal, especially certain bass sounds.

There are several nice software emulations of the CS-80 - but there is some harshness in some bread and butter sounds in most of them. When XILS-Labs' version came out, I downloaded the trial version and fell in love with it immediately. Almost perfect!

In short - this is IMHO currently probably the best emulation of a CS-80, especially when it comes to the typical shimmering sound. Unfortunately, it's not that cheap (but significantly more affordable than the original!), but if you're looking for the typical CS 80 sound, you should definitely lend it an ear.

So some final thoughts - very nice GUI, crystal clear, five stars.

But the positive also comes with a price in terms of computing power. I have a pretty sharp Mac Pro, but if you don't have plenty of RAM and a good processor you should definitely test before buying.

Harrison Micro Glide is a very nice HQ chorus. It's especially nice applied to make a subtle chorus effects as it don't gives so much treble artifacts. But it is pricey when not on sale.

Fatter than Santa.

This virtual synth sounds like the rumblin' thunderin' bass from a Moog Modular on steroids. No need to say more...

... except that it can easily become dominant in the soundscape, so it is important that you know what you are doing.

In addition, the fat sound comes with a price - it draws significant resources from the CPU. Not extreme, I have other virtual instruments or effects that load the computer just as much, but you probably shouldn't run this if you don't have a powerful enough processor. The advice is -Try before buy! If the computer can handle it, Mariana is a fantastic plug.

Five stars but the last ones shine dimly because of this.

A nice plugin if you want to really manipulate the sound from, for example, an electric guitar. It ranges from subtle effects to wild, far-out sounds. If I don't find it on sale, it's unfortunately quite pricey. But you get what you pay for - the sound is MOOG.