Product Reviews by KVR Members

Looks to me to be yet another remake, perhaps even just a repackage, of free and open source Paulstretch VST paulstretchX, which has more control over your results. Only value added is the ez interface that replaces user control with random seeded generation.

Guitarix is amazing. I just want to point out that that Mac and windows comparability comes with a giant asterisk. They are both branched from ancient forks of the source code and there are no binaries so you have to compile them for win and Mac, a task beyond the pale for most potential users. I did a double take when I saw Windows compatibility on kvr, but the label is misleading here.
As for the plugin on Linux, it is the best most versatile amp modeler out there and Linux, unlike windows, can actually do real time, so I have run guitarix on Linux on a computer from 2009 at 32 samples at 48kHz sample rate. To give some context, that means 0.67ms latency, which is like instantaneous with the speaker moved 8 inches further away from you. It is a whole different feel from using a 128 sample buffer.

https://youtu.be/xYf84JG3dHQ?si=jLKTnMSz9I8IB59O;
(Creating an AI Vox Chime Preset in Bias-X: Hogwarts and Hog Warts)
I have a love/hate relationship with the Bias Series (amp, fx, pedal, and now x), which I have used on both Windows and iOS since version 1.

Love:
• the ability to drill down to the component level in bias amp and pedal, even choosing at the chip and tube level, such as between germanium or silicon for your fuzz, or swapping out a 12ax7 for a cleaner 12au7 in a preamp.
• Use my own IRs.
• So for example I've been able to get pretty close to the as-yet-unmodelled ampeg Vt40 by retuning the components in the bias amp svt bass amp model.
• That level of drill-down is no longer available in X though, replaced with AI.

Hate:
• having to have an internet connection at random times. On windows especially, wifi and Bluetooth are best turned off or else everyone and their mother will see the middle of you session or gig as the perfect time to phone home and cause audio glitches. Fx2 has made me sign in while at a gig in a venue with no wifi. This is just stupid. There should be an offline method.
• Besides this, X bring in AI which has to be connected to use. Granted you can and should get your presets together and revert to hand-tweaking while recording or gigging, leaving you just with the sign in lotto, but it still means turning wifi back on when using the AI.
• CPU hog. Bias used a lot of resources and X uses way more -- double or triple, probably more like 5-6x, at least in my tests so far.
• Support: positive grid have a pattern of neglect, particularly concerning software. They release, maybe do an update or a few, then abandon.
Instabilities remain, crashes are left to avoid like software potholes, and things go obsolete, such as never bringing the iOS verions from Inter app audio to the better supported and more stable AU format, or optimizing CPU usage on desktop, practically a rite of passage for 1.x releases everywhere else.

Bias X AI gives mixed results.
• On one hand it did a good job of getting me a usable vox chime after a few rounds (see video), and it quickly nailed both guitar tones for the song "See No Evil" by the band Television,
• But,
uploading a guitar sample to the AI and trying to solve a fizz problem utterly failed.
• The AI has a poor memory from prompt to prompt. Instead of only wiping memory and starting over only on a new chat, it seemingly can't deal with feedback of the "not that but this" variety, writing a whole new unrelated preset instead of building on its own work. This does not seem to happen all the time, but a decent AI needs to be able to keep the current conversation in mind. It is like being in the movie Memento when it fails.
• There is no undo, and no chat history, so save what you want before quitting for the day or starting a new chat.
• Significant unreported latency (see video)
• No demo, just breathless marketing videos to listen to. Not a cheap new purchase or upgrade.

In sum, the AI morphs between fun, sometimes useful new method of getting the tone in your head out of your speakers, an unfinished mess, and a frustrating and nearly unusable gimmick.
I am, like Charlie Brown kicker, Lucy ball holder, forever hopeful it will work this time, so I dropped my money so I could tell you.

Lucy, I mean Positive Grid, I'll happily update this if and as problems are addressed and features are added.

Excuse my English plz! It is preferable to my Spanish! This plugin, a bass and bass drum synth along the lines of future audio's sublab but free just needs a few bug fixes and missing features to become oftop line plugin I would have loved to vote for in KVR DC 21, but the problems are dealbreakers for me...mayb a post-contst fix? Key trouble is that there are zero crossing problems with the signal processing that produce loud clicks that cannot be attributed or used as bass drum clicks. I thought tweaking the envelopes might clear the problem but I was unable to get clean results even with longer attack times on the filter and the amplitude. Missing features: a noise osc, glide/glissando, adjustable pitch bend settings so that I can get my controller to work with the synth's PB. I could not get my samples working in the sampler although they showed up in the graphics, and I think I am missing simething because samples seem to work fine in the presets. The signal flow is difficult to figure without a manual. I tried watching the vids, but my spanish was not good enough. Even a signal flow chart would be welcom. It alseo seems to me likke the sample button should be up top as a tab rather than in its own space, since all the other stuff up top uses the same space.This sounds super critical but it is not---all of these are fixable and I want to encourage the dev to do so (or show me what I am missing!), as the sounds that do come through, both on bass and on bass drum, have a lot of potential, and the synth looks like it has a lot of versatility, even perhaps beyond bass stuff, but I could not get to that because of the problems. Please keep at this one! Thanks and sorry to be a bit negative.

This is listed as no longer available, but version 3, a seriously excellent update, is available at Voxengo. Here is my demo of it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKKMolMmPeM The tone stack has been updated and the sound engine is a major upgrade from v1 and v2. Dynacab is a great new feature. One of the best free amps anywhere.

This is an interesting looking plugin and I liked the idea of an eq that does mid-side as it's main thing, but this is just a demo with copy protection of intermittent noise, So it is not free as advertised. Developer should change this was it will about many people demos are not free plugins.

Edited. :).

I try out the tec breath and bite controller on Dmitry Sches's Thorn CM synth in a chill/ambient MIDI Guitar piece. https://youtu.be/l7odPRhDoMA. Geek details at Way Music. Want just the music? It is on BandCamp. The instant feedback of controlling through the breath is strikingly intuitive, so I could bring things to the edge but back off before they spilled over into mayhem.

moved to BBC 2 page. Deleted here.It is a great controller, a blast to use. BIght Breath Nod Tilt all put out their own CCs.

Busta, KVR User Zoned's entry in the 2018 KVR Developer Challenge, gets a 7-minute Digital Guitarist workout of its "harmonic-series-based, instant-play, monophonic sampler for Windows."

https://youtu.be/f6Pn5DCz7WU

I did a 2 minute walkthrough of this fun vsti that comes just in time for Halloween.

https://youtu.be/5Rt8taKCRtQ