Product Reviews by KVR Members

Everything by Stefano Maccarelli is gold. This Kontakt library is no exception.
A playground for sound designers and composers. It's all about ambient, texture, cinematic and trailer sounds.

Watch this quick review and demo.

I am a big fan of Kickdrum, so i think its time for a little review.

I am a Psytrance producer and i have replaced the Kicks in about 80% of my older Tracks with Kickdrum. For my new Tracks i will use Kickdrum exclusicely, because for me its way superior to Kick2.

Why ?

-The interface:
The interface is way more detailed and accurate. You can see exactly where your envelope-breakpoints are in the synthesis process (even in hz), and you get instant visual feedback with the spectogram.
The ability to Zoom in is especialy usefull for the shaping of the attack, the initial transient of the Kick.

-the engine
The envelope can have unlimited (never came to an end, at least a lot) breakpoints and every curve can be shaped in a complex, jet simple way.
The size of the Kick can also be defined in Beats (1/4,1/8...).
And now the hilight : You can define the END-phase of the Kick to perfectly align it with the Bassline, perfect !! (this really stands out, i have never seen something like this before...)
The EQ is also very good, very detailed editing is possible and it seems to work in linear phase mode.
There are no other FX, but thats not a downside for me, because i prefer external plugins anyway (I never liked the FX in other Kickdrum Plugins...).

Whats left to say?
Audija just revolutionized digital Kickdrum Synthesis, check it out.

I've been using the Windows VST on Linux with yabridge since Reaper does not support LADSPA. The GUI does not work, but I'm still able to get at the settings by using the UI tab.

Excellent at levelling audio for live streams and podcasts if you can work around the 35.375 ms of latency.

I wouldn't mind a VST3, LV2, or CLAP version of the plugin :).

emvoice one is an expressive vocal simulation tool that I am growing fond of but heaven forbid you encounter an error. As far as I have discovered, there is absolutely zero customer service/tech support --only referrals back to the Emvoice one manual.

there are no YouTube videos explaining troubleshooting either. So apparently, you are out of luck if you can not find resolution for your issue within the manual. Ive tried to contact customer service with no reply.

good product overall, but terrible customer relations. bad review because of that.

Extensive downloading process reveals product comes with zero free content. Huge waste of time unless you have a paid product in mind too.

Easy to use & sounds are nice.
The sounds are drowned in effects (Reverb), just click the FX off button.

Utopia can be used in other genres other than Trance.

The Pad sounds are very good.

Huge Rush fan looking for THAT bass synth sound for a LONG time. Found it here. It's sounds convincing all the way down to the natural modulation you get from a Taurus. Easily created my Rush presets, but then discovered it's a pretty good lead synth, too.

Bought this a while back and have taken advance of the Group Buys along the way. I have a TON of IK's plugins now; some I've never touched. However, I would buy them all over again for one single plugin that's included: The One. It's a simple compressor & EQ with only a few knobs. I'm no genius and still don't fully understand compression, but somehow, some way, I nailed the settings for The One, saved it as a preset, and have used it on EVERY song I've made over the last 5 years. The same preset, regardless of whether it's rock, synthwave, jazz, reggae, pop, electronic or whatever. I start a new project, throw The One on the master bus, call up my preset, and go to work. That's my process and it works. Get it.

Loved these so much, I bought a second set along with the carrying bag. So now I have my main studio, these hooked up to a kitchen iMac (now called Studio B, lol) and the second set on my desk at work (Studio C). Super easy to transport and set up in a hotel if you want to stay out of trouble while traveling. You're not going to get a lot of low end out of these, but that's not the purpose. They are VERY flat. I've mixed a lot of songs on these, listened back on my main studio monitors, and barely had to make corrections. And that's the point: They are really nice to mix with.

Since 2019, I've been using Impact Soundworks libraries almost exclusively. I own S2, S3, Stratus, Jupiter, Rogue, Serpent, Abyss, Hydra and Riffage. I stumbled on MusicLab while surfing YouTube, downloaded the demo, worked with it for a few days, and bought RealLPC and RealStrat without hesitation. It's just so much easier to use the key switches with MusicLab's stuff. Much more control and the articulations are more convincing. And the support is incredible. I had a question about legato during the demo, emailed MusicLab, and got a response within 24 hours along with a quick video to further explain the solution. I've since chatted with John before buying. Further, they have a TON of tutorials posted that include the source files, settings and MIDI. This is something I've not seen from anyone else. They have a new customer.