Product Reviews by KVR Members

I have had specter for a while now and since day one it has been a godsend. The sound quality is top. basically everything in it is linear phase so the eq is clean and really nice for cuts that what I use it for.

the dynamic section on this thing is just way to great to talk about fully in a short review. basically think dynamic eq that is linear phase with diforent styles of control you can ether have it so each band has its own setting or just use the everything with the same settings on the dynamic control. also the added ability to use the side chain as a vocoder is always cool.

the stereo section is just awesome basically its a eq that controls stereo width just think on that and you can think of the millions of possibilities. the section that really is just super cool is the spectral limiter. its a very smooth very clean way of helping even out the overall frequencies of the mix or track without making it sound unnatural or over worked. It works best to help clean out some muddy low end and tame harsh frequencies.

the limiter at the end honestly I dont really use ha it sounds great but I just like using a seporate limiter that I found that works amazingly well. but this limiter is very good to the only problem I have is that there is no control of what you are limiting to and when it starts limiting. this in no way really hurts the limiter but its more like you have to feel what you think is the perfect setting and some times im lazy haha.

now basically the controls at first may be confusing but the info on the site and Quintos amazing ability to deal with my constant nagging about not knowing something really helped me get a good strong hold of this beast of a plugin.

there are no presets and the info is on the site no Manuel but in reality something like this should not have presets maybe a manual but after you get the hang of it its super easy to use.

what i think the best aplications for this are ether in a mastering setting or when you really need to do some massive eq stereo control and maybe some spectral repair on a track. This plugin uses a hefty amount of CPU for older computers but in reaper it handled it very well. basically top quality the GUI is dated but the quality is right up there with the price haha.

I give this a 10 for sound quality and creative options. GUI I personaly really like because its simple not pretty so I just get to work thinking about the music and listening not looking at what looks cool.

this thing sounds AMAZING true inter sample limiting with a variety of modes to be honest the inter sample is all i downloaded it for because i have a favorite limiter but I did a final limiting with this and noticed with all the components like the hi frequency limiting and mid side compression I got the signal louder with almost no dynamic loss with true limiting.

now there are a Million problems for one its clunky feels like its laggy when you turn the knobs it freezes the meters and they are not smooth they seem to almost jolt to the next value. and the meters are not very smooth at times. the compressor i would like to have a threshold.

I know it sounds like a lot of problems but its a free plugin and to be honest it sounds like something i would expect to pay a few hundred bucks its very smooth clean dynamic and true inter sample limiting. i would give this a full 10 on sound alone but the interface and laggy glitched feel it has makes me want to use it as my just in case after my other limiter. but if those problems where fixed it would be perfect i plan on donating to the guy its worth money I can tell you that

again full 10 on sound quality

interface gets a 5

so a 8 because i can use it i love it and im willing to pay money for it but its just not fully ready I feel.

something to keep in mind for some reason only the ugly gui one was showing up in my reaper so i might have to rename it or something

[Edit]

okay so i got the better looking one to work i did the exact same settings it is a little easier to get the settings and i like the meters alot more. i got them both at exact same settings and notice they did not null to inf actually slight slight levels still came out when listening i found they have a slight different sound the ugly one has a more dynamic clear sound like you just boosted the levels keeps it very clean and clear.

the better gui has more of a thicker sound like it adds harmonics it was not as dynamic but sounded full and warm I say they both are amazing but still need work on the Gui working smoother all in all both the limiters sound different and are both amazing.

I have had this for a while now actually I bought all of the klanghelm plugins when the big brother of this compressor came out I love that one best comp I have heard in its class.(I mean class by it can basically do anything clean dirty sound like shit or transparent and limit)

Like the person before me I find this thing a gem free looks cool sounds really punchy or smooth depending on the mode you choose.

What I like best is its stable and sounds great with only one button and a volume knob.I actually started using it as one of my go to compressors for stuff that I want to dirty up or just tame if its to dynamic(drums or vocals)

Its a very simple yet powerful beast of a Plugin that I really really enjoy using. Also it has 0 latency so if your tracking you can use it.

In my opinion it sounds great and really gets stuff to sound beefed up or smoothed out depending one what mode you use.

keep in mind no other controls than what you see the Vu meter shows gain reduction and there is no limiter control or wet dry but still its a great peace of work.

There are two modes one has a more dirty compresses sound the other more of a clean sound enough said its free and works on windows mac 32 64 bit. Just download it and if you love it get the big one its even better

So on audiomidi com there is a crazy sale for 20 bucks for this thing right now. I am a guitar player. To add to it I hate products that replace a real person.

with all of that said let me tell you this thing KICKS ASS it sounds amazing. and works really well. its kinda a thing that I hate and love about it jsut the MIDI that comes with it is pretty cool.

now some of the presets are not bad some are great and some are crap. one thing is this is kind of hard to figure out at first. after about 20 minuets I had this thing down though. as far as the sound of effects on em its pretty okay the reverbs and stuff are okay but i like the stuff i already have much better.

I think what really kicks ass is when you set this baby to one of the DI presets and tweak it then load up a amp sim you get such a good sound. and at times yes it sounds like a real guitar.

I notice that the strumming is amazing up down fast slow a weird combo of em it does em just fine. Also the choking on the strings and palm mutes sound great. I also thing the vibrato and hammer on parts are pretty good to.

Overall I say it sounds great works great and actually does what it says it does.

the only things i really find is that its hard to get it right when you first get it. and the effects that it comes with are not the best but still pretty decent.

[Edit]

okay the morning after i wrote the review i noticed something.

To be honest the only thing I can say is I get this bug that I'm sure will be fixed soon where in reaper when I switch it to strum and then press play I get a crash every time that is the only reason it does not get a higher score overall it turned it from something that i think would be like a 9.5 to about a 7.5. the sound and tonal quality is soo good though that i think a 7 is just unfair for one bug. but it can not give it a 10 because with that bug I am left with part of the product unavailable to me

[Final edit]

okay so I got a great quick response from support and they gave me a hotfix to fix the problem and now everything works. just adding great customer service

I have been really getting into trying to use my toneboosters plugins more and more and one that I really like is this one. its very easy to get some pretty cool effects with from phase sounds to echos delays. and even some added depth to parts of the spectrum. basically all I can really say is like all the stuff from toneboosters that I use often I really like this.

there are some things that sometimes confused me at first, like the modulation matrix. I did not really know how it worked and still kinda don't. I just mess with it till I get what i was looking for XD

its sound quality is good overall I can get what I'm looking for pretty easy just pick a preset and then customize it to what I really wanted. As far as the type of sound It has Is pretty cool. I noticed that the whole sound of this thing can change like night and day depending on the settings of how you cut off some frequencies or mess with others.

I would not say its a super super super smooth tape delay but its a clean or dirty no nonsense delay that gets the job done and is one of my few go to delays.

basically its great on the CPU

looks cool

very well priced and super high quality

and no lag

I would say its overall a great little plugin with a great sound and fits in well with my 2 other delays that I like and use all the time.(I like to limit my option)

I bought this bundle and the reelbus tape plugin when reelbus came out.

So far the whole bundle has surprised me the quality is really high they are all stable and low CPU hit. Now with this thing I would say its not the best DeEsser around but it works great and sounds very natural. basically you have sensitivity and how much you remove those are the only controls that really matter. You pyt to listen and sweep away find whats going wrong usually the 50 50 setting they are at sound just fine. the thing is I don't own A million plugins. I like going for minimum and at the time i thought well its a huge bundle for cheep I can use this. I am very happy with it but wish for maybe a larger spectrum of frequencies that it can sweep.

Over all not really any down sides its a DeEsser and its cheep and you get a great bundle of core plugins that anyone would love to have. I already have a great eq and tape delay but the delay I still use alot. adn everything else is very usable I might get the loudness meter If they make is to I can see the dynamic range on it like that free one from that site (I forgot what its called brainworks makes one like it) Overall thought Stable low CPU hit great quality and cheep.

the only real down is it does not have as large a spectrum as some other DeEssers its not that its small its just some times there is some noise I'm to lazy to eq out XD

I would say buy the darn thing if you need a great little bundle of bread and butter plugins for cheep. Just remember they are quality so you wont be sad after you spend the small amount of money

I am going to start out by saying this. I am not very big into synths. I would say 89% of my synths are free because I just use em to adding something in a mix or if there is a space left open and It really needs to be filled i use a synth usually only like a piano or some pads or just a kick and snare with a high hat.

right off the bat I had a problem that was not really a problem.(I know that dose not make sense I will elaborate) Okay so what I really liked about this synth is its also a VST so I wanted to try out how it would song on some audio stuff that i wanted to use the arpagiator section of this on. nothing no audio output,MIDI input still played fine but audio would not work. I contacted the developer I think and I was advised to update and set up the osc 1 to audio input and note C3 I think. after updating it worked like a charm.

Now the other thing is I always have to do that thought not a big problem but would be nice to have a lock on sections (hint)

now on to the sound. This thing is pretty much like a muti tool of synths and effects does it all basically arpatiator bass kicks and some really really nice high hats. and a Million other things the setup seems limited to the user. Like the guy before me I agree not all the presets are great but I found a few good jems that I love to use.Another thing that is nice is that you can connect the the online library of presets and use those and they are nice as hell.

I found that the vocoder on this thing was amazingly nice very very happy with it And even made some synth vocals just for fun. Just to say I did it and they ended up being used in that mix I was doing. the whole way to get around this beast is pretty confusing at first like really confusing. I find myself clicking randomly at times. But after a while you get the hang of it and really get to see the really high quality sounds that this thing can come up with.

What I find are its strong points is the extremely large preset library, the ability to change ANYTHING, and the way that its kind of a jack of all sounds and effects. I can go from bells to loud piercing noises to authentic sounding high hats (I really really like the high hats). The CPU is pretty good considoring that im on a laptop now and I have yet to have it crap out on me with this and the way you can customize the way it looks is very cool.

Overall I would give it a full 10 On sound quality but have to give is a 9 because of the way that I have to update it and constantly change settings if i want to use actual audio with presets.

the things I think could be nice A way to lock section that would effects what the plugin would read as far as MIDI or audio. And I would have to say maybe a limiter just in case Because some presets I notice seem to peak at unity gain and I sometimes have to pull the fader way down.

I would say the few faults of this plugin are easy to fix and not really going to effect your work flow.

The quality and vast number of things you can create with this plugins are just amazing I don't use alot of synths so having a all in one FX and MIDI possessor is just a must have, not to mention the great customer service.

I bit the bullet and bought this a few days ago.

Honestly I like my other console emulations better for effect. But the nice filters and the really subtle effect with the good gain control kinda have me at a sorta happy spot. I used it on a project and thought it was okay but blended with my other console emulations and things got really nice really quick. I had the console bypassed just used the filters and gain. the bus part I did use pretty nice overall i would give it a 9 because of the quality looks and low CPU hit.

The saturation is very subtle but I do like the idea of a little goes a long way. The only problem I have with it is I notice a loss of low end when I try to get it to saturate just a little more. This can be expected but its a pretty noticeable when on bass heavy stuff and ends up not really helping so I like using it when I just need a small effect that my other console emulations and tape emulations just are to strong for if that makes any sense.

Over all I would say really really nice filters, It looks mega cool and the meters are just so nice. the gain control with the filters are my favorite things about this one. And I do not see my self wanting to ask for my money back even though i have other emulation that i prefer because its a great product and some times that really subtle effect but subtle does add up in a nice way and its really good when combed with something else.

EDIT:alright I edited and re rated this because after a few good full mixing projects I used it in just to say really used it. I found the filters amazing I am really loving the filters and personally find them to be high enough quality to warrant liking this plugin.

I used to use pro tools M powerd then got a focusrite pro 40 and went to cubase that my girl got me as a gift. I really liked it as far as how it handled latency and MIDI but i don't do a lot of MIDI stuff.

Now a little while ago I had water damage in my studio my main computer and my I loc died now im on a laptop 2.3 ghz old I7 with 8 gigs of RAM. so I switched to reaper so far Its what I did not like in cubase but I lacks a few things.

overall if you get over the customizations and just use it to get some music done you cant complain. often fanboys just like all the stuff you can do.

The problems that I come across With using this DAW can be considered minor and major for who uses it. For one The MIDI control on reaper is not what you would consider the best in any way. Its overall control of MIDI is fine but its ability to make it easy and quick are just lacking. I dont have to use MIDI much because of the styles I mix and I usually just get sent tracks to mix so when i do need a synth its basic minor stuff so the controls are not a huge issue but sometimes I want it to be more indepth.

the other problem i notice is this high latency makes reaper crap out when i use alot of high latency stuff on a project say a combo of like my verbtone my stripbus on every channel and a instance of specter on the reverb channel I notice it kinda starts to crap out. cubase does not do that. I wish i was willing to get a new i loc but I dont have a million usb inputs to spare so I would rather not. so im stuck with reaper.

personally if they could fix those two things i would give it a ten I have gotten alot more work done alot quicker and alot easier because of its basic set up I like to think of things as do what works not what everyone else does keep it simple mix in mono use eq and compression to separate and some reverb or delay to give depth and your good so reaper is perfect for me. sometimes though i need some MIDI and sometimes.

all in all though its a bang for a good buck I use it not thinking of the price or look but on what i can do with it and so far its great glad i have it and I probably will not switch to anything else I love supporting smaller developers like sknote, klanghelm, eareckon, and cockos all of them great great developers and I do love the stillwell plugins that reaper has. I plan on buying a lot of those because of using reaper so that's another great product i hope to soon own. but bills and living in LA are not cheep ha but yea great program some small things that really are not to much of a problem. And usually things get resolved quick with reaper its got a huge do what the fans want kind of feel to it and for me its just right.

I really love this compressor for its versatility and its vintage sound and feel can sound ugly as hell or just smooth and clean. I really just like the look the feel and the way I can really just dial in perfect settings.

it sounds great looks cool performs really well nothing much to say I love it. I got it about a month after it first came out last version i noticed a weird click on limiter mode but that is gone on this update so yea on that nice job. and the Vu meter he has is dope i use it all the time gives me a quick nice way to see how my music is feeling since I tend to mix at a low level.