KVR Audio

BennyLucassi · Post by **BennyLucassi** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 7:07 pm

Mirko R. wrote:Wavetable and Sampleimport will be available soon for RAPID. Serum has no multisamples, only two oscs with max 256 Wavetable position and no interpolation between it, less FX, more aliasing (it's hard to create aliasing in RAPID).
Look at this review and try to compare it again. For me there is no reason for a discussion. RAPID is not only the winner,... RAPID plays in another league.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5eOjFdZeRg

this post isn't biased at all

izonin · Post by **izonin** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 8:12 pm

Serum for a Massive Silent Rabid Albino Rhino?

JonSolo · Post by **JonSolo** » Tue Nov 08, 2016 3:54 am

wag.jpg

sacer · Post by **sacer** » Tue Nov 08, 2016 8:43 am

i prefer serum, it has some special sounds wich are going through my mix.
If you are not on edm like me, than you can't use most of the dance and trance presets of rapid, so i would find only some usefull presets. And the presets in this synth are elementary because I don't think that there are 2GB wavetables

The sound qualitiy of rapid and serum are both amazing but I can compensate rapid with tone2, nexus and dune2, for serum i have no alternative plugin. Also the avenger doesn't look like my goto plug, i prefer more analog sims like repro or the legend and for my techno style serum fits in. I payd for serum half price with edu discount. For the half price i also would buy rapid. It is a good sounding synth, but so much money I would spend only for special synths like omnisphere and falcon, which have for me a bether value of the money. Like Falcon has endless flexibility of creating sounds.
But if your purpose is dance, trance and edm than rapid could be a bether solution than serum, spire or some ohter synths.

recursive one · Post by **recursive one** » Tue Nov 08, 2016 8:59 am

sacer wrote:i prefer serum, it has some special sounds wich are going through my mix.
If you are not on edm like me, than you can't use most of the dance and trance presets of rapid, so i would find only some usefull presets. And the presets in this synth are elementary because I don't think that there are 2GB wavetables

Rapid comes with about 260 wavetables and has enough flexibility to build any sound you want. I see the sampled content as a kind of "bonus" but in the essence it is a full-blown wavetable synth. Also you can use these multisamples as basic building blocks for new patches as well. I don't rely much on presets in any synth but making the sounds I need in Rapid is really fast.

As for Serum, I love the flexibility and it has nice clear GUI but something in its sound allways put me off. In case of Rapid it was an instant crush when I've heard how it sounds

Ohlson_M · Post by **Ohlson_M** » Sat Dec 10, 2016 11:31 pm

xamido wrote:With Serum i don't feel like stabbing my eyes.

Yeah, the GUI of RAPID looks like it´s from 2004 or something, but maybe with some sunglasses you can cope

In terms of sound, I think Serum pretty much is all you need. The envelopes, the filters...and the wavetables everything sounds incredible. With that said, it is still nice to have some alternative synths to come to every now and then and RAPID definitely is a very very capable synth worth spending time with. If you only had RAPID you could probably still create all the sounds you need, pretty much. With it´s 8 layers(!) there are so many possibilities, compared to Serum´s two oscillator sections.

I don´t think it replaces Serum, it´s in its own league, BUT it is so damn high quality that buying both is a very good deal. Sometimes buying both is the best choice.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Sat Dec 10, 2016 11:42 pm

Orbit-50 wrote:I love the way people think that 200 plus dollars is way too much for a synth plugin. Baffling. Maybe the day will come when the government passes the "Affordable Plugins Act" for those people, but for now...

On the other hand... my DAW costs 400 €. When i buy 2 plugins which cost 200 €, i would have paid the same as for my DAW. Imagine you have a whole (hardware) studio. Do you pay the same for 2 instruments, than you paid for your studio? I know, it's software, and maybe hard to compare, but, it's really hard to justify that for me. These VST instruments are simply damn expensive. And, yes, noone has to buy them, you're right. Yet, expressing why i, or other people don't buy them, seems fine to me. Actually, for the intro price which some people got by contributing to the Rapid thread, it would surely have been considerable for me (if the feature set and sound blew me away, which it hasn't). For 200 € plus, no way for me. Just my 2c.

I wouldn't consider Serum for that price either. Maybe, just maybe with the rent to own option from Splice. But, i'm paying 189 € the one or the other way. KV331 Audio shows with Synthmaster that a synth doesn't have to be THAT expensive to make enough cash.

Yorrrrrr · Post by **Yorrrrrr** » Sat Dec 10, 2016 11:43 pm

Serum somehow sounds cold and sterile to me. On the other hand, Rapid sounds better, but the GUI is horrid. So..neither is good enough.

Ohlson_M · Post by **Ohlson_M** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 12:05 am

The Rapid GUI could have been a lot better, at least in terms of colors. But the layout is actually very functional, the workflow within Rapid is quick.

I had the same problem with Synthmaster before, the GUI stopped me from using it, but once you get over it and focus on the sound, it is a beast.

Echoes in the Attic · Post by **Echoes in the Attic** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 6:08 am

Serum has polyphonic aftertouch and rapid does not. So if you like to play pads expressively, that probably matters. I wouldn't buy a synth without polyAT, as I don't want to go back to play pads where the attack is predetermined and the same for all notes.

Orbit-50 · Post by **Orbit-50** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 7:16 am

chk071 wrote:
Orbit-50 wrote:I love the way people think that 200 plus dollars is way too much for a synth plugin. Baffling. Maybe the day will come when the government passes the "Affordable Plugins Act" for those people, but for now...
On the other hand... my DAW costs 400 €. When i buy 2 plugins which cost 200 €, i would have paid the same as for my DAW. Imagine you have a whole (hardware) studio. Do you pay the same for 2 instruments, than you paid for your studio? I know, it's software, and maybe hard to compare, but, it's really hard to justify that for me. These VST instruments are simply damn expensive. And, yes, noone has to buy them, you're right. Yet, expressing why i, or other people don't buy them, seems fine to me. Actually, for the intro price which some people got by contributing to the Rapid thread, it would surely have been considerable for me (if the feature set and sound blew me away, which it hasn't). For 200 € plus, no way for me. Just my 2c.

I wouldn't consider Serum for that price either. Maybe, just maybe with the rent to own option from Splice. But, i'm paying 189 € the one or the other way. KV331 Audio shows with Synthmaster that a synth doesn't have to be THAT expensive to make enough cash.

Fair enough, but I would just like to share with you that a large part of my opinion is based on the fact that I have lots of hardware from my earlier days and let me tell you something... people think software costs a lot? Just a tiny example, I have an Akai S6000 fully loaded which I paid upwards of $3700.00 when it was just released. That's just one piece. I have many other items which I paid tons of money for. For what you can achieve with just one piece of VST software today for a measly $200.00 is astounding compared to what your dollar bought years ago. I cherish my hardware, but that shit was expensive! This is why I see things the way I do. I am sure there are many other old skoolers on this forum who see this the same way I do because they were around and went through the same thing. There are probably many who still shell out that kind of lettuce on hardware today. They'll show you what expensive is. It's all how one looks at it I guess.

Taurus · Post by **Taurus** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 8:19 am

This is a totally wrong calculation. My pc has much more power as supercomputer from the past therefore I wouldn't pay more for today's computers. A hardware device is crafted and software is "only" an engineering task. The components from your old Akai S6000 whatever sampler where the main costs of the production.

Music software is often overpriced in my opinion. All plugin stuff for more than 100 bucks is not in my radar range. Company's like Cockos, Togu Audio Line can exists without high priced products, but there products have a high quality. So it is possible to produce great software for less than 100 bucks.

C-note · Post by **C-note** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 10:02 am

Serum is way better than Rapid for me as no sound will come out of Rapid -- on my Mac

Who makes a premium instrument these days and doesn't include OS-X? Ugh!

starflakeprj · Post by **starflakeprj** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 10:13 am

To put my 2 cents in this conversation (regarding pricing of software, or any product for that matter). A product's value is exactly as much as the consumer is willing to pay for it. It doesn't mean that everyone thinks it worth the money, of course, but as long as "enough" people are buying the software, there is no reason for the developer to lower the price.

I'm also sure about the fact that it's the honest consumers who are the ones who finances software piracy, by paying for either the "pre-calculated" loss of software piracy, or for the developing of a trusty anti-piracy layer within the software, like for instance iLok.

I don't know where I was going with this, sorry

Restless · Post by **Restless** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 10:42 am

Taurus wrote:This is a totally wrong calculation. My pc has much more power as supercomputer from the past therefore I wouldn't pay more for today's computers. A hardware device is crafted and software is "only" an engineering task. The components from your old Akai S6000 whatever sampler where the main costs of the production.

Music software is often overpriced in my opinion. All plugin stuff for more than 100 bucks is not in my radar range. Company's like Cockos, Togu Audio Line can exists without high priced products, but there products have a high quality. So it is possible to produce great software for less than 100 bucks.

Now this post reveals complete ignorance on both your points. You haven't a clue on what's involved in PCB design, testings and manufacturing, have you? You probably think software engineers work for free, and have no family to feed, no mortgages, no expenses, etc.., and that testing and debugging software is not time consuming. It's probably some kind of instantaneous magic that just happens. Components are almost irrelevant compared to everything else.

As for software being "only" a engineering task, well, refer to the above. How much are, let's say, 2000 hours of your life worth?

Serum vs Rapid