Product Reviews by KVR Members

I am so utterly blown away by the immense depth and ridiculous amount of power presented in XWOFIII that I do not even know where to start dribbling over this beast.

A few things I can tell you after 20 minutes of playing and being swept away by this new VST...

XWOFIII is without doubt, without question, without even so much of a snickle of an iota of a particle's tiniest quark, the absolute MOST AMAZING SYNTHEDIT CREATION EVER, PERIOD. THIS IS IT. It's all downhill for SynthEdit creations from here folks. XWOFIII is the apex of SynthEdit's abilities. You think I want to say that? Hell no! I'm in this business too. But the truth is the truth, and XWOFIII is KING, broken hearts and all. Neutral

XWOFIII is also, without doubt, without question, without any clever metaphorical crap I could spew the most amazing algorithmic music creation device ever. EVER. I have tried every single algorithmic music doo-hickery doo-dad there is out there my friends, and nothing, (no, sorry Rurik) nothing compares to this. XOWFII creates better music on the fly than 90% of all electronic musicians I've ever heard. If you want endless electronic new-wave / new-age albums for your own listening pleasure, all you need is XWOFIII. I can see many nights of letting XWOFIII just run in the background whilst I traverse the bowels of the net. tsk tsk tsk

XOFIII's GUI has an integrated help system that is GENIUS. Pure genius. Yet I must say why HG neglected to include rudimentary tool-tips is a mystery. Regardless, the integrated picture-reference tutorial built in had me up and running and fully comprehending XWOFIII in a matter of about five minutes. Bravo. Also the GUI is very easy to navigate, very easy on the eyes, and 100% non-confusing. I don't wear hats, but if I did, I'd take all of them off towards Vera, she's a QUEEN. I'm sure HG had plenty to do with the layout, so the others hats off to him as well.

Anything else I can say beyond all of that would be only specific little things that would bore you unless you were using XWOFIII yourself.

If you are in NEED at all of an algorithmic music creation device, THIS is it. If you aren't, XWOFIII is much, much more than just that.

hyper Thumbs Up! hyper

Look, whether or not you care what "Jack Dark" has to say, if you only garner one single thing from this post, let it be this:

You would be a fool, yes, a FOOL to not at least try XWOFIII out and experience the most amazing VST I have ever used in my entire five years of VST usage.Read Review

When it comes to the creation of synthesizers, there are engineers, and there are artists. Mr. Hager is the latter. He creates synthesizers totally unlike anything else other there, and they truly are "magic music machines" just as his site proclaims. His newest offering, Protoplasm, continues the tradition of innovative and amazing "Fortune" synths, and enhances it as well.

ProtoPlasm is indeed a pad & texture synth... to the depth of which one wouldn't initially imagine. Initially one might think Protoplasm is too similar to STS-17, or WOF-II (previous amazing Fortunes synths), but enough digging through the presets will prove otherwise. There are lots of new waveforms sampled by HG himself from his own synthesizers (the man has a -real- FIZMO, for starters...). The massive amount of presets available (500+ in the Pro version!) would keep almost anyone busy enough. You'll spend hours just getting lost in the sounds that come straight out of the box.

However, for the discerning synthesist, making your own patches is a must, and this is where the sheer brevity of aural-creative power reveals itself within this synth. Programming Protoplasm is a dream, the GUI layout is simple, thanks to SynthEdit pixel-shaman Vera Kinter's excellent handywork. The oscillators are easy to control, with nice touches like individual volume control and the ability to offset the octave range by +2/-2 max. Each oscillator can be modulated by individual sources as well, which leads to instant transvariable soundscapes. Best of all, with the Pro version, you can load your own .WAVs into them for PCM madness. This ingenious idea ensures that even if you exhausted the possibilites of the 50 standard waveforms, you could still have an unending source of new inspiration... try loading in samples of Protoplasm into itself, for example. :D The filter section works well and is standard, except for the fact that you can perform 'adjustable boosts', which I think should be standard in all synth filters for now on. The LFOs all work very well and are thankfully, SHAPEABLE. Something overlooked far too often in most synths (the sample and hold's shapeable too!). To top it all off you have pannable elements intertwined into the ADSR, which leads to nice stereo freakout effects, and of course, a quite venerable delay section. All of these features are grand indeed, but the ultimate esoteric weapon Protoplasm employs is it's -LFO Modulation Stepper-. Yes, a step-sequenced LFO for modulating the oscillators! This technique is quite innovative indeed, and lends to constantly evolving sound which can morph and wobble and ooze all around you, which makes creating atmospheric sounds criminally easy. ;)

For around $50 US you can buy the Pro version, and if you have any interest at all in atmospheric/pad sounds, you would be a fool to pass this synth up. It is easily the most amazing synth at what it does I've ever heard, hard or soft, and I plan to incorporate this and many other Fortune synths into my future albums extensively. Mr. Hager is an absolute sonic genius as far as I'm concerned (the man devised an algorithmic music generation system based off astrology that actually worked, for example). He is also quite possibly the most powerful SynthEdit guru in the world. Bold statements true, but after you've experienced his works, you may just find you not only agree, but your credit card does too.Read Review

From the depths of the deepest darkest bog, rising from the steam and rot of a thousand years of murkiness... SWAMP. This synth is the sound of hesitancy, regret, sweaty brow worry, white knuckles... and morbid fear. These are the emotions that will come to your soul when you browse through the presets of SWAMP. I see visions of System Shock, SHODAN closing in... Rusted fields of crumbling iron, with the last flesh annihilator roaming for the lost child. Never before has a synth brought so many feelings and images directly to my speakers, with such minimal effort. Folks, Trent Reznor would of killed for this synth in 1994.

But how does it work? How does this aptly named "Magic Music Machine" work it's powers? To be honest, I don't completely know. It apparently uses the "Advance Wave-Transistion" method of synthesis like it's brother the Space Transistion Synthesizer-17 (also by HG Fortune and fantastic, known as "STS-17" usually). From what I gather it runs various PCM-Waves through its dual oscillator system. In turn, each oscillator is manipulated in real time by their own independant (and sometimes shared) set of modulation and filters; such things as "S&H1Sync", "LFO1 & LFO2 sync" , and other stuff like "Modulation Timbre". There are plenty of parameters to get lost in, you can spend hours just tweaking SWAMP; always finding new sounds constantly. But if programming's not for you, there are 3 LAZY?! buttons that each control various parts of the synthesizer. Pressing them randomly will initialize new sounds in SWAMP consistently, with minimal effort. But if that's too much work even, SWAMP comes with a vast library of presets to match any horrific atmosphere you desire.

As with all of HG Fortune's synths, SWAMP is a powerhouse of innovations and unique sound. The GUI is logical, the stability grand, and the implementation unmatched. And best of all, the price is so ridiculously low that almost anyone can afford to buy the full version (I did, and I'm a cheap bastard). If you need dark atmosphere, pads, or even decrepit shreaking leads, you would be a fool to pass this synthesizer up. It's a masterpiece of bitkit by a VST genius.Read Review

I'd been looking for a synthesizer to create vast soundscapes, especially dark menacing ones. Something that had evolving sound, not just a static pad. And with all that, something you didn't need a PHD in synthesis to wrangle sound from. I figured if such a thing did exist, it would probably cost at least $500, and would most likely be hardware. It all seemed like just a dream.

Well, STS-17 is the synth of my dreams.

Advanced Wave-Transistion, I'd never heard of it... not to mention the 120+ different waves it uses (with names like Waterflow, Jungle, MetalHit etc.) to create moving oceans of sound. This technique allows STS-17 to create worlds folks. (One of my favorite things to do is just sit back, close my eyes, and get lost in the soundscapes. ) The technology implored uses gobs of knobs, with names like "pstime", "transition", "shift", and even weirder ones like "vividise". I'm not going to even pretend to understand how this synth works (though I've got a vague notion), but luckily for me (and others) HG Fortune doesn't expect us to know how. That's why he installed something which all synths should have, LAZY buttons. All three parts of STS-17 (oscillators, filter, master) have a LAZY button that randomly initializes the functions in it's respective module. This leads to instant variety and perpetual new sound creation. This feature greatly adds to the accessibility of this synthesizer.

Obviously, HG Fortune doesn't let the accessibility stop there, because the price for this synth (and all his synths) are well within range of almost anyone's wallet. Hence, STS-17 (and Swamp) is one of the very -few- softsynths I've ever actually purchased, and I am PROUD to support HG and to own STS-17 legally. There is nothing else out there that I've ever heard that sounds like STS-17 (and this is not exclusive, all HG's synths sound unique). I think it's a marvelous synthesizer by a genius designer, and you should at -least- give the lightweight free version a try, even if you're not into atmospheric synths.

Bottomline: If you want wonderous ever evolving dark soundscapes that anyone can program with a single press of a button, look no further.Read Review

Who can resist the charm of the SID chip? Who'd of thought twenty+ years later folks would still desire the sound of this archaic technology? Well, desire they do, and now with Odo's fantastic and amazing Uknown64, they can have those sounds, for free!

Part of the charm of the SID was hearing it syncopated and arpeggiated into layers of lowbit soundscapes, and Unknown64 knows this! The arpeggiation controls are through the roof; note rooting, octave definition, and range setting. Your oscillators have all the classic generators, as well as ADSR to define and enhance the timbre. With vibrato control, ring modulation, pitch LFO (and pitch inversion), distortion, panning, filtering (and filter inversion), plus glide triggering (and even more) you can truly get vintage SID sounds screaming out of this little plug with minimal effort. That is not to say though, that you couldn't spend hours tweaking Unknown64 just to explore it's vast sound creation ability.

I feel that Unknown64 is hands down the best SID emulation VST you can find, and it's FREE. That makes it a no-brainer for anyone looking for Sound Interface Device tracks for their song, or chiptunes in general. I'm sure even Robert Yannes himself would blush over this marvelous bitkit.

PS The GUI is genius.Read Review

It always seems to be the case that for chiptune sounds, freeware's where it's at. Oli Larkin's SE64 is no exception to this phenomena. Loading up this synth will take you straight back to the days when the SID chip was all you needed baby. And that's exactly what SE64 sounds like, the SID, the real deal, only easier to control then ever.

What really pushes SE64 over the normal SID-esque synths are it's little features, which all add up to a superior synergy. Aside from your normal filters (i.e. bandpass, amp, pitch) you've got truly useful ones like pulsewidth, bit crushing, and even an EG filter. To add much more spice, a fully featured arpeggiator is included as well, which will allow to make those Ron Hubbard textured pads that truly scream C64!

All of this power luckily comes wrapped up in a very tidy and minimalistic GUI that trades pretty pixels for simplistic logical layout. You will immediately understand the flow thanks to this, I'm sure, and thusly, you'll be programming away in no time.

Oli Larkin certainly outdid himself with this amazing little synth, and for free, it's a crime if you -don't- download it. A must have, if you have any fondness for retrobit sounds whatsoever.Read Review

Drumsynths are always a hit or miss affair. They're either fantastic or crap. Rhythms by Odo falls into the former. This is a drumsynth you don't want to miss. The primary reason I say that is because the sound Rhythms makes is esoteric to itself. It doesn't sound like any other drumsynth I've heard yet. I'm sure this has to with the fact that it creates the sound on the fly rather than relying on samples.

The sound of each drum element is extremely configurable thanks to being truly synthesized. There are extensive knobs to tweak each individual element, and thusly the sound palette for this drumsynth's output is immense. You can have cheesy thin C64ish beats, or thick pounding 808ish punches.

The only detraction from this drumsynth is actually a weakness that results from it's strength. The configurability is fantastic, but I feel it's represented a bit haphazardly. The knob count feels overwhelming, and I feel that the interface could be a bit more streamlined and organized more efficiently. Other than that however, the GUI is gorgeous.

If you enjoy such classics as E-Phonic's Drumatic series, or even Prodyon's NADS, then this is one drumsynth you simply cannot do without. It'll be sitting on my harddrive for years to come. Thanks Odo!Read Review

This was the first plug I ever tried by Tweakbench, and to this day, it's still my favorite. Pudding will take any audio you feed it and mutilate it and spit it back in your face and sneer and jeer at you. Amazingly, most of the time you'll enjoy what it spat upon you. The primary ability of this plug is of course it's granular shredding power. Don't expect Pudding to make pretty things, it hates to do that. It likes to take pretty things and make them weird dangerous things to excite your tracks.

Pudding allows complete control over all aspects of the grains, such as pitch, length, window, grain rate, etc. Due to this magnificent control you can really manipulate the sonic palette till you have just what you want. Or, if you're a lazy bastard like me, you'll love the Random button, which'll either create a great stream of grains or blow your monitors up (watch those levels!).

There are a lot of self proclaimed "extreme effects" out there, but this is one plug that's not only extreme, but actually useful. And that's why it's still sitting on my harddrive. Anyone can make a plug that implodes and discombobulates audio, but to enable that output to be a truly useful affair takes talent. With plugs like Pudding, Aaron shows he's of the latter league.Read Review

If you need chiptune goodness you cannot do without this plug! Triforce actually does sound like a Nintendo right smack in your sequencer. The basic Triangle, Square, Sine, and Noise channels are all there. Implementing the sounds into useful riffs is ridiculously easy due to the implemented arpeggiator and portamento. This feature is even further expanded by the useful range and timing knobs. To keep the sounds juicy and lofi, the coarse knobs are your best friend. By tweaking them the sounds will range from crystaline to rusted mud, whatever you want or seek in your nostalgia driven quest. The real kicker is the pulsewidth knob for the square channel, which adds a true aural flavor that'll really bring back those NES days to your ears. And last but certainly not least, the GUI is perfect in it's minimalist no-nonsense approach. Very easy on the eyes and pixel space.

If I were to request some sort of upgrade to this wonderful plug, it would be nice to see some sort of VRC6 , VRC7, or especially FME7 implementation in the form of the ability to load in a small sample and have it instantly lo-fi'ed to sound like a NES game sample, then perhaps have it modulate the normal sound generators to form a unique sequenceable sound.

Regardless, this is a fantastic plug, and for free, it really is a -must own-. Aaron certainly out-did himself with this one. Bravo!Read Review