Product Reviews by KVR Members

This is a cool librarian software, in my experience on win10 64-bit with Reaper, it works well.

Synth1 was always the best freeware alternative for synth plugins, .

but I stopped using it years ago, just because i missed a great preset browser inside it.

Now with this librarian, Synth1 is in my plugin folder again.

In the past I also did some Synth1 trick (e.g created an Excel macro, to generate random patches for ten banks).

With this librarian, I'm able to find the right presets among thousands of presets.

For example I liked the distorted guitar sounds of ReFX Slayer (yeah, I could use it from FLStudio), .

and now I can click on "guitar" in this librarian, and easily find some brutal distorted guitar sounds among the Synth1 presets.

The other freeware synth I use is Dexed. also have a "limited" patch manager - I only wish there were some simlar librarian to that.

This is a super cool addition to the already legendary Synth1, and if you also like it, please consider a donation of your choice.

Ok, This will be a review in 2017 of this great FM8 synth.

I'm a long time user, like this synth from the beginning when it was called Fm7.

First things first, I cannot hide my bad feelings about the existing bugs NI don't repair.

FM8 should deserve some little development to complete the almost perfect realization of a modern FM synth.

Here's the "bad" list - critical things need to be fixed :

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1) IF YOU PUT MANY PRESETS IN YOUR PRESET DATABASE, YOU MUST TURN OFF THE OPTION "DATABASE HIT COUNT" - IF YOU DON'T DO THAT, PRESET BROWSING WILL BE REAL SLOW.

2) IF YOU INSTALL THE LATEST VERSION, AND YOU USE THE 64-bit PLUGIN, THE ARP SIMPLY IGNORES THE FIRST STEP - SO IF YOU WANT PERFECT FUNCTIONALITY, YOU WILL USE THE 32-bit PLUGIN, EVEN IF YOU HAVE 64-bit OS AND 64-bitDAW.

3) IN REAPER, IF YOU USE 32-bit PLUGIN (EVEN IN 64-bit REAPER), IT'S OK - IT WILL BE BRIDGED. UNFORTUNATELY ONE MORE LITTLE WINDOW APPEAR. SO YOU HAVE TO CHECK "RUN AS"/"EMBED BRIDGED UI" OPTION - AND FROM THIS POINT, THE 32-bit PLUGIN WILL APPEAR JUST AS YOUR 64-bit PLUGINS APPEAR.

Here's the "Nice to have" list of things that are not critical like the things above:

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- FM7 colorful look disappeared with the new version. FM8 should look not white imho - it should be just as colorful like a JUPITER synth. In FM8 you can find great piano sounds, great guitar sounds, great synth sounds - so many different instrument and how does the software look like? It's white - nonsense.

- GUI resizing, or option of change between different sizes. A feature we can see in many synth, even those that considered being "old". If we can see a resizable Sylenth1, or change the size of the ImpOSCar gui, why can't we do the same in FM8? If Arturia can update their synths to modern GUIs, why can't NI?

- Skinning possibilities. Think of it like outsourcing : the plugin developer only need to create the possibility of skinning, and from that point, any gui designer can create nice skins to that plugin. I'd like to see this in fm8.

Show-stopper list : FM8 is just one fm synths, many great are existing - maybe the newest you can find is from Arturia.

So if fm8 won't be developed, people will start to buy more modern synth like the one from Arturia, or perhaps a synth that is just partly fm, like Zebra or Bazille. So this list is about real new functionality:

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- Layering & defining keyboard range: FM8 is on the list of synths that can use very small amount of CPU. So why can't we use it in 4 or more layers defining the key range of each layer (with overlapping)? Like the zone editor in Avenger.

- Locking : if you lock some part of a preset, after changing to another preset the locked parts remain the same. Locking arpeggiator, locking effects, etc.

....... I could sit here and write many things, but won't. To sum up things, FM8 is quite good synth, with some annoying silly things (this is why my rating is only 7). It has a great "fanbase" (like Massive), and therefore I don't see why NI don't publish the "roadmap" for its development. Maybe NI will handle FM8 and Massive like they did with Pro-53 and B4 and Kore.

This is a great drummachine. I like the euclidean beats sequencer the most. Plus there are many sections to tweak, many special drum sounds to use. You can drag MIDI out to the daw also. The beat shifter is also interesting conception, some may call this generative music... There's a freeze button in the beat shifter that stops patterns from changing/shifting. I also like the focus map feature on the starting page. So there are many cool functions to create the rhythms you like. I don't write more bout it, this have to be heard.

I review Avenger based on its demo. It's quite easy to install it, though has more than 4Gig factory content, but it's OK for me. One word from the the developer : Vengeance Sound means quality, and browsing the forums I have never read any bad about their stuff.

The factory sounds are good, but for me, something is missing (maybe I should demo it more). Similar hybrid monster synths like Zebra or Blue II contain more presets I like. I think my problem with the sound is that VSP Avenger mainly offers sounds for the todays' producer, and don't contain "oldschool" sounds in its factory set, Sure it can sound many different ways.

Anyway, the GUI is interesting with lots of visual feedback and animation, so a great fun factor, but on the other hand is quite a mess. There are some parts that are small despite of their role, for example the modulation matrix should be bigger% from the whole gui. I think Avenger gui problem is that they want to put many things in one screen, where some parts should deserve a second screen alone.

I Quite like the Arpeggiator, and the Zone screen where you can layer sounds. I only tried some of the effects, and filters. That was really interesting to see a "tape stop" kind of fx in the effects rack.

So currently I have mixed feelings with Avenger. The main reason of this is I mainly like synths that are made for one specific goal, and Avenger is not this kind. It is made for covering many synthesis types, and the question is if it can sound wicked enough...

I have bought the previous version of Sylenth1 years ago here at the KVR Marketplace - it was a great second-hand buy. Sylenth1 is a unique and fantastic synth, with many inspiring sounds. I'm sure Lennardigital was among the first developers who realized how important is the quality of the factory presets. And if you want more presets there are plenty of free and commercial on the net. About the GUI: even the previous version was OK, but this new version (v2) with the scalable GUI is awesome (+ new skins are planed and coming soon). You don't need a multicore CPU to run this, Sylenth1 uses VERY LITTLE CPU.

V2 uses a new authorization, so it's not simple serial anymore - but it's ok for me. It's interesting, that other developers create "similar" synths, like U-he Hive, or Synthmaster One, but Sylenth1 one remains an alltime classic. I just call these kind of synths v2 synths, that become even better with the new version, so I only can compare Sylenth1 to synths like ImpOSCar 2, FM8, Z3ta+ 2, Blue II, Predator2 ...

And what about a future v3 - who knows?

This synth is great as a u-he synth, but it's the first u-he synth that closely emulates one specific hardware. The Repro-1 sounds are vivid and live, similar to the superb sounds of Diva. As an emulation, I could compare it to ImpOSCar or rather Monark, regarding how cool the result is. The Gui is also great, those who owned NI Pro-53 surely agree. I don't know how a real Pro-1 sounds, but this software is kickass. The factory sounds are cool, and if you want even new sounds, you go into deeper to the tweaks page and modify the special settings of the synth. The sequencer page is also powerful, has a dual sequencer like the one in Predator2.

For me Repro-1 is not a CPU killer (I use it on a strong PC) and the ZZZ button force it to use even less cpu. It's monophonic, but no one can force you to use only one at a time.

For long time, my main DAW is Reaper. Its lightweight, fast, and customizable. Doesn't come with 1000's of samples and unneeded material. Yes - this is for those, who already have their VSTs and VSTIs and don't want the DAW to include those. No problem of installing, reinstalling, updating at all, you can even use it for free, or buy a license just for 60 bucks. You may think it lacks features, but it has really everything for creating music. You can't find any other DAW whose value/price is better than Reaper. Recording, automating, mixing anything with anything, placing MIDI and/or audio into tracks are simple and clever.