Product Reviews by KVR Members

No fuss, easy to download and install. Sounds are not bad at all. Quite useful. The reverb is good. Depending on the drum sound the reverb is at times useless because it doesn't have any parameters. Only wet and dry but hey, wadda ya want? There are plenty of high quality reverbs out there. The interface is easy to use. It is appealing and I used MIDI drum files to trigger the VST. It only crashed once when I pasted the free sounds into my VST folder but it's been stable ever since. Great little VST. Thanks.

It is not free. You must pay 1 cent by credit card or PayPal to get a download link and agree to your data being used. It reads: "Your data will be used for your order, support your experience through this website & for possible other purposes according to our privacy policy". It is not free! Their Privacy Policy states: "Third-party ad servers or ad networks uses technologies like cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons that are used in their respective advertisements and links that appear on Audio Freakout, which are sent directly to users' browser. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. These technologies are used to measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and/or to personalize the advertising content that you see on websites that you visit".

Nothing fancy here but overall quite good for freeware. I've also used their other sound shaping plug-ins. They work. Sure, the interfaces aren't like expensive counterparts but still a very good effort. I LIKE.

I purchased HALion Symphonic Orchestra, order number 215888648. I downloaded the download centre to download it. I use Win10, 64-bit.

My DAW is Reaper. I installed it. When opening Halion Sonic SE, a pop up says "no valid license". So, I downloaded the License Control Centre but it wants me to insert a USB stick. I don't have a USB licensey-stick thing. The eLicenser doesn't give me the option of using software activation on my PC. Instead, it tells me to contact Nexway to get a PC activation. Nexway says contact Steinberg. It's not their problem. They only take the money. The run-around continues. Also, I can't log in to register the software on the Steinberg page as the username and password THEY generated does not work. It would be really, really helpful if Steinberg would for once in their life provide one simple installation and activation process without confusing instructions, broken links and damaged passwords or mindless runarounds. I will never purchase a Steinberg product again. I work for a living and have things to do. I will seek a refund now.

I bought this as I was looking for a double bass with different articulations, sounds and noises. The samples and approach taken by Karoryfer are fantastic. Great sounding double bass quality played by a true professional. With the heavy introductory discount, how can you not go for this unique library.

Really usable, high quality tools! Nothing more to say except that they work fine. All effects sound as they should but I've been partial to the chorus.

OK, it's free. Thanks BlueCat. While the clean sounds were 'nice', the overdrive sounds were akin to a chainsaw in a plastic box. They were very noisy and the hissing was unbearable. The mid range was boxy and artificial. It was almost as if no cabinet simulator was being used so that I added one which improved the sound quite a bit. Overall, I wasn't convinced. BlueCat make great stuff. But in this case, there are other freeware amp modules that actually do a better job.

The drums are free and basically OK without any processing etc. Did I mention that they are free? No crippling features as far as I could tell. Good sound that takes me back to my rehearsal room in the mid 80's. And this is where they excel. As the developer says, they're akin to punk drums: raw and unedited. Thanks guys.

I bought Reaper around five or six years ago. I'm not going to go through the features list as Cockos (www.reaper.fm) can do it better than I can. What is important though is that after Logic was sold to Mac, and I didn't want to buy a Mac (not just because I didn't like them - but because Mac were forcing people to migrate to a system I just did not prefer), I had to find another DAW.

Reaper back then was an insider tip and after comparing other free or lower priced DAWs, Reaper beat them all. I tested it until I bought it. Guys, for the little money you pay, you get a fully fledged DAW. This is not to say that Cockos should increase the price - on the contrary. The price was what initially attracted me to it (apart from the specs). It works! After transferring all of my songs from Logic to Reaper, I have never looked back.

What also sets Reaper apart from the overpriced competition is that you get loads of high quality VST plugins and the software is updated on a regular basis. You don't have to wait a couple of years for a fix and then pay for it. No, Sir! Every few weeks or months, Cockos has an update. It may not even be a fix but just an improvement. And as I am writing this, Cockos has a new update: version 5.12. This is what I call good service. Cockos have done the right thing by the consumer by offering a system that does the same as most other DAWS but even better in my opinion. They listen to users.

There was one minor issue I did want to raise. This doesn't reduce my overall rating but some people might think otherwise. I really miss the notator so that you view the score and print it out. I've since learned to to use the piano roll editor, but a proper score would be very helpful, especially for those who study music and or need to print it out for whatever reason. I have written a few orchestral arrangements, and if I were to have a classical musician play it, they'd expects notes. Music students may buy Logic or another program just because of this. A couple of my friends are music teachers who have stayed with Logic for this very reason. Cockos: you're losing a huge demographic here.

Otherwise, great program.

PS: I upgraded to Windows 10 a few days ago because I heard that latency issues had been improved. Reaper has always been stable. But Windows 10 has resolved the latency and popping/crackling sounds coming from my lexicon Omega (which I am currently updating). Reaper works fine in Windows 10.

I downloaded SampleTank 3 free a while ago and could not get it to work. The Authorization Manager did not work. I then downloaded an updated Authorization Manager as instructed by IKMultimedia. I still could not authorize this program. Let's fast forward some months and I finally got SampleTank 3 free registered. However, the sounds did not show up in SampleTank. I read in forums that many people have had this issue since at least July 2014. IKMultimedia had no solution and merely noted that this was a Windows related issue. I then checked the default path where IKMultimedia's install manager installed the sounds. It installed the sounds in the following path: C:UsersPublicDocumentsIKMultimediaSampleTank. BUT the windows path is actually C:UsersPublicPublic DocumentsIKMultimediaSampleTank3. (Note: there are backslashes in the folder names but KVR's word processor deletes them when saving).

Note: Windows 7's 'Documents' folder is called 'Public Documents'. SampleTank cannot recognize a folder name with a space in it. It therefore deletes the word 'public' from the folder name. Therefore, the program cannot find the sounds. I would say that this is an issue with IKMultimedia rather than Windows. It's a programming issue. I therefore copied the contents into C:Program FilesIK MultimediaSampleTank 3Instruments. Then I went into 'settings' and searched for the folder and that was it. The sounds load.

Another issue was that although Patterns can be loaded and played (since I see the keys move), I cannot hear those sounds.

In terms of sound quality of the instruments that I played, they sound alright. I would't give them anything beyond mildly useful.

Overall, SampleTank 3 free is a disappointment because of the failed Authorization Manager and the fact that IKMultimedia haven't resolved the issue with sounds not loading. This shows that the company does not test their products before entering the market, and perhaps even worse, they haven't resolved the issue which is so easy to solve, namely, install the sounds in a different folder.