Product Reviews by KVR Members

First off, I highly prefer hardware over software. But I like this softsynth a lot. It's the one softsynth that's kept me up well into the night because it's so much fun to play with.

Gui: Very simple and easy to use. So simple that a manual is completely unnecessary.

Sound: Only 2 oscillators, but can deliver a fat, analog-type sound.

Features: The filter has a dual function; as a normal filter and as a vowel filter. This is the feature that most attracted me. The LFO, envelope generator and sequencer have graphical range controls with upper and lower limits; very straightforward in their useage. All can be triggered via 4 or 5 parameters. The LFO has a graphically-adjustable waveform generator. There's also a motion control that I haven't quite figured out yet. There are 2 effect banks with the standard effects (reverb, delay, chorus, etc.). Most controls are right-clickable for additional options.

Docs: Adequate, yet unnecessary for such a simple synth.

Presets: Comes with 200 presets that are categorized. A great starting point for tweaking.

Support: Haven't needed any support. It works just fine. I payed the $$$ and the serial number was immediately emailed, so I was able to use it within a couple of minutes.

VFM: Certainly reasonable from a Euro perspective, but with the USD to Euro exchange rate difference, it was a tough decision. Still, I think it was worth it.

Stability: No problems whatsoever. It runs fine in Cubase 3 on my 3.2gh PC with 2gb RAM. I assume that it will run fine on any PC over 5 years old.

This is the one softsynth that I wish was available as a hardware synth.Read Review

My one and only B3/122 Leslie came from a local restaurant. The original owner had 3 B3’s around the country and decided to sell this one for $1400 (this was in 1968). It’s long since been sold to a recording studio and just recently replaced with a Hammond-Suzuki XK System/Motion Sound Pro-145. Not quite as good, but still a great sounding combo; good enough to fool the ears of practically anyone. I purchased the Native Instruments B4 a few years before purchasing the XK System. This review is for the B4, not the B4II.

GUI: The interface is very nice. You get to choose between a top-down view of a Hammond B3 or a controller-only view with the drawbars, rocker switches and other controls for microphone distance, overdrive, etc.

Sound: With nothing to compare it to, I thought the B4 could imitate the sound of a B3 almost perfectly. The first clue that this isn’t so came when I was jamming with some friends and found that the sound couldn’t cut through the sound of the band, even though they weren’t really that loud. I was using a Roland KC-100 amplifier and the bottom end was very weak. The second time was when I recently did an A-B comparison between my XK System and the B4 playing through an Onkyo 100w amplifier pushing a pair of JBL 4311 studio monitors. The sound of the B4 was much thinner (I play several other instruments through this system, including a DSI Poly Evolver, a Univox Mini-Korg synthesizer and an M400 Mellotron, and they all sound great; plenty of lows, mids and hi’s). I haven’t tried playing it through my MS Pro-145. Still, the B4 sounds better than any other VSTi I’ve tried. The Leslie simulation is very good, as is the overdrive.

Features: The B4 has all the features of a Hammond B3, including bass pedals, V1-3 and C1-3 vibrato, braked, chorale and fast Leslie, overdrive, adjustable microphone distance, and several add-on tonewheel sets. However, the Vox and Farfisa sounds are nothing like the real thing. It can be used as a standalone or as a VSTi. The authentication is very annoying though. Every couple of months I get a prompt to insert the installation CD. I’ve heard that NI has changed the authentication process with the B4II.

Docs: The manual seems to cover everything you may need to know about installation and usage. If you’ve ever played a B3 or similar Hammond, you can probably figure out how to use the B4 without the manual.

Presets: There are scores of very nice presets, but the enjoyment, as with a real Hammond, is in using the drawbars to shape the sound. This has been a pain in the rear, having to drag the drawbars with a mouse. Fortunately, NI has come out with the B4D Drawbar Controller, which makes using the B4 a little more like the real thing. And several midi controller manufacturers are now marketing keyboards with sliders that can be used to move the drawbars.

Support: I’ve never had to use NI’s support, so I’ll assume it’s as good as their products generally are.

VFM: I purchased the B4 when it first came out. It was a fairly priced piece of software then and I think it still is.

Stability: I haven’t had any problems with the B4 as a VSTi, but it has had problems in standalone mode. After releasing a key, the sound would sometimes continue until the same key was pressed again. This hasn’t been a major concern though, as I prefer to use it as a VSTi.

For computer recording, I think the B4 is more than adequate, but I don’t think it stands up to live performance.Read Review

After finding copies of GigaPulse VST on eBay for only $99.99, it was too good a deal to pass up. All the online stores are selling it for around $249.00.

GUI: Nice interface, very intuitive and user friendly.

Sound: My only other experience with a convolution reverb is with SIR. Both are great sounding reverbs, but I prefer GigaPulse because you can change microphone simulations, microphone to source distance, and stereo/surround separation using multiple microphones; and I think it sounds a little better.

Features: GigaPulse has virtually no latency, so it can be used live. You can use multiple impulse responses in a cascading fashion. The microphone selection list looks to have at least 25 different microphones. I especially like the Neumann U47.

Docs: The documentation is a compiled .CHM file, although I would prefer a paper manual. But the software is so simple to use that you can probably figure out how to use it without a manual.

Presets: The onboard presets are very nice and cover a wide range of room types, studio quality electronic and plate reverbs, and several unusual objects like a metal broiler and a ceramic pot. Very interesting hearing a Mellotron coming out of one of those!

Support: I haven’t needed to contact Tascam support, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

VFM: For what I paid, GigaPulse is a steal. For what the online stores are selling it for, it’s probably still a good deal since it’s only 1/2 to 1/3 the price of some brands.

Stability: It seems stable; at least it hasn’t crashed so far. You do have to be careful of feedback with some settings though, and using one of the downloadable .WAV impulse responses from the many websites offering free ones makes it even more critical that you be careful. The .WAV files seem to be louder than GigaPulse’s native formats.

I’ve downloaded several free reverbs and demos of commercial reverbs, but I don’t think I’ll be using them any longer. This one does the job for me.Read Review

I’ve been using the Moog Modular V since it first came out. If I could only own one soft synth, this would be it.

GUI: The user interface looks very impressive, but it’s difficult to use. The most annoying thing is the need to scroll up and down because the entire interface can’t be displayed at one time. I’m sure this is because of the enormous number of modules and controls that made up the hardware MMV and the need of Arturia to make the interface as manageable as possible while staying true to the original instrument. If the entire interface were to be displayed, the controls would have to be a lot smaller than they are. But it makes programming very difficult and time-consuming.

Sound: The sound is fantastic! Although I’ve never played with a hardware MMV, I’m guessing that the sound is very similar. At the very least, it’s the best sounding software version of any Moog synth and quite a bit better than many analog-modeling hardware synths. It can produce many types of sounds from a fat, growling bass to high-pitched bells or spacey sound effects.

Features: The MMV is loaded with features, including the ability to change the module selection to some degree. It can be used as a VSTi or as a standalone soft synth. The patch cords are a nice touch.

Docs: A pretty extensive manual comes with the MMV and it includes several tutorials that range in complexity from producing a simple sound using the least number of modules to complex multi-oscillator sounds incorporating the sequencer. But the real fun of playing with the MMV comes after you’ve learned what works and what doesn’t, and you are able to create your own sounds.

Presets: There are plenty of onboard presets that were created by some well-known Moog users. Analysis of them is very helpful in learning to use this complex piece of software. You can also download user banks from the Arturia website or from other sources on the Web. I think it’s worthwhile to create your own user bank from the presets that you find useful, as well as your own presets. Because of the enormous number of presets that come with the MMV, it will make finding the ones you like a lot easier.

Support: The few times I’ve used Arturia support, they were quick to respond and very helpful.

VFM: The MMV is priced fairly and has actually come down in price since it was first release.

Stability: When MMV was first released, it was a CPU hog and regularly locked up my PC when using complex sequences. Those problems seem to have been solved with version 2.Read Review

The EZDrummer VSTi fits my needs perfectly. It’s my first drum VSTi, except for the ones that come with Cubase SX. Although it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that some of the more expensive drum VSTi have, it’s easy to use and sounds great right out of the box.

GUI: Very nice! The main screen displays whatever drum set you have loaded. You can audition the individual drums and cymbals by clicking on them, or select different ones by clicking on the individual instrument’s dropdown menu. There’s a mixer icon that you can click on to display an eight track mixer if you want to process the drums separately rather than the default stereo spread. The Velocity control changes the selected playing style from light to heavy and the Humanize button adds a randomize factor. The Groove screen lets you select from a variety of grooves and fills that are appropriate for the selected set.

Sound: After listening to demos of several drum VSTi, I selected EZDrummer, in part because the drums sound most similar to the way I have mixed drums in studios and in live performances. They are somewhat pre-processed, so it’s easy to get a good sound without any additional processing. Many of the other VSTi demos that I listened to, although unprocessed, were poorly recorded, so I don’t think any amount of further processing would be an improvement (you just can’t find decent engineers these days).

Features: EZDrummer has most of the features I need. Being able to drag and drop the grooves and fills sure makes life easy. But there are limitations, such as a lack of some common time signatures like 5/4, 7/4 and 9/8. And even though there are plenty of grooves and fills to select from, you can always think of more that aren’t available. Still, that’s not really a problem because you can modify the ones that come with EZDrummer or you can tap out your own on a midi keyboard.

Docs: The documentation is sparse because the software is so simple.

Presets: There aren’t really any presets, unless you consider the grooves and fills (each one measure in length) to be presets. And there needn’t be any.

Support: Posting to the EZDrummer Forum gets quick responses from their support folks, although they sometimes forget to answer all the questions. But they are enthusiastic about their product.

VFM: The retail price is fair for what the software does.

Stability: I’ve had some problems with the samples appearing to unload prior to exporting to an audio mixdown, but I’ll credit that to Cubase because I haven’t heard of this problem occuring with other VST hosts. Other than that, the samples load quickly, the VSTi uses very little CPU and so far it hasn’t crashed.

For me, EZDrummer was the right choice, although I think others might find it overly simplistic for their needs.Read Review

If you can’t afford to purchase the real thing, GMedia’s M-Tron is a decent, easy to use substitute for a Mellotron. There are quite a few sample sets and VSTi’s on the market now, but M-Tron is probably the most user friendly; whether used as a VSTi or as a standalone.

I’ve owned the M-Tron since it first came out and have purchased the additional tape sets as they became available. Now all are available in one package for less than the price I paid for just the VSTi.

GUI: The interface nicely mimics an M400 Mellotron. There are volume, tone and pitch knobs. The selector switch, instead of selecting one of three available sounds from a tape frame, opens a list of all available sounds. Unlike a real M400, you cannot mix adjacent tracks. The only thing I think is useless is the envelope option, which doesn’t exist on a real Tron. Maybe Gmedia included it to overcome the bad starts on several of the samples.

Sound: Judging from the size of the sample sets, I would guess that the sample rate is 44.1k at 16 bits. For 35 fully sampled notes (6 to 8 seconds each), this should come to about 20 megabytes, which the M-Tron sample sets seem to be. There are more than 100 sounds, but several are redundant and vary in quality. For example, there are several versions of the infamous MkII 3 Violins of varying sound quality. There are also some sound effect sets from an SFX tape set, and rhythms and fills from a MkII tape set. In addition to the Mellotron samples, there are some decent Chamberlin samples and some really cheezy Birotron samples (although this may be due to the fact that the Birotron was a bad concept in the first place). Still, the M-Tron has the greatest variety of sounds of any other sample set on the market.

Features: Basically, the feature set is the same as a real M400; sparse, but complete in and of itself.

Docs: The M-Tron is so simple that the documentation is more than adequate. If you can’t figure out how to use it without any documentation whatsoever, a 2 inch thick manual isn’t going to do you any good.

Presets: Lots of them; more sounds than the infamous MkI and MkII.

Support: The one or two times I wrote to GMedia, I got no response, so I’d say, not very good.

VFM: It’s a bargain compared to the other sample sets on the market.

Stability: Very stable.

Besides the M-Tron, I also own the Pinder sample set which is more expensive and sparser in sound variety (but of higher sound quality for the most part), the CrimeSounds sample set (good sound quality and downloadable from the MI7 website as individual notes or sets) and samples of my own Trons (superior in sound quality to the above sample sets, but not a lot of variety). All in all, the M-Tron will give you the most bang for your buck (or euro or ruble or renminbi, or whatever you use).Read Review