Product Reviews by KVR Members

After nearly 2 years of experience with Synthmaster 2 and with the dev, KV331, I have decided to revise my review and drop it to 1 star. I wont be working with KV331 any longer.

Synthmaster 1 and 2, and soon 3, sound very nice and offer a lot of presets. When I originally purchased SM2, I knew it was buggy and had many longstanding issues (you can read about those issues on the KVR forums, inside the KV331 forum), but I chose to support the dev and try it out anyway.

I immediately noticed that SM2's modwheel did not work unless I clicked it onscreen, and the "midi learn" feature would crash the plugin in Cubase. Manual assignment within SM2 also failed. I tried various ways to fix this including reaching out to the dev, but I was never able to solve it and the dev ignored my questions.

Recently the dev emailed all customers about Synthmaster3, and offered a new upgrade deal. I considered this, but wanted to make sure the modwheel issue was resolved before spending more $$, so I asked questions on the dev's forum here on KVR. The issue was denied, it was blamed on Bitwig (I started using Bitwig 6 months ago), and then finally it was very curtly blamed on VST3.

In the end, I have no idea if this issue still exists in SM3, but it certainly exists in SM1 and 2 and I am not interested in working with this developer anymore. The responses to my questions and then later to my frustration were inappropriate and dishonest, and I dont have time or patience for dishonest devs. Im done with KV331.

Ive been using Cubase since 1999, as well as many other plugins, processors, tools, FX, instruments, hardware synths, etc. I have built and supported live production environments at large Sports & Entertainment venues, as well as built networks, servers, desktops, and embedded systems throughout my 30+ year tech career. I've also used Reason, Fruity Loops, and Live, but very little.

That being said, I have had a 20+ year love/hate relationship with Cubase and Steinberg that has finally ended, and it ended on the hate side of things today. I've built and rebuilt 6 workstations for use with Cubase starting in roughly 2000 (when the Core2Duo first released and Steinberg began its long history of being unable to manage multithreaded/HT DSP), ending in 2022 with the final workstation. I've also used 2 laptops for Cubase. Ive used version sx2 through professional 12.0.60.

Cubase Pro offers a very robust set of features and tools out of the box and represents a DAW that was once king of the industry - and still could be with proper QA, development, and customer support. Cubase's UI/UX is top notch, with MIDI and audio routing systems that set the standard for other DAWs that came after, not to mention the high quality of the internal signal path, native DSP plugins, MIDI timing, etc etc. Cubase really has so much under the hood, it is mind boggling.

Here is the reason I give this DAW (And Steinberg) 2 stars, despite everything that is positive about their software, and despite the 20+ years I spent with it: Steinberg QA and Steinberg customer service, as well as the inherent instability of Cubase.

If you've used Cubase much at all in the last 20 years, you know what I mean about multithreading/hyperthreading issues, and you also know what I mean about customer service. (2 months+ for email replies, public denial of major issues on their forums, shifting the blame to customers).

I spent YEARS trying to work with Steinberg to determine WHAT HARDWARE PLATFORM they recommend for a stable Cubase workstation host, and yet they never offered a "supported hardware" list and let users figure out which platforms (MB chipset + CPU combination + power management features like speedstep) the hard way. So I spent *years* tweaking systems, removing all of their CPU power management features (resulting in higher power use), altering, disabling, and reenabling hyperthreading, rebuilding machines to make sure I did my diligent testing and troubleshooting FOR Steinberg, all the while dealing with projects that always crashed on exit, projects that randomly crashed, and the occasional file corruption that would result in a rebuild.

I spent HUNDREDS of hours of my own time trying to find the magic combination of hardware that would remove the dreaded "ASIO internal overload" issue caused by Cubase's inability to manage multithreaded audio, and what did Steinberg do for me, the paying customer, that entire time?

Steinberg FOUGHT me, they denied my issue on the forum despite 1000s of others reporting the same issue, they claimed "you are all alone - the only one really reporting this issue" back in 2018, and then their moderator "Steve" disabled my account when I became extremely angry about the way they were handling this. I went from being a die-hard Cubase user and proponent, to a bitter, angry, unproductive musician and I spent the next few years... not making much music and feeling extremely frustrated because Cubase was my only DAW.

Then I built a new machine in 2022, and found that Cubase 12 now finally performed perfectly, despite that machine having many of the same features that caused cubase to overload and pop/glitch the audio stream on earlier machines. Then Cubase 12 crashed during one of my projects and corrupted its licensing process, leading to high CPU every time Cubase was ran.... and....

I rebuilt the machine again, installed Bitwig 4, spent the next month using ALL my spare time learning Bitwig, and you know something? After a decade or more of frustration, YEARS worth of back-and-forth in email and on their forums, abuse from their moderators, etc?? Forgive my French but FUCK Cubase! More importantly, FUCK Steinberg for the years of stress and frustrating music production. I became connected to Cubase emotionally (it was my instrument) and so I kept dealing with stress I normally would not have, but now I have a new DAW and I'll never look back. Bitwig is 100% more stable than Cubase already, in my identical environment, with my identical hard and software libraries. Its more stable on any PC or laptop we own, where we have to carefully pick and choose to see if Cubase will work or not.

Steinberg customer service is THE WORST, and their inability to manage modern, multi-threaded audio is the reason for the CLAP protocol being developed, which may replace VST some day. The frustration with Cubase being unable to handle multithreading led to CLAP, and this should inform any new digital musician seeking a DAW -- Cubase/Steinberg are a dead-end today, and the level of dishonesty Ive seen from them about the issues in their platform is the icing on the cake.

After spending a few days with this fun, approachable synth / workstation powerhouse, I've begun to feel like what some people say about it might be at least somewhat true - - that it is tailored mostly toward house & trance artists.

I really enjoy many of the sounds that are included with the stock version of this synth, I like the embedded sequencers, and I like how easy it is to bind MIDI in standard and creative ways, but... As a general sound designer and someone who makes mostly music that ISN'T trance or house, I keep feeling pulled by Avenger toward making those genres.

It feels like it's harder to make other styles, including ambient, drone, bass music, glitch hop, etc, and that the dev really built this for eurovision fans lol.

I am undecided. I'll probably keep it and use it for rhythmic melody and creative inspiration, but I would like it if more categories of sound inside this synth felt general purpose.

This is a good physical modeling synth.

The sounds that come from this are good, they are subtle and detailed, they are 2 and 3 dimensional, textured, and organic. The synth can manage a wide range of sounds, and its fun and fairly easy to do sound design with. I wouldn't say this synth is as deep and wide as something like Pigments or MassiveX, but it's good for its price and a quality physical modeling vst.

Edit: the dev fixed the earlier MIDI binding issue I reported, and MIDI binding for the sliders now works.

This is a mediocre, disappointing synth. What I read about it pre-sales made it sound useful and fun, but most sounds that come out of it sound similar, flat or 2 dimensional, or noisy and clumsy, and everything from MIDI learn to UI/UX is a step down from most other VST synths that I own. Perhaps with some updates or new versions this can get better? Dont recommend it for now.

I will come back and update this after the dev gets back to me on my support request. Im using this on Win10, on Cubase 12 pro as a plugin.

First impressions: very simple, colorful, intuitive software with an easy-to-understand workflow for designing and generating chords and note progressions. I was able to quickly set up and register the software, and routing and playback was no trouble (I also use other MIDI generator/chord/scale plugins and they all route similarly).

What stopped me in my tracks is that I couldnt get Chords Pro to play back the right number of notes per bars when my DAW was in cycle mode, no matter how many times I tried or how I approached it.

When my DAW has cycle mode off, Chords Pro will continue playing without interruption, playing back(looping) the number of bars specified at the speed specified.

When cycle mode is on, when the play head returns to the start position Chords Pro goes silent for a whole bar every time.

Also, whether cycle mode is on or off, I get a stutter note when Chords first starts to play. Every time. Instead of only the first note or chord of the pattern, it plays twice in rapid succession. This never happens again as long as it keeps playing. Ill come back later if the dev fixes this.

Figured out MIDI input, and works well at this point. It would be really nice to have a better preset manager.