Product Reviews by KVR Members

This can serve as a general review of Tweakbench products, as well as a review, specifically, of Rebar, which for reasons I can't quite explain is my favorite of the bunch. Tweakbench plugins--effects and synths--are diverse, inventive, simple to use, great-sounding, and free. They all have a similar GUI, one that I absolutely love--clear, distinctive, and uncluttered; and Tweakbench is a one-man operation with great customer service.

Rebar is basically a metallic-sounding drone synth. That's it, really. But there are three things that make it really distinctive--the ability to draw your own waves (a new feature in the last couple versions), a "warp" panel, and a "delay" panel. The warp panel is a two-axis control that affects (I think) pitch and perhaps some kind of filter...the delay axes are for delay time and feedback. You can assign the cc's for these panels to a control surface, or the beam thingy on the Alesis controllers, or sliders, or whatever...the results are creepy, squiggly little grinding sounds...really cool and distinctive.

Tweakbench synths are one-trick ponies, and as a result I end up using them more than any other VST's I have. They do specific things in a characteristic way, and never fail to do those things. Most TB sounds could probably be reproduced on a full-featured synth or effects unit, but not with the same immediacy and fun--the simplest of them are like the Casios of the VST world. Others--especially some of the effects--really are unique and unreproduceable elsewhere.

Anyway, Rebar is awesome--there's no conceivable reason for you not to download it immediately.Read Review

I bought Ozone because I wanted to experiment with home "mastering" and was able to buy it with an academic discount. I figured I would mess around with it, inform myself about what my mixes actually needed, and eventually have my album mastered by an engineer.

Um...no. This product is superb. I'm really surprised--it has a reputation for being something that crappy musicians can ruin their songs with. And honestly, it's not that at all. The EQ and multi-band compressor sound good, the saturator/exciter sounds very good, and the limiter is just fantastic. In "intelligent" mode, set to transparent, you can barely tell it's working unless you A/B...and if you A/B it will blow your head off. WONDERFUL plug, and I would gladly have paid the whole price for it alone. All in all these plugs sound VERY professional...smooth, characterful, and highly useful.

Of course you can absolutely destroy your mixes with this thing...most of the useful areas are way down near the bottom of the dial...a little bit goes a very long way. The delay function of the stereo widener, for instance, makes everything sound really weird and not quite real. But it is very easy not to abuse it, and easy to get amazing results, if you make judicious and informed choices.

Presets...hmm...pretty musch worthless for a product like this. Are there even any? There shouldn't be.

I love the GUI...the metering is great, the colors are subdued and easy to look at. (I wouldn't call them "pretty" though.) My one complaint is that I couldn't authorize the damn thing (this is the VST version) for a week...the serial number on the manual DID NOT match my copy of the software, Izotope took a full week to get back to me, and I ended up having to hook up my precious music computer to the internet THREE TIMES. Then two weeks later it forgot it was authorized and made me do two more times. VERY frustrating.

Worth the wait, though. Highly recommended. And one more thing...download the manual/mastering guide...it's a good read, explains mastering in great detail, and is useful even if you don't buy the software.Read Review