Product Reviews by KVR Members
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Morphing Delay
Reviewed By Muff Wiggler [all]
February 1st, 2004
Version reviewed: 1.2 on Windows
In my humble opinion, this delay is one of the biggest kept secrets in VST-land. I can't believe that it's under twenty bucks, and I can't believe that no-one has reviewed it.
I'm a delay junkie. I have twenty years of experience messing with delays, far more than any other type of fx. Morphing, along with MFM and OhmBoyz are the only VST delays I ever use (I'm a proud owner of all three), and when I want that special something that morphing delay provides, there's no other substitute.
Morphing Delay has a special trick up it's sleeve. It lets you create 2 different delay settings, each using the standard types of delay controls. Then when the plugin 'senses' audio input, it morphs from the first setting to the second. You can control the sensitivity of the detection and the length of the morph... sort of tough to explain, but very very cool, this is one plugin you just need to get your hands on and ears around to really feel what it's about. Perfect for creating spacey, evolving delay effects.
Of course you can not bother morphing, and use this as a more standard delay if you'd like, and still take advantage of MD's other handy little trick...
If you like the old school dub reggae's dirty delays and springy reverb sound, you must check out MD's other speciality, the 'pure dub fx' feature. this gives you controls for 'skimmer', a high pass filter, and 'dirty', a heavy tape saturation effect. These interact beautifully with the trippy delay effects that MD is capable of, creating a dubster's dream.
Anyway, this plug has a very smooth and unique sound to it. It's not going to be your bread n' butter workhorse delay, and it won't replace my OhmBoyz, but it's very fun and intuitive to use, creates some very unique effects, and has a sound all it's own. Honestly, I pull this one out all the time, I still can't believe that more people don't praise it in the forums, especially at this price!
Speaking of price, if you are looking for a 'workhorse delay', but the morphing delay also looks interesting to you, here's something to consider: NUSofting also sells Morphing Delay in a bundle with their Trimmetry Tapper delay plugin. Trimmetry could indeed be your workhorse delay, it has 3 serial delay lines, each with lfo's and feedback filters. It sounds killer and can do a very large amount of the things you can do with OhmBoyz. And it's dead cheap, like $20 or something, and if you buy it you can also have Morphing Delay for something like $9. Nine bucks, unbelieveable. I absolutely recommend that all of you buy this right now before the developer increases the prices, it's bound to happen, that's for sure.
Oh yeah, rock solid, never crashed, SUPER low CPU usage.
UI: 9 - pure dub fx could be bigger sliders
Sound: 10 - nothing else can sound like this
Features: 9 - pure dub adds value, randomization options exist too
docs - 9 simple to use
presets - never checked, I think it has a few
support - TOPRead Review
I'm a delay junkie. I have twenty years of experience messing with delays, far more than any other type of fx. Morphing, along with MFM and OhmBoyz are the only VST delays I ever use (I'm a proud owner of all three), and when I want that special something that morphing delay provides, there's no other substitute.
Morphing Delay has a special trick up it's sleeve. It lets you create 2 different delay settings, each using the standard types of delay controls. Then when the plugin 'senses' audio input, it morphs from the first setting to the second. You can control the sensitivity of the detection and the length of the morph... sort of tough to explain, but very very cool, this is one plugin you just need to get your hands on and ears around to really feel what it's about. Perfect for creating spacey, evolving delay effects.
Of course you can not bother morphing, and use this as a more standard delay if you'd like, and still take advantage of MD's other handy little trick...
If you like the old school dub reggae's dirty delays and springy reverb sound, you must check out MD's other speciality, the 'pure dub fx' feature. this gives you controls for 'skimmer', a high pass filter, and 'dirty', a heavy tape saturation effect. These interact beautifully with the trippy delay effects that MD is capable of, creating a dubster's dream.
Anyway, this plug has a very smooth and unique sound to it. It's not going to be your bread n' butter workhorse delay, and it won't replace my OhmBoyz, but it's very fun and intuitive to use, creates some very unique effects, and has a sound all it's own. Honestly, I pull this one out all the time, I still can't believe that more people don't praise it in the forums, especially at this price!
Speaking of price, if you are looking for a 'workhorse delay', but the morphing delay also looks interesting to you, here's something to consider: NUSofting also sells Morphing Delay in a bundle with their Trimmetry Tapper delay plugin. Trimmetry could indeed be your workhorse delay, it has 3 serial delay lines, each with lfo's and feedback filters. It sounds killer and can do a very large amount of the things you can do with OhmBoyz. And it's dead cheap, like $20 or something, and if you buy it you can also have Morphing Delay for something like $9. Nine bucks, unbelieveable. I absolutely recommend that all of you buy this right now before the developer increases the prices, it's bound to happen, that's for sure.
Oh yeah, rock solid, never crashed, SUPER low CPU usage.
UI: 9 - pure dub fx could be bigger sliders
Sound: 10 - nothing else can sound like this
Features: 9 - pure dub adds value, randomization options exist too
docs - 9 simple to use
presets - never checked, I think it has a few
support - TOPRead Review
LFO Filter Free
Reviewed By Muff Wiggler [all]
October 28th, 2003
Version reviewed: 1.1 on Windows
Topaz's LFO Filter is kickass...I can't believe that more people don't talk about it when discussing filter plugins...especially when you consider the price. In my opinion this one (along with all of Topaz's stuff) shows how much SynthEdit creations can truly shine when put together by the right people....
Featuring a lovely GUI from KlangLabs, this filter has a very clean and precise sound, and is perfect for creating 'underwater' ambience, resonant squeltches, or lovely sweeps.... in fact my favorite thing about it is how easy it is to dial in a good sound. It's very clean and precise sounding.
Where the plugin gets really cool however is with the LFO. Modulating the filter's cutoff, you get a variety of LFO shapes to choose from, with options for free-running, triggered, or tempo synched to host - you can really get some cool sounds! This LFO unit makes this sound more like a 'filter plus phaser' sometimes and is loads of fun to play with.
Finally, an onboard distortion unit gives you some final noise-shaping options to round out an already beefy plugin. Every filter lover and sound mangler should download and play with this thing right now, and this goes double for anyone who is dubious about SynthEdit stuff (like far too many of you are)! You will be impressed...this one has a permanant spot in my filter folder along with some much more expensive models.
I actually got this along with the Topaz bundle of effects, which I'm going to shamelessly pimp for a moment here. If you like this plug you should check it out - you get 21 incredible effects plugins (others also featuring KlangLabs GUI's in a similar style to LFO Filter), all very musical and useful, for $25. By far the best VFM in the world of VST effects that I have come across so far, I really recommend it to anyone who is interested...I find these FX extremely useful.
Anyway, as far as filters go, I think that you'll agree that this one has a unique sound and style, and is easy and fun to work with....so what are you waiting for? Great sounding filter plugins with lovely GUI's that are also FREE don't come around every day, so grab this baby right now and have some fun.
About the ratings....it has no presets, no manual persay but it's self-explnatory....about support, Topaz is really easy to contact via KVR forum, email or IRC, and he'll help you out if you have any problems....stability: never had a problem, as mentioned sound is great, on a plug like this how can VFM NOT be 10? :)Read Review
Featuring a lovely GUI from KlangLabs, this filter has a very clean and precise sound, and is perfect for creating 'underwater' ambience, resonant squeltches, or lovely sweeps.... in fact my favorite thing about it is how easy it is to dial in a good sound. It's very clean and precise sounding.
Where the plugin gets really cool however is with the LFO. Modulating the filter's cutoff, you get a variety of LFO shapes to choose from, with options for free-running, triggered, or tempo synched to host - you can really get some cool sounds! This LFO unit makes this sound more like a 'filter plus phaser' sometimes and is loads of fun to play with.
Finally, an onboard distortion unit gives you some final noise-shaping options to round out an already beefy plugin. Every filter lover and sound mangler should download and play with this thing right now, and this goes double for anyone who is dubious about SynthEdit stuff (like far too many of you are)! You will be impressed...this one has a permanant spot in my filter folder along with some much more expensive models.
I actually got this along with the Topaz bundle of effects, which I'm going to shamelessly pimp for a moment here. If you like this plug you should check it out - you get 21 incredible effects plugins (others also featuring KlangLabs GUI's in a similar style to LFO Filter), all very musical and useful, for $25. By far the best VFM in the world of VST effects that I have come across so far, I really recommend it to anyone who is interested...I find these FX extremely useful.
Anyway, as far as filters go, I think that you'll agree that this one has a unique sound and style, and is easy and fun to work with....so what are you waiting for? Great sounding filter plugins with lovely GUI's that are also FREE don't come around every day, so grab this baby right now and have some fun.
About the ratings....it has no presets, no manual persay but it's self-explnatory....about support, Topaz is really easy to contact via KVR forum, email or IRC, and he'll help you out if you have any problems....stability: never had a problem, as mentioned sound is great, on a plug like this how can VFM NOT be 10? :)Read Review
energyXT
Reviewed By Muff Wiggler [all]
August 19th, 2003
Version reviewed: 1.21 on Windows
Wow, what a fantastic product. I can't believe there is not a whole pile of reviews.
First I want to say that you should not be fooled by the simple GUI when you first open it. Part of it's power is in it's simplicity, but I have to say this very simplicity fooled me into initially thinking it was less then it really is. Once you have snapshots of your instruments and FX taking the place of the standard icon in the main workspace, you have increased the workspace size, added your favorite skin, opened the mixer, arp, audio part editor, envelope tool, etc., it is VERY apparent that you are working with a VERY powerful environment.
Basically EnergyXT acts in standalone mode, VSTi mode, or VSTfx mode. It let you chain together VSTi and VSTfx in any manner imaginable, and if you are using a host, treat this whole setup as an individual VSTi or VSTfx in your host. There's a built-in mixer with sends, so really you can set up the routing between modules to be as flexible as you want. A really simple application that EnergyXT breezes through is setting up multiple copies of the same synth, all responding to the same input, to create thicker sounds. Of course you don't have to use the same synth, and you can chain or send effects as well.
What really makes things cool however are some of the included processing modules. There's an amazing arpeggiator that you can place in front of a VSTi (or in front of a bunch of VSTi's!). I love this arp, it's got everything I could ask for: sync mode/poly/hold mode lets you have multiple patterns when you play chords, or a single pattern moving though the chord keys, whatever you want. You can have 'per channel' arp patterns as well, triggering different patterns with different MIDI channels. You can have one arp play two different patterns on two different VSTi's, just by pressing one key on your keyboard! The arp also lets you create MIDI CC patterns, so along with your arp'ed notes, you can also pattern control synth parameters like envelope cutoff, resonant frequency, etc. Very powerful.
Another great module is the Envelope tool. It's your standard 'draw n' drag' envelope creator, and the envelope you make can be mapped to any MIDI CC#, and can be set to 'Legato' 'Sync' or 'Run', awesome for automating parameters.
There's also an Audio Part tool, I suppose this is similar to products like XPhrase. You add as many samples as you want into it, they can each be triggered by midi notes, you can cut them, combine them into parts, change the end points on them, etc. Very very cool...I just got into this today and I'm sure I only barely grasp the power of this feature.
About my ratings - 8 for UI as I had to play with the UI a bit before I loved it :)
10 for features as I keep finidng new things!
7 for documentation. The online manual covers enough to get you comfy with this app, but not everything.
10 for presets - it doesn't have any and shouldn't.
VFM is tops! $39 a STEALRead Review
First I want to say that you should not be fooled by the simple GUI when you first open it. Part of it's power is in it's simplicity, but I have to say this very simplicity fooled me into initially thinking it was less then it really is. Once you have snapshots of your instruments and FX taking the place of the standard icon in the main workspace, you have increased the workspace size, added your favorite skin, opened the mixer, arp, audio part editor, envelope tool, etc., it is VERY apparent that you are working with a VERY powerful environment.
Basically EnergyXT acts in standalone mode, VSTi mode, or VSTfx mode. It let you chain together VSTi and VSTfx in any manner imaginable, and if you are using a host, treat this whole setup as an individual VSTi or VSTfx in your host. There's a built-in mixer with sends, so really you can set up the routing between modules to be as flexible as you want. A really simple application that EnergyXT breezes through is setting up multiple copies of the same synth, all responding to the same input, to create thicker sounds. Of course you don't have to use the same synth, and you can chain or send effects as well.
What really makes things cool however are some of the included processing modules. There's an amazing arpeggiator that you can place in front of a VSTi (or in front of a bunch of VSTi's!). I love this arp, it's got everything I could ask for: sync mode/poly/hold mode lets you have multiple patterns when you play chords, or a single pattern moving though the chord keys, whatever you want. You can have 'per channel' arp patterns as well, triggering different patterns with different MIDI channels. You can have one arp play two different patterns on two different VSTi's, just by pressing one key on your keyboard! The arp also lets you create MIDI CC patterns, so along with your arp'ed notes, you can also pattern control synth parameters like envelope cutoff, resonant frequency, etc. Very powerful.
Another great module is the Envelope tool. It's your standard 'draw n' drag' envelope creator, and the envelope you make can be mapped to any MIDI CC#, and can be set to 'Legato' 'Sync' or 'Run', awesome for automating parameters.
There's also an Audio Part tool, I suppose this is similar to products like XPhrase. You add as many samples as you want into it, they can each be triggered by midi notes, you can cut them, combine them into parts, change the end points on them, etc. Very very cool...I just got into this today and I'm sure I only barely grasp the power of this feature.
About my ratings - 8 for UI as I had to play with the UI a bit before I loved it :)
10 for features as I keep finidng new things!
7 for documentation. The online manual covers enough to get you comfy with this app, but not everything.
10 for presets - it doesn't have any and shouldn't.
VFM is tops! $39 a STEALRead Review
