Product Reviews by KVR Members
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Gobbler
Reviewed By Architeuthis [all]
December 11th, 2016
Version reviewed: 1 on Windows
It's fun to attempt to play Deck the Halls. The impressionism art background is highly inspiring and moves when you play the notes. The samples are also very high quality human gobble sounds, much better than a rooster or chicken could ever do, better than a turkey as well. I prefer human gobble gobble rather than gobble turkey gobble gobble. Gobble gobble is gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble.
Read ReviewDronebox
Reviewed By Architeuthis [all]
December 12th, 2007
Version reviewed: 2.2 on Windows
USER INTERFACE - Easy to understand, intuitive, it's not too big or too small, however it could be better. The layout is a bit confusing at first since the LFO, Reverb, and Delay knobs are very eccentrically sized and placed. I've found the LFO grid to be uninspiring to program as there's no visual feedback to what the LFOs are doing.
SOUND - Regardless of the user interface, it definitely proves itself with its sound. The resonant delays are highly customizable, clean, and predictable with panning, decay amount, damping amount, positive/negative feedback, and switchable to Note Pitch, Frequency, or MIDI Control (each delay with its own midi channel). It's very easy to take a percussive sound and create awesome chords. Carefully applying LFO parameters can create some spacey-ambiotic sound effects. The input signal is reduced to mono, but each delay can be panned and panning can be modulated via the LFO system. Once you turn on and customize three or more delays, things start to sound very organic.
FEATURES - The internal reverb sounds clean, bright and is very adequate in supporting Dronebox's spacey sound and nature. The delay is syncable and unsyncable with ping-pong and normal modes. When delay time is modulated, it does not pitch shift, but stutters. This effect is uncommon among delays, but desirable in some cases. As for the LFO section, I feel the LFOs have a limited flexability and the rate and depth of the LFOs cannot be set to the extremes I'd like. The delay time is not controllable through the LFO section. However, when you combine all the various features of Dronebox it is certainly not a one-trick pony. I've used Dronebox to assist in sound effects, voice manipulation, percussion, ambient textures, and electric guitar simulation.
DOCUMENTATION - Just enough to explain what everything does. However, there's an added bonus within the plugin. At the bottom left corner there is a help button. When turned on, a dialog box at the bottom of the plugin will explain what your mouse is hovering over.
PRESETS - A healthy amount that shows you the general capability of the plugin. Presets range from creepy to nice and ambiotic. Ambiotic is not really a world, but I sure as hell want it to be...
CUSTOMER SUPPORT - Top notch. Features I've suggested have been considered and bugs I've reported have been promptly fixed.
VALUE FOR MONEY - This is the only plugin that does what it can do and I absolutely needed it. I purchased it knowing I couldn't use it in too many compositions, but I knew what I bought it for and it definitely provided when I called it to the stage.
STABILITY - Has caused a few crashes in the past. Since the updates, it seems fine. However, I'm never immediately happy with the volume output of Dronebox. I usually find myself cranking up the input signal as much as I can muster before I'm satisfied.Read Review
SOUND - Regardless of the user interface, it definitely proves itself with its sound. The resonant delays are highly customizable, clean, and predictable with panning, decay amount, damping amount, positive/negative feedback, and switchable to Note Pitch, Frequency, or MIDI Control (each delay with its own midi channel). It's very easy to take a percussive sound and create awesome chords. Carefully applying LFO parameters can create some spacey-ambiotic sound effects. The input signal is reduced to mono, but each delay can be panned and panning can be modulated via the LFO system. Once you turn on and customize three or more delays, things start to sound very organic.
FEATURES - The internal reverb sounds clean, bright and is very adequate in supporting Dronebox's spacey sound and nature. The delay is syncable and unsyncable with ping-pong and normal modes. When delay time is modulated, it does not pitch shift, but stutters. This effect is uncommon among delays, but desirable in some cases. As for the LFO section, I feel the LFOs have a limited flexability and the rate and depth of the LFOs cannot be set to the extremes I'd like. The delay time is not controllable through the LFO section. However, when you combine all the various features of Dronebox it is certainly not a one-trick pony. I've used Dronebox to assist in sound effects, voice manipulation, percussion, ambient textures, and electric guitar simulation.
DOCUMENTATION - Just enough to explain what everything does. However, there's an added bonus within the plugin. At the bottom left corner there is a help button. When turned on, a dialog box at the bottom of the plugin will explain what your mouse is hovering over.
PRESETS - A healthy amount that shows you the general capability of the plugin. Presets range from creepy to nice and ambiotic. Ambiotic is not really a world, but I sure as hell want it to be...
CUSTOMER SUPPORT - Top notch. Features I've suggested have been considered and bugs I've reported have been promptly fixed.
VALUE FOR MONEY - This is the only plugin that does what it can do and I absolutely needed it. I purchased it knowing I couldn't use it in too many compositions, but I knew what I bought it for and it definitely provided when I called it to the stage.
STABILITY - Has caused a few crashes in the past. Since the updates, it seems fine. However, I'm never immediately happy with the volume output of Dronebox. I usually find myself cranking up the input signal as much as I can muster before I'm satisfied.Read Review
FilterBank3
Reviewed By Architeuthis [all]
August 9th, 2007
Version reviewed: 3.1 on Windows
1) INTERFACE
The interface has some glowing and shininess going on and first of all is organized, easy to find the parameter you want to change quickly. Of course, you won't find too many knobs. I really love the frequency display. It shows exactly what the curve looks like at all times for any parameter changes. For fine-tuning, click and hold ALT and you can change knobs in a circular motion which allows you to pull your mouse away and fine-tune the frequency or any other parameters. CTRL resets the knobs. While the most important frequency knob displays value in HZ, the rest of the parameters show a value from 0.00 to 1.00.
2) SOUND
What does it sound like? To sum it up, imagine the most delicious cream of wheat you've ever had. Take that bowl and throw it at your mother… let me explain.
a. PERCUSSION - You can get many totally unique sounds when processing percussion with the help of the wah-type envelope, distortion types, and delay. It's possible to get those crazy dub delay effects, which ambient and trance would benefit from, but like other delays, you'll need to spend time taming it. The comb filters and resampler are great choices for percussion as well as the more standard filters help with the common filter-fade-in/out effects.
b. SYNTH EFFECT - I don't think you'll ever need more distortion than what FilterBank can give you. I quote bobsled, "BP Dist can definitely tear your face off." From the lows to the highs, FilterBank can deliver dangerous distortions that can scream louder than the fat lady. At the same time its moog, notch, and (check it out) para BP filters do a great job in creating soft monosynths. The vocal/formant filters can really get things sounding classic, too. But if distortion is what you're after, included are some very unique distortions including Cubic, Wavewrap, Warble, and Presence which adds all kinds of fun harmonics.
c. VOICE MORPHING - It's no voice morpher but you can achieve some interesting results with the resampler filter and distortions which can make you sound like you're talking through a bad radio or distortion effects commonly used in pop music. You can achieve some funny results using the square distortion, the FM and AM filters, and the delay filtertype which can pitch your voice once you figure out how it works. However, I'd look elsewhere voice pitching.
d. SFX POTENTIAL - In my opinion, no matter what you are working with it's difficult to create musical or movie-potential sfx, but because of FilterBank's nature, the design and modulating abilities makes it possible to create interesting effects you won't find anywhere else. You'll have to listen to the mp3 demo or go through the SYNTH version's sfx and sequence presets.
e. AS A SYNTH - Absolutely ear-melting. Head straight for the presets. You will find some very nostalgic stuff like the SYN Churchorgan, SYN Theremin patches, and the SEQ(uence) patches great for trance. Of course it's very limited in programmability and doesn't have basic synth parameters, but the polysynth-only presets are great.
3) FEATURES
For what Filterbank is, it's feature-full. One of the best features is the filter routing. My favorite feature is the ability to route Filter1 to right speaker and Filter2 to left speaker and then modulating their frequencies opposite of each other. Awesome for percussion effects and awesome if you want your synth to sound wide. The matrix is great because of its mod shape types. From square to circular, hard to soft, you have everything in between. The only thing is - it lacks a matrix bank. Then again it's sort of an extra. If any feature was to be expanded I'd vote on the matrix. The delay combined with the distortion can result in great ambient stuff.
You get ping-pong as well as delays that only work if you have surround-sound speakers. You can choose to route it before or after the distortion. Also, there's a huge selection of filters including things you wouldn't expect such as FM, AM, Resonator, Resampler, Comb filters. You will also see strange names like "HP SVF", "LP Oct", and "NoLP Moog." Combining this with Filter 1 minus 2 routing and unique distortions you can get some very unique filter shapes and harmonic textures.
...REVIEW CONTINUES...
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2665450#2665450Read Review
The interface has some glowing and shininess going on and first of all is organized, easy to find the parameter you want to change quickly. Of course, you won't find too many knobs. I really love the frequency display. It shows exactly what the curve looks like at all times for any parameter changes. For fine-tuning, click and hold ALT and you can change knobs in a circular motion which allows you to pull your mouse away and fine-tune the frequency or any other parameters. CTRL resets the knobs. While the most important frequency knob displays value in HZ, the rest of the parameters show a value from 0.00 to 1.00.
2) SOUND
What does it sound like? To sum it up, imagine the most delicious cream of wheat you've ever had. Take that bowl and throw it at your mother… let me explain.
a. PERCUSSION - You can get many totally unique sounds when processing percussion with the help of the wah-type envelope, distortion types, and delay. It's possible to get those crazy dub delay effects, which ambient and trance would benefit from, but like other delays, you'll need to spend time taming it. The comb filters and resampler are great choices for percussion as well as the more standard filters help with the common filter-fade-in/out effects.
b. SYNTH EFFECT - I don't think you'll ever need more distortion than what FilterBank can give you. I quote bobsled, "BP Dist can definitely tear your face off." From the lows to the highs, FilterBank can deliver dangerous distortions that can scream louder than the fat lady. At the same time its moog, notch, and (check it out) para BP filters do a great job in creating soft monosynths. The vocal/formant filters can really get things sounding classic, too. But if distortion is what you're after, included are some very unique distortions including Cubic, Wavewrap, Warble, and Presence which adds all kinds of fun harmonics.
c. VOICE MORPHING - It's no voice morpher but you can achieve some interesting results with the resampler filter and distortions which can make you sound like you're talking through a bad radio or distortion effects commonly used in pop music. You can achieve some funny results using the square distortion, the FM and AM filters, and the delay filtertype which can pitch your voice once you figure out how it works. However, I'd look elsewhere voice pitching.
d. SFX POTENTIAL - In my opinion, no matter what you are working with it's difficult to create musical or movie-potential sfx, but because of FilterBank's nature, the design and modulating abilities makes it possible to create interesting effects you won't find anywhere else. You'll have to listen to the mp3 demo or go through the SYNTH version's sfx and sequence presets.
e. AS A SYNTH - Absolutely ear-melting. Head straight for the presets. You will find some very nostalgic stuff like the SYN Churchorgan, SYN Theremin patches, and the SEQ(uence) patches great for trance. Of course it's very limited in programmability and doesn't have basic synth parameters, but the polysynth-only presets are great.
3) FEATURES
For what Filterbank is, it's feature-full. One of the best features is the filter routing. My favorite feature is the ability to route Filter1 to right speaker and Filter2 to left speaker and then modulating their frequencies opposite of each other. Awesome for percussion effects and awesome if you want your synth to sound wide. The matrix is great because of its mod shape types. From square to circular, hard to soft, you have everything in between. The only thing is - it lacks a matrix bank. Then again it's sort of an extra. If any feature was to be expanded I'd vote on the matrix. The delay combined with the distortion can result in great ambient stuff.
You get ping-pong as well as delays that only work if you have surround-sound speakers. You can choose to route it before or after the distortion. Also, there's a huge selection of filters including things you wouldn't expect such as FM, AM, Resonator, Resampler, Comb filters. You will also see strange names like "HP SVF", "LP Oct", and "NoLP Moog." Combining this with Filter 1 minus 2 routing and unique distortions you can get some very unique filter shapes and harmonic textures.
...REVIEW CONTINUES...
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2665450#2665450Read Review
