Also, (as someone who likes a good starting point to speed things up), all their plugins don't have a preset browser, but do in fact have a database of presets you can download and have to use the DAW browser to access them.
I got a free bundle from them through focusrite and they auto downloaded dozens of plugins i can’t use because I don’t have licenses for them. It’s pretty unreasonable but now I just associate them with bloatware and annoyance and I’ll probably never take them seriously
I have a soft spot for PA the Maag EQ, ADPTR sculpt and the BlackBox are just game changer plugins for me. But I don’t have an extensive library of theirs tbf.
Serum. hands down. A revered plugin amongst so many sound designers, and yet there is this feeling from this plugin that is getting really old organizing the folders, and the database. It can't handle presets that well as much as vital, hive2, pigments. I make presets, and have to organize them, and it feels annoying
Also any fx plugin that doesn't add auto-gain as an option that needs it. Also any hardware interface that feels clunky to turn up dials. there are fix points, and then there is this hard clunky drag to do one switch change
My only gripe with Serum is that when you make a custom category for a patch. It doesn't show up in the drop down and you have to type that custom category in every time. And is also case sensitive.
Serum is annoying as fck. EVERY. FUCKING. TIME. I save a patch it rebuilds the WHOLE fcking database and if you're unlucky it just crashes bringing down the whole daw.
best to take the remainder 9gb you have, and make a folder that can drag the fxps to serum. Have the rest in serum to search, but then the daw can still drag in the others. That got rid of the loading problems I had.
Reveal Sound - Spire. If the list of presets is big enough, when scrolling down the list of them, it doesn't save where you were last and you always start at the very top of the list. Infuriating
90% of ROMplers can be replaced by buying a synth or just using Vital. For those starting out don't waste your money like I did. Just cough up the 200 for Serum or Pigments or if you don't want to spend money just use Vital.
I still use my old Roland JV1080, 2080 and my Kurzweil K2000 every day, the amount of useful and beautiful sounding presets on those machines is incredible, they belong in my workflow. I wouldn’t replace them and they complement perfectly all the other softsynths I have.
I don't like the term a bit because it misses the point of most of the "ROMplers" (at least hardware ones) - they are quite sophisticated synths. Especially Kurzweil and Rolands JV line. I personally have XV 2020 (a younger and cheaper brother;) and it has maassive synth power. Like I can create dub step growls no problem with this synth. It is like having 4 oscillator subtractive synth with couple thousand of waveforms to choose from. And Kurzweil's are like 1000x more powerful
I disagree with you that most ROMplers can be replaced by synths. But then again I don't see much reason to pay money for ROMplers when Orbhits and Micro Keys and GameBoi exist.
To be honest however, most people use every plugin as rompler, by only using factory patches ;p
BTW, thank you for writing about Orbhits and GameBoi. Had no idea they existed and it's exactly my kind of sound.
I know what Rompler is. Everyone knows. I was salty because you were.
I was asking what exactly rompler you are talking about. Like the plugin name. Fabric is technically a Rompler and it is amazing and I highly recommend it. I don't use many other rompler's really. And I cannot read or google your mind.
Just bought all the Ugritone drum kits. The pro is that when you switch kits it keeps all the really important routing and mapping options.
But complaints!
Half of the kits default to having one-shots fire with kick and snare, and those sound like trash.
Several of the kits just don't use the same player as the rest of them so take up extra space in my plugins list and must be loaded separately.
They're slow to load and have crashed my Reaper at least once so far.
NI Battery for Windows still doesn’t support HiDPI, so its user interface is inevitably blurry or pixelated or too small e.g. on 4K monitors at 200% OS-level zoom.
Having an impossible time rn getting arturia and native instruments stuff to work properly. Been like 2 weeks back and forth and basically zero progress
Metric A|B is nice but if you open any other plugin while it’s open it tanks your frames and CPU.
Was just talking about Kontakt and how ugly the UI is and how user unfriendly it is.
While not exactly a VST, splice’s desktop app constantly logs me out and it annoys the hell out of me. The website never logs me out
Ozone, why the hell did they have to rename basic things. Maximizer I think is their limiter?
Didn't they fix this in the latest update for AB?
Also maximizer has more than just a limiter going.
Splice app is trash and had no 2fa.. like what? 2024 and no 2fa?
Haven’t tried metric but their Streamliner plugin is solid.
Kontakt lol their custom library is a living hazard.
The biggest fumble with Ozone is that 11 isn’t standalone like wtf is that
So fucking true
But
I do have the one legit common among us complaint
When it comes to UI or GUI it always seems they chose a bid process on Fiverr to get the layout, graphics, font sizes
And on the bid proposal they specifically asked for
- do not apply if you don’t design in the 80’s windows style layout
- you must be able to make the design for horribly on modern monitors
Jokes aside, this is the one thing NueralDSP has achieved so much better than others
- Exponential Audio (Owned by iZotope I believe now). Their reverbs are practically unusable in FL. They work, but if you open a project, it can't recall settings that were used and just goes to default settings. So if you wanna use them, you're gonna have to save a preset for each track instance and good luck remember what goes where. Or print everything before closing the project. I contacted support and they basically blamed FL and FL needs to fix VST3 reliability. Despite them being the *only* plugin out of 1k that this happens.
- Arturia: Only gripe is first time opening a plugin it always takes like a min or two to actually pull up.
- Kontakt: Freezes when loading instruments that have big libraries sometimes. Pretty much accustomed to saving projects before switching even snapshots.
- Acustica: Size of them. CPU usage. Their Aria engine or whatever for their "Ultra" plugins. The display is pretty visually delayed. You will hear a transient for example and visually it's pretty delayed. Also, the display might show say -4db of reduction. But the GR value will say only -1. So don't know what to trust. Also, you might set something to -.5db of reduction, move the threshold 1 pixel and it's now -5db of reduction. Huh?
Have you used the updated exponential verbs? Like with ozone 11 rollout might be better they had a complete overhaul.
Arturia is pretty hefty on CPU yeh
- I actually contacted Kontakt support cos a 3rd party library I bought was taking so long to load.
They said to batch pre-save and it improved exponentially.
Here’s a vid
https://youtu.be/gt9z-7t6ODs?si=-uZT5ykwsnbHxbqc
Plugin alliance - unable to resize some plugins and clunky UI which is a shame as they’re great.
Also, (as someone who likes a good starting point to speed things up), all their plugins don't have a preset browser, but do in fact have a database of presets you can download and have to use the DAW browser to access them.
I got a free bundle from them through focusrite and they auto downloaded dozens of plugins i can’t use because I don’t have licenses for them. It’s pretty unreasonable but now I just associate them with bloatware and annoyance and I’ll probably never take them seriously
Funny that’s how I feel about UAD just crammed with their plugins I don’t want. It’s a turn off
Yup same for them. Though their reputation supersedes it tbh. If i had ua hardware and a bunch of money i'd still buy
Yeh you right they’re reputation is one of the best which is why it’s weird they’re so pushy
I have a soft spot for PA the Maag EQ, ADPTR sculpt and the BlackBox are just game changer plugins for me. But I don’t have an extensive library of theirs tbf.
Serum. hands down. A revered plugin amongst so many sound designers, and yet there is this feeling from this plugin that is getting really old organizing the folders, and the database. It can't handle presets that well as much as vital, hive2, pigments. I make presets, and have to organize them, and it feels annoying Also any fx plugin that doesn't add auto-gain as an option that needs it. Also any hardware interface that feels clunky to turn up dials. there are fix points, and then there is this hard clunky drag to do one switch change
My only gripe with Serum is that when you make a custom category for a patch. It doesn't show up in the drop down and you have to type that custom category in every time. And is also case sensitive.
Serum is annoying as fck. EVERY. FUCKING. TIME. I save a patch it rebuilds the WHOLE fcking database and if you're unlucky it just crashes bringing down the whole daw.
best to take the remainder 9gb you have, and make a folder that can drag the fxps to serum. Have the rest in serum to search, but then the daw can still drag in the others. That got rid of the loading problems I had.
any plugin that doesn’t let you type in numbers on dials and makes you manually twist it with your cursor
Reveal Sound - Spire. If the list of presets is big enough, when scrolling down the list of them, it doesn't save where you were last and you always start at the very top of the list. Infuriating
Yes! Great sounds, but some VSTs can organize the presets and such better.
90% of ROMplers can be replaced by buying a synth or just using Vital. For those starting out don't waste your money like I did. Just cough up the 200 for Serum or Pigments or if you don't want to spend money just use Vital.
I still use my old Roland JV1080, 2080 and my Kurzweil K2000 every day, the amount of useful and beautiful sounding presets on those machines is incredible, they belong in my workflow. I wouldn’t replace them and they complement perfectly all the other softsynths I have.
I don't like the term a bit because it misses the point of most of the "ROMplers" (at least hardware ones) - they are quite sophisticated synths. Especially Kurzweil and Rolands JV line. I personally have XV 2020 (a younger and cheaper brother;) and it has maassive synth power. Like I can create dub step growls no problem with this synth. It is like having 4 oscillator subtractive synth with couple thousand of waveforms to choose from. And Kurzweil's are like 1000x more powerful
I disagree with you that most ROMplers can be replaced by synths. But then again I don't see much reason to pay money for ROMplers when Orbhits and Micro Keys and GameBoi exist.
Wow I never new about orbhits that’s so sick!
To be honest however, most people use every plugin as rompler, by only using factory patches ;p BTW, thank you for writing about Orbhits and GameBoi. Had no idea they existed and it's exactly my kind of sound.
What do you mean by ROMpler exactly?
Google ROMpler
But you are talking about plugins. Romplers are hardware (hence ROM- plers. -> Read Only Memory). And perhaps google it yourself first.
look up software ROMplers lmao what. Do I really need to spell it out like that for you?
I know what Rompler is. Everyone knows. I was salty because you were. I was asking what exactly rompler you are talking about. Like the plugin name. Fabric is technically a Rompler and it is amazing and I highly recommend it. I don't use many other rompler's really. And I cannot read or google your mind.
You're right man I'm sorry for being a dick.
No problem. Everyone is sometimes here on internet ;)
A synth isn't quite the same experience as a ROMpler, I find value in both.
Tbh I didn’t even know people still used romplers
Pay $4000 for the full nexus library! It's worth it, trust me! /s
Just bought all the Ugritone drum kits. The pro is that when you switch kits it keeps all the really important routing and mapping options. But complaints! Half of the kits default to having one-shots fire with kick and snare, and those sound like trash. Several of the kits just don't use the same player as the rest of them so take up extra space in my plugins list and must be loaded separately. They're slow to load and have crashed my Reaper at least once so far.
NI Battery for Windows still doesn’t support HiDPI, so its user interface is inevitably blurry or pixelated or too small e.g. on 4K monitors at 200% OS-level zoom.
Oooooh haven’t upgraded my battery but I know hasn’t been updated since the internet 😂
Fa Q plug in companies that make you install all of their plug ins just to get the couple you wanted.
Having an impossible time rn getting arturia and native instruments stuff to work properly. Been like 2 weeks back and forth and basically zero progress
Any company that charges for updates that are required for any new OS compatibility can get fucked
Windows 10 and Ventura for the win! Full compatibility for all my plugins
Finesse👌🏾
NI does that sort of if you update the libraries, they don’t make significant changes just you can’t use Kontakt 6 libraries in 7.
Metric A|B is nice but if you open any other plugin while it’s open it tanks your frames and CPU. Was just talking about Kontakt and how ugly the UI is and how user unfriendly it is. While not exactly a VST, splice’s desktop app constantly logs me out and it annoys the hell out of me. The website never logs me out Ozone, why the hell did they have to rename basic things. Maximizer I think is their limiter?
Didn't they fix this in the latest update for AB? Also maximizer has more than just a limiter going. Splice app is trash and had no 2fa.. like what? 2024 and no 2fa?
Oh yeh I literally use loopcloud cos splice app is trash
Oh yeh I literally use loopcloud cos splice app is trash 🗑️
Haven’t tried metric but their Streamliner plugin is solid. Kontakt lol their custom library is a living hazard. The biggest fumble with Ozone is that 11 isn’t standalone like wtf is that
XPand2 doesn’t load the UI on my M1 Mac since I switched from Intel Forced me to go with Arturia Analog Lab
So fucking true But I do have the one legit common among us complaint When it comes to UI or GUI it always seems they chose a bid process on Fiverr to get the layout, graphics, font sizes And on the bid proposal they specifically asked for - do not apply if you don’t design in the 80’s windows style layout - you must be able to make the design for horribly on modern monitors Jokes aside, this is the one thing NueralDSP has achieved so much better than others
😂😂 and don’t bother with an undo button no one uses those
Ilok license and waves subscriptions can go jump in the bin they have good plugins but I’m a fabfilter bloke now
iLok is the most anti-human software ever spawned. They used to actually charge for a dongle, what a joke.
Yeah I had one with first pro tools purchase .. absolute mess
Having to pay again to use my damn waves plug-ins that I already bought. Do any other plugin company’s do this crap?
Each company has its quirks but waves is the lowest bar 🙄
- Exponential Audio (Owned by iZotope I believe now). Their reverbs are practically unusable in FL. They work, but if you open a project, it can't recall settings that were used and just goes to default settings. So if you wanna use them, you're gonna have to save a preset for each track instance and good luck remember what goes where. Or print everything before closing the project. I contacted support and they basically blamed FL and FL needs to fix VST3 reliability. Despite them being the *only* plugin out of 1k that this happens. - Arturia: Only gripe is first time opening a plugin it always takes like a min or two to actually pull up. - Kontakt: Freezes when loading instruments that have big libraries sometimes. Pretty much accustomed to saving projects before switching even snapshots. - Acustica: Size of them. CPU usage. Their Aria engine or whatever for their "Ultra" plugins. The display is pretty visually delayed. You will hear a transient for example and visually it's pretty delayed. Also, the display might show say -4db of reduction. But the GR value will say only -1. So don't know what to trust. Also, you might set something to -.5db of reduction, move the threshold 1 pixel and it's now -5db of reduction. Huh?
Have you used the updated exponential verbs? Like with ozone 11 rollout might be better they had a complete overhaul. Arturia is pretty hefty on CPU yeh - I actually contacted Kontakt support cos a 3rd party library I bought was taking so long to load. They said to batch pre-save and it improved exponentially. Here’s a vid https://youtu.be/gt9z-7t6ODs?si=-uZT5ykwsnbHxbqc