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songboy « Completely remake your sound live »
Published on 01/26/11 at 11:20I run this on a Macbook Pro with both Logic 9 and Ableton 8. There has been no compatibility issues whatsoever. Unfortunately I do not see any manual anywhere in the plugin or online. The general configuration is moderately complicated. If you have had no experience with stutter style plugins (i.e. Artillery 2) it may be a bit tricky. Some of the parameters are hard to understand but after playing with the unit for a few hours it starts to make a little more sense. I still have a few questions about a few of them and have been petitioning Izotope for some clear instructions. All the functions are easy enough to access. The entire plugin face represents one "key" or midi button at a time. What I mean is if you hit a key on your keyboard, all the parameters on the plugin that are shown attribute to that one key. Hit another key, and you start with a completely fresh setup.
SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE
With the programs mentioned above the plugin works perfectly. Not that much cpu is needed which is nice as I run lots of plugins in ableton at the same time. So far, I have found no bugs and have had zero crashes or lost presets. As for performance, I give this plugin a 10 out of 10. It sounds amazing, has tons of different options and is instantaneous. After lots of use of Artillery 2, I realized that sometimes there was a little latency and that would cause a stutter effect or other effect to kinda throw me off or make a little click sound. It was very slight but as any dj style performer can tell you, the little things like that will drive you nuts after awhile. With this plugin, it is as smooth as butter. I have been using this plugin for about two weeks and loving it!!
OVERALL OPINION
What I like most about this plugin is the amazing control you have over each parameter. One of my favorites is using the "Palindrome" feature which lets you set and use a reverse style effect. Its truly amazing for lowpass effects or just general reverse style effects and the grid that lets you shape and control it is very intuitive. I guess the only thing I don't like about the plugin is the parameters I still don't understand completely. Under each effect unit there is a slider that seems to tell the effect where to spend most of its time. Its hard to explain but say you have a stutter effect that bounces between 1/8 and 1/4 stutters. You can use this slider to tell the effect to stay on the 1/8 side more than the 1/4 side. So I guess it is an "averager" if that makes sense, but again, I'm still not entirely sure as it doesn't always perform the way I expect it to.
For how great this plugin is and stable for a version 1.0 release, I have to say its worth the $149 I paid. Precision and quality of the sound is spot on as I mentioned earlier. I used Sugar Bytes Artillery 2 for some time and was pretty happy with it, but this plugin does all that that one did and a ton more. Yes, I would definitely make the same choice.
SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE
With the programs mentioned above the plugin works perfectly. Not that much cpu is needed which is nice as I run lots of plugins in ableton at the same time. So far, I have found no bugs and have had zero crashes or lost presets. As for performance, I give this plugin a 10 out of 10. It sounds amazing, has tons of different options and is instantaneous. After lots of use of Artillery 2, I realized that sometimes there was a little latency and that would cause a stutter effect or other effect to kinda throw me off or make a little click sound. It was very slight but as any dj style performer can tell you, the little things like that will drive you nuts after awhile. With this plugin, it is as smooth as butter. I have been using this plugin for about two weeks and loving it!!
OVERALL OPINION
What I like most about this plugin is the amazing control you have over each parameter. One of my favorites is using the "Palindrome" feature which lets you set and use a reverse style effect. Its truly amazing for lowpass effects or just general reverse style effects and the grid that lets you shape and control it is very intuitive. I guess the only thing I don't like about the plugin is the parameters I still don't understand completely. Under each effect unit there is a slider that seems to tell the effect where to spend most of its time. Its hard to explain but say you have a stutter effect that bounces between 1/8 and 1/4 stutters. You can use this slider to tell the effect to stay on the 1/8 side more than the 1/4 side. So I guess it is an "averager" if that makes sense, but again, I'm still not entirely sure as it doesn't always perform the way I expect it to.
For how great this plugin is and stable for a version 1.0 release, I have to say its worth the $149 I paid. Precision and quality of the sound is spot on as I mentioned earlier. I used Sugar Bytes Artillery 2 for some time and was pretty happy with it, but this plugin does all that that one did and a ton more. Yes, I would definitely make the same choice.