All user reviews of 4/5 for the reFX Nexus 2

Nexus is a rompler which has a lot of clean sounds, most usable within dance and electronic music. It has a variety of patches ranging from pads, pianos, basses, horns and orchestral sounds, arpeggios and various other sounds. The basic edition with no expansion packs included costs $299. The complete package costs a hefty $3,539. The quality of the sound backs is brilliant. All the sounds are clean; if you run it through a spectrum analyzer you'll see that each sound is shaped really well which makes fitting the sound into a mix quite easy.

I first got it when I saw a demo song on YouTube and was impressed with the clarity and fatness of the sounds. My main aim was to use it in my dance music productions but I've ended up using it more in my hip hop beats. There are expansion packs for adding on extra sounds, which cost an extra $40 - $65 per pack.



SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

It runs on both Mac and PC and can be installed as a VST, AU, AAX or RTAS plugin. Installation of the plugin is straight-forward. Once installed it takes up roughly 5GB on your hard drive and it requires a minimum of 2GB RAM to run smoothly. I have 4GB RAM on my current machine so that's not an issue. However, my previous laptop which had 2GB RAM used to take quite a number of seconds for the plugin to load and running several instances of it would slow down my PC, so you need to have a decent amount of RAM to run this smoothly. The full installation with all the expansion packs requires roughly 50GB. The package also comes with a USB eLicense dongle, so you need an extra USB port on your machine.

It should be able to run in most DAWs. I use it mainly in FL Studio and occasionally in other hosts but in 3 years of using Nexus I haven't experienced any crashes caused by it in FL Studio (my main DAW) which is a testimony of the plugin's stability. One of the things I like about the plugin are the onboard effects. The delay, reverb, etc is very good. There is usually no need to add any extra effects to the sounds which saves CPU and editing time (for adding and tweaking effects).

OVERALL OPINION

I think its strongest point is the quality of the sounds. There is very little to no editing required for you to make the presets sound good which saves a lot of time, especially in the mixing phase. A discouraging factor is the price of the full package. $3,539 is a big price to pay for a semi-professional/home user like me. For professionals who make a lot of income this may not be an issue. If the price is too high you may consider getting other romplers for less like Wusik station, Alchemy, Sampletank and Yellow Tools Independence; most of which have free versions. Another great alternative is Native Instruments Kontakt. Kontakt Player Free which is also a free alternative which comes with some pretty neat sounds and with enough scouring through the net you can find a tonne of free libraries.

It's best to listen to demo sounds to get a taste of whether it will suit your needs because once you buy it you can't create custom sounds. So if you're a sound designer you should not even consider getting Nexus. But if you are a dance music producer and want to get clean sounds that will allow you to make music instantly without tweaking too many knobs and a lot of clean-up work then Nexus may be the plugin for you. Given a chance to buy it again I would but after quite a bit of consideration, because the price is quite high. However, the quality of the sounds justifies to a great extent the reason for the price.

Pros:
- Brilliant sound quality. The presets are clean and shaped very well
- Wide variety of sounds and expandable via the expansion packs
- Good on-board effects

Cons:
- The presets are not customizable
- The price of the full edition is steep. You can get similar, more customizable plugins for much less
- You can't load your own samples or create your own patches easily

Nexus 2 offers crisp, golden sounds - and a wide variety of them if you buy the expansions! The sounds sound killer right out of the box, particularly for electronic music composition. I particularly enjoyed the Platinum Orchestra Hit setting, the arps and the gates. Nexus has strength in these realms, as well as Sawtooth and Square Wave sounds. Expect chunky electronic basses and crisp dance leads.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Running 8 simultaneous arps proved no issue for my computer. Again, I stress you keep your hardware cleaned (clear the fans of dust) and OS optimized for music production. Otherwise you might experience CPU spikes whilst using simultaneous plugins in your DAW.

OVERALL OPINION

The best part of Nexus is it's ease of use. Instead of customizing patches for each layer of your track, this is ready to go and sounds great! The problem is, an educated musical ear can EASILY distinguish Nexus out in a song - example, Lonely Island's "Jack Sparrow" - and the customization of presets is rather abysmal. You're pretty much a slave to existing presets, which some producers my find sacrilegious. But John Carpenter and Vangelis used presets all the time, and they gotta know SOMETHING, right? Nexus, overall, is a useful tool, particularly in dance genres. But don't let it become the staple of your sound or go-to crutch....use it supplementally and it can be a very useful tool.

Trouble-free installation.

The general configuration is simple, works with eLicenser dongle provided by REFX (that's pretty good).

No incompatibility; very stable.

The manual, I do not remember having put his nose in it, and REFX has a fairly responsive customer service.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Runs on windows 7 with a quad I5, Focusrite sound card, no problem.

OVERALL OPINION

I have 2 years.

I had before Vangard, and plug in the Native instrument.

Very nice interface (which charms us I think), arpeggiator, many banks of sounds, the knobs in surface appearance were reduced to a minimum, is not necessarily a good thing because other settings deserve better accessibility , as the LFO which suddenly are less accessible and inefficient. Certainly it has very good sound bank (although some are still sounds like), but this app is not to create or make changes to existing high sounds. that being said, given the sound quality and the number of sounds available, it will be largely satisfied.

Value for money correct, especially the eLicenser is provided (unlike East West). The Sound Banks are not necessarily gifts.

Definitely yes I would reiterate, with some minor flaws, this app is a must.

Nexus 2 is of the new ROMpler on the market that is a completely revolution regarding sounds and quality.
It has plenty of hq sounds provided with the nexus itself.
You can really jamm into something professional by tweaking the menu, the general setup is relatively easy and fast,a ll the typical functions are easily accessible and the best thing about nexus that you can find something really nice very fast without going crazy like you do with a typical synth.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

The software works great, it's made by a great company named ReFx, it has a nice stability, so you don't have to be afraid that it will crush and you will loose your settings that you tweaked.
The performances are pretty good, it has 762 build-in factory presets and they are well organized in the menu to find exactly what you are searching for. I've been using this ROMpler for a while now,and I can say it's one of the greatest concerning it's price.

OVERALL OPINION

What I like most about the ReFx Nexus2 are the build-in sounds that you can incorporate in you own tracks, usually you will use nexus2 in a more electronic dance music.
I think it's worth the money, nexus2 costs around 200$ but if you really want to get all the expansion provided by ReFx it will cost around 2000$(ouch).
The quality and precision of the sound is powerful, you can't make a sound from scratch but you can tweak the build in sounds to get something more unusual,you can tweak the vibrato,you can use some portamento(or glide function in other synths) but one of the greatest things in nexus2 are the modulation features.
This is one of the most popular and hq rompler on the market,a nd even if I had some others in the past I stuck with nexus2.

By analyzing the market pretty well, I'm confident that i would make the same choice and I would use nexus2 as an add-on to my library to create something catchy and original.

Easy installation (requires a USB-eLicenser dongle).
The sound settings are simple


SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Very stable, not too resources hungry and the sound is excellent.
Example


OVERALL OPINION

NEXUS 2 is ideal for those looking for a synth with fat sounds.
The sound libraries are simply excellent http://refx.com/products/nexus/expansions/
I use it mainly for the pads.

The software has a lot of good features, but it also has two flaws:
- Its price tag (as big as its sound).
- The impossibility to make your own patches selecting the samples included in the extensions (maybe in V3...)

Easy installation, the installer is launched for the reader of samples and we copy the folder "Nexus content" where we want (internal or external disk). When first loading the plug-in (remember to insert the key Syncrosoft), it automatically locates the folder where the banks.

To import new banks, we can not be easier, just place the new bank (in. Nxp) and the license file on the desktop, go in the "Sys" and click on tab "Desktop" and the bank is imported.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Mac Pro 8 x 2.4 Ghz Westmere (late 2010), 8 GB Ram, 4 x HD 1 temp / Logic Pro 9/Motu 896 HD.

No compatibility issues.

Very stable.

OVERALL OPINION

I use it for a year, I also use the Kontakt and the EXS 24, each with its qualities according to what is desired.

The good thing compared to the version 1 is mainly due to the possibility of separate layers (ie if a sequence with drums and Gimmik we like, we can turn off some layers of sound as the arpeggiator for each layer This can either recover or drum loops and grooves when playing with new sounds Gimmik provided) via the tab "Mix". Vengeance adds regular banks pretty nice. The reader is fairly well thought out (although it lacks some features), the effects are effective, but banks seem a little expensive in relation to the amount of 128 presets (54 € 99), I admit that the quality sounds is to go, it was the mood right away, ideal for quickly building a project.

For contemporary music (Electro, Dance, Eurodance) is a must.

The negative point is that found similar sounds in different banks is used in a lot of current productions (to be found which will make the difference over other producers), as well as the transition to Syncrosoft key instead of the license file that was used for version 1 (we are still victims of piracy). It was easier to use version 1 for a mobile station, now, if we forget the dongle is cooked!

This choice I would do without hesitation.

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