Rob Papen Predator

No issues.
Easy to install.
Easy to use.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Runs smoothly.
Good CPU performance.

OVERALL OPINION

Predator by Rob Papen is an amazingly simple, yet powerfully deep synth. The interface is well organized; knobs and controls are accessible and easy to use. Creating sounds from scratch is fun and rewarding, and for those who are less adventurous, the synth comes with a vast array of presets from the master himself, Rob Papen. One of the most enjoyable features are the randomize buttons, which allow the user to generate new sounds without much effort. This vicious beast has 128 waveforms, not just saw, square, sine, and triangle. There are also many ways to modulate and tons of high quality effects

Predator suits any kind of electronic music, and can produce many kinds of sounds — cutting leads, meaty basses, soothing pads, atmospherics, rhythmic soundscapes, etc., but where it really shines is with leads and arpeggios. For this reason, Predator is an electronic dance music producer's dream synth. Tracks created with this synth usually sit well in the mix, standing out just enough, but not getting lost and buried. Grrrrr, a gentle roar. The only area whereby I would suggest improvement is the patch browser it could be more intuitive. Otherwise, it's all there and is an extremely stable plugin. It has never crashed on me, launching smoothly and performing well in Logic, Studio One, and Numerology. Considering the depth of the sound, CPU demand is not bad, and the sound quality of the most recent version is fantastic, without any noticeable aliasing.

Customer/User support is excellent. Rob and Jon are active on the threads and respond to emails within a day or two. They are great people creating great plugins — a pleasure to deal with!

I highly recommend Predator to any electronic musician or producer looking to add a powerful, killer VSTi to their plugin collection. This synth cannot do it all, but what it can do — it does REALLY well. It's a wonderful soft synth that successfully combines the sonic nuances of analog and digital to deliver a punchy modern sound that you may quickly become addicted and never be able to live without. That's what happened to me! I've been going to counseling and a recovery program for nearly a year, and it hasn't helped. I keep launching every chance I get! Thank you, RPCX, for creating such a ferociously addictive synth. Tommy Zai gives Predator three thumbs up. Love it!

BTW, if you search online you will find many threads on electronic music forums comparing synths, i.e. this synth versus that synth. Don't be surprised if Predator is mentioned a lot!

The Rob Papen Predator is pretty easy to use and get use to. It really didn’t remind me of any other type of vst while I was using this last year. I really don’t use it much anymore because I have pretty much ran through all of the presets multiple times so I have kind of put this aside for now.


SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Predator runs great, and it really ran good on my vista , mac and xp laptop. I had no compatibility issues no matter which system I chose to run this on. You can run it multipe times to without it causing any errors or crashing on you. I havent really created my own presets on it yet, that’s probably the reason that I don’t really use it much anymore. I think creating your own presets is simple too, and the price of this vst is very respectable and affordable. Most vst that are of this caliber go for way more money than this does.


OVERALL OPINION

Sounds are awesome and I have no complaints about them, there is a lot of potential with your music and creativity when using the Rob Papen Predator vst plug in. I love all of the synths a basses, everything seems to sound really fat and rich. All of the basses are full and deep type of basses that can really expand your frequency ratio in your songs. It will really fill out your music when using the basslines in Rob Papen Predator. I am still curious to know if they plan on coming out with a part 2 or an upgrade to this vst. It would be great if they could add some more synths from the developers. I think the developers of Rob Papen Predator did a heck of a job when creating the preset sounds in this vst.

I have so many VST's from free ones to high priced ones to low priced ones, but when I want to sell a beat quick and get some money I turn to my Rob Papen Synths from the predator with its hip hop presets to the SubBoom and its immediately usable sub or bass presets I never miss. So if you are doing dirty south beats and you need a synth that will allow you to get it done quick with out having to do a lot of tweaks these plug-ins are what you need. At the price point they are at they are definitely a bang for your buck.

The one negative for me is that they are e licenser plugs which I don’t particularly care for but so is my Arturia plugs and I use them a lot to, so I guess I can live with it. But do yourself a favor and buy a Steinberg key it is the only way to move your licenses between various workstations like I do(there goes another USB slot).



While Native Instruments makes some pretty amazing synths, the only problem I have with them is there are a lot of cheesy presets. Predator is simple to make synths with, whether you want a mellow, deep bass, or a beautiful pad, all the way to tweaked arp baselines and nasty effects. The filters are top notch as well, I have yet to find a synth that has such great filters. If you're into DnB and haven't heard of predator, download the demo, and you'll be back here quickly. This thing is a must, and I doubt I'm stretching the truth at all by saying this is one synth that you could use exclusively if you know how to program your own, even just a little bit. GET IT!