Kuassa Studio Bundle

[cclarry]

The perfect combination for shaping and preparing your tracks into a commercial-ready, quality tracks. Inside Kuassa Studio Bundle is three functional EQs modeled after legendary Equalizers to remove mud, rumbles, honk or any impurities, then sweeten it to give a clear tracks which sits perfectly through the mix. For a final touch, Kratos 2 Maximizer will be a perfect tool to finalize the master, giving the desired commercial, transparent loudness to compete with all of the other music played on the radio, records store or streaming platforms.

These are the plug-ins inside Kuassa Studio Bundle:

KRATOS 2 MAXIMIZER

Our sleeper hit. Due to the unusually higher priced (compared with our other product) the product aren't too popular during first release despite good reviews, pushing us to improve it to version 2 with additional mastering-friendly features like dithering and several more. Resulting Kratos 2 Maximizer as one of our all time best selling plug-in these years.

EVE-AT1

Modeled after the Neve* 1081 Equalizer. This award-winning equalizer are the best for its (somewhat) surgical properties to remove a track's impurities while still sounds natural and pleasing to the ear.

EVE-AT4

Modeled after the Neve* 1084 Equalizer. The award winning EVE-AT4 Equalizer are known for its smooth and musical character, making it a favorite when it comes to sweeten or adding character to a track.

EVE-MP5

Modeled after the Pultec* EQP Program Equalizer and Pultec* MEQ Mid-range Equalizer into a single plug-in. Yet another innovative move from Kuassa, making this equalizer a favorite among our users. This plug-in are also capable to replicate the famous low-end Pultec* trick which shapes the history of modern popular music.

*Disclaimer: All trademarks are the property of their respective owners which are in no way associated or affiliated with Kuassa. The manufacturer names and model designations are used solely to identify the products whose tonal and sound characteristics were studied during development.

$69

https://www.kvraudio.com/marketplace/studio-bundle-by-kuassa

[Tezza]

Kuassa's sale extends to all their offerings slashed by 50% including the guitar amps and pedals etc.

I downloaded their Vermillion amp, took a very short time for it to replace guitar rig, THU and scuffham on the tracks I tried it on. I'm just using the THU effects with it at the moment.  What's more, I haven't even eq'd it into the mixes yet, just used the amp tone and microphone controls with a bit of the amp reverb and it sits nicely with a little compression, so I already know what it's going to sound like with further tweaking. The clean jazz channel is what I like but the bluesy sound is good too. It has the ability to use impulse responses but haven't bothered yet. Very impressed with this thing. It's working really well with my midi piano roll guitar pieces as well, played through the kontakt factory Jazz guitar.

I love the simplicity of the gui and being so easy to tweak to the sound you want. You've got the amp tone controls and can move the mics around just by grabbing them and moving. I am also going to get their chorus pedal for $12.00, see what their effects are like, if that's good, I might get some others.  There is only 2 days left for the sale. I haven't tested it with live playing just yet, I will do that tomorrow. Just adding it to the tracks already recorded with midi or dry guitar.

I love it when you put something on a track and can just hear straight away, even using the presets that it's an improvement in the sound and it fit's straight into the mix. It had a bit of a trebly scratchy sound out of the box but dialing up the gain slightly, turning the treble down and switching the mics, completely changed that to a smoother, rounder sound. I like that it's got the grit if you want it but that you can also get rid of it.

I can't wait to jam with this thing tomorrow.

By the way, they have got some free stuff as well:

Guitar amplifier:

https://www.kuassa.com/products/amplifikation-lite/

Silencer (noise gate) pedal:

https://www.kuassa.com/products/efektor-silencer/

Graphic equalizer pedal:

https://www.kuassa.com/products/efektor-gq3607-graphic-equalizer/

Studio rack basic equalizer:

https://www.kuassa.com/products/basiq/

 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2020 by Tezza

[Craig Fowler]

Tezza - wait til you try their matchlock!

[Fret Flintstone]

all their pedals are good as well, take advantage of the half price sale. hint hint

Then download A360 to house everything you have collected all tidy like.

[Tezza]

12 hours ago, Craig Fowler said:

Tezza - wait til you try their matchlock!

Yes, on to it at the moment. We had a first bright sunny day here in South Australia, the coming of summer. Just had to go out to the forest/beach and then watch the footy down at the pub with band playing. Everything is mostly back to normal here in SA.

Testing out the pedals now, looks like I might get the custom pedal bundle, where you can choose your own 5 pedals for $49.00 and you can also leave some blank for future pedals, so I will choose 4 and leave one for some upcoming ones.

Matchlock is great, I will grab that as well, thanks for the heads up!
 

2 hours ago, Fret Flintstone said:

Then download A360 to house everything you have collected all tidy like.

Yes I noticed the A360 which allows you to house everything in one shell so it becomes like Guitar Rig or Amplitube but I couldn't work out how much it costs, do you know? I sent them an email about it.
 

[Fret Flintstone]

It's free

[mibby]

I picked up Vermilion, and I've got to say I am really liking how quickly you can get to a decent sound. Took me a little while to understand A360, but yeah, it's also really intuitive and easy to use. The pieces you don't own are nicely labelled "demo". And there are also a ton of presets in there, so you can pick one and see how you like it. If you don't own some of the pieces they will emit white noise for a bit, but they are obviously labelled "demo" and it's an easy thing to swap them out with a comparable component you do own. Really great to work with! 

Does anyone know if you can "hide" the pedals you don't own? That would be nice.

Edited September 6, 2020 by mibby

[Tezza]

The chorus sounded great, better than anything else I've tried in terms of software pedals. I've heard enough. I picked up the Vermillion, Matchlock, the chorus and the 5 pedal custom bundle, got the delay, the compressor and the reverb pedals. Left 2 empty slots as they are bringing out some new pedals so might wait on that.

So many good things about this that gets rid of all the things that bug me about other software guitar stuff:

1. Installation and activation procedure. You buy the item then enter your serial in your account and it generates a license file. You download the item together with the license file, transfer to whatever computer, install and apply the license, that's it. No ilok, no challenge response, you do not need to then activate it over the internet etc. All the licenses are held in your account.

2. You can download either the VST 2 or VST 3, 64 or 32 bit versions separately and also the stand alone version for the amps. No dual VST installs on your hard drive or 32 and 64 bit versions together (unless you want them)

3. GUI. You can put the amp into a slot in your DAW and each pedal into a slot in your DAW. When you click on the amp, it takes up less than a 6th of your screen (24 inch, 1080p), it's an amp with a couple of mics you can move around and controls are easy to work, no clutter, no shell like guitar rig, THU or amplitube which cover a much larger area and you have to fuss about choosing between everything. When you click the pedal, it appears by itself at about less than one 8th of the screen, big knobs, only the ones you really need, easy to see and fine tune.

4. Presets. There are only about 8 presets but you can download more if you want. The idea is that you set up the amp and pedals manually to whatever you want, like a real amp and pedals. Really easy to do given the GUI. Much preferable to trawling through 500,000 presets (none of them suitable) in the hope you might find something.

5. Workflow. It's so easy to drag an amp into the  DAW slot, click on it and with minimal easy work, get the sound you want.

6. Sitting in the mix. Both amps I tried and the chorus pedal (haven't tried the other pedals yet) just sit straight in with the basic presets, you can get away with not even using DAW eq to get it to sit in there. When you shrink it into the mix, it retains its tone well instead of having to put up with so much  distortion and harsh treble that seems to normally accompany shrinking VST guitar stuff into the mix.

7. Sound and tone. This stuff sounds fantastic to me. It's got a nice analog, organic tone, no annoying, shrill, digital high end going on. I have replaced Guitar Rig 5 (GR6 isn't much better, just 3 new amps and the same old amps, a bit one dimensional and lacking in tone), THU with it's bass heavy everything and digital sounding effects (compared to Kuassa), Amplitube (never got on with it, complex GUI and screen nags, just doesn't sound as good to me) and even Scuffham S-Gear. S-Gear has a nice sheen to it but the effects are lacking and it is fiddly setting mic distance and selecting mics. The Kuassa stuff just sounds overall better to me.

8. The option of using the amps and pedals in a shell, in a similar way to GR5, Amplitube and THU. That is their A360, you can put everything in it. That's what I want to get away from when working inside the DAW, but I would use it as standalone as you cannot use the pedals outside of the DAW unless you have the shell. It's free to download if you want that option.

 

There's probably other stuff I like but that is enough to draw me in. I am an official Kuassa fanboi now. All these comments must be seen in the light of the sound I like. I like clean or crunch, slightly distorted sounds from a fender strat, Jazz, Blues, Acoustic etc. I don't do heavy metal or that extreme, smooth distortion that most on youtube seem to crave, so I don't know if this would suit.

Things I don't like about the Kuassa stuff, there's only 2 really:

1. The long names they use for their amps and pedals. If you put their amps or pedals into your DAW slots, all you see is the first 8 or 10 letters, so you just see Amplifikation or Efektor, you can't see the actual amp or pedal name. Why can't they just use Kuassa followed by amp/pedal name? and why the cryptic names for their pedals (Efektor RV3604), why not just Kuassa Reverb. This seems out of step with the their other commitments to an easy GUI as stated on their website.

2. The bad English all over their website and in their manuals. I get it, they are an Indonesian company based in Indonesia, with Indonesian developers etc. But for goodness sake, if you want to sell to English speaking markets, hire someone who can speak good English to rewrite everything. What is written is understandable, mostly, but you just get the feeling your on one of those "cheap Chinese crap" ebay websites. "This pedal make you playing nicely" "You will realizing your inspiratons".  It's both hilarious and annoying at the same time. They make such a great product but to any English speaking person, their presentation screams "WARNING! CHEAP RUBBISH AND POTENTIAL SCAMMERS AHEAD"

Their stuff certainly is priced nicely but it is not inferior to any of the other offerings, a step above if you ask me. I do feel they are letting themselves down a bit in this area and turning potential customers away.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Tezza

[mibby]

+1 on everything - great write-up!

13 minutes ago, Tezza said:

3. ...big knobs, only the ones you really need, easy to see and fine tune.

...except the above.  I found just the opposite. Was playing with a preset that had a Delay on each channel. When I wanted to change the feedback on both pedals, I found it nearly impossible to match them because there is no way (that I could find) to type in exact values, i.e.double-click, enter.  I would expect something like a Mouse-Wheel adjust when the control is focused too.   It was definitely a workflow killer, especially because everything else was so user friendly.

Instead of mixing, I spent my evening last just playing around and jamming with my new amp. It's the first time in a looong while that I've really just sat and enjoyed playing.  That speaks volumes!

Now to see how well their support responds to questions...