Vernon Barnes

11 at 17:00 BST

56 at 11:20 BST

The price drops to $80 when I log in, probably because I have a number of other products. I am tempted, I have Orange Tree's Jaco which is very nice but a little dated now in terms of features, I have been hoping Greg gives it the full "Evolution" treatment.

That Simple Steel freebee is rather nice!

Not bad for a freebee, the full version is probably very good but I doubt I will but as I have more Toontrack and BFD kits than you can shake a stick at and find Kontakt a less than ideal interface for drum kits. That said NKS compatibility and the ability to see the drum type regions lit up on a NI keyboard is very useful.

Even cheaper than when I bought it last month from Audio Plugin Deals. It's a very nice synth for the money.

Watching that group buy counter is a bit like following the cricket score on the internet - 17 short of the 45% level at the moment!

Probably the best Mellotron emulation out there. I do like the Hollowsun Newtron Bomb 2 which I think is now only available as part of their "prog pack" for its raw, un-enhanced sound but it has nowhere near the amount of tape banks on M-Tron pro. Then of course there are the expansions. (money pit warning!)

Well, not much I don't have so I have joined the club with Grand Kalimba which I nearly bought last time around, it sounds nice in the demos. The new Evolution Flatwound and Roundwound basses I well worth a look if you don't already have them!

NI's Blocks for Reaktor is very versatile and has "de-nerdified" Reaktor to some extent. Massive X looks a bit like a Reaktor ensemble and I see some "blocks" modules in there like the Monark filter. Maybe there will be some synergy between these products, it certainly has an unfinished feel to it. A interesting thing when browsing in Komplete Kontrol is one can filter on certain parameters and scroll through the available sounds irrespective of the synth. For example one can look for all synth pads that are classified as airy, processed and slow attack. The sound preview give an idea of the patch before loading the synth. Its a great way of comparing the different synths, at least as far as presets are concerned. Of course only NKS compatible synths can be browsed in this way but Arturia, AAS, Softube, Waves and XILS are all NKS too as well as EastWest and a great mant Kontakt libraries.

Acacab, I love Codex, its one of my favorite synths. but the other two go beyond wave table so they are more versatile at the expense of greater complexity.

Downloaded and installed. I have just been auditioning some of the presets, I really love my S61 NI keyboard for this, just scrolling through direct from the keyboard and seeing what comes up. First impressions. It sounds more digital the Massive to my ears. There seems to be a high proportion of effects type presets and "way out" and heavily modulated sounds over the generally usable type of sound in the factory presets. There are some very nice pads and a couple I have already flagged as "favourite" for future exploration.

Out of stock now. I was too late!

This is nice! I thought I didn't "need" it as I have the IK tape delay. But this has its own character and some different features so I bought it.. Demo video here

Has anyone used this? It seems to have a lot of potential but is it really useful in practice?

Silk, Voices of Passion, Voices of Empire, Voices of Opera, the solo cello and various orchestral stuff have all found their way onto tracks. Ghost Writer, The Dark Side and Ministry of Rock were the main drivers to sign up but I used those a lot less.

I have just install this (I have a Composer Cloud Subscription) First impressions are it sounds very good. There are the usual multi-sampled sustains and staccatos as well as phrases, licks and effects. The material is there for creating a very effective pop brass part. It is worth noting that all the patches are ensembles, you don't get sax, trumpet etc. presented individually. As usual with EW there are many different "patches" in 8 folders. Folder 8 contains key-switched patches which bring many of the others into single patches. These can of course take a lot longer to load as the are many more samples. Anyway if you are familiar with EW you will know the score. I would not have bought it, but then again I don't use this type of brass sound much but I expect i will use it occasionally. The thing I have found with the Composer Cloud subscription is that is is the libraries I would never have bought that are the ones I am most likely to use.

Yes, it was my bad, not seeing the "select" option. At first glance it looks like its not included. Now temptation rears its ugly head!

I have the light version that was free at one time. Very nice too.

No- I thought this was the case, space is tight on my system drive and I did not notice a big drop. I have just examined the drive using TreeSize Free (A very useful utility for hunting down space invaders) and there is no where 8GB could have been deposited on my system drive.

I see Hammersmith is also excluded. If I had not recently upgraded to Attic 2 I may have been tempted by the Novachord.

its a nice, very versatile synth and this is a good update. Adding NKS compatability is good for us with NI keyboards and brings it in line with the V collection. its also worth noting Pigments preset packs also work with the latest Analog Lab, which also includes a small selection of the factory presets.

Thanks guys! I think you are correct that the intro is too long as it stands. Maybe a higher synth part coming in over the top to build tension may help.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Fingers crossed but I think the problem with my Quadcapture may be related to a phantom powered mic plugged into one of the inputs. Its too early to be sure but its looking promising.

I did not have Attic 1, just some of the individual instruments so I got a significant lot more. From what I can compare, like the Omnichord the changes seem to relate mostly to NKS compatibility and working in Kontakt player. You would need to compare the instrument list to see whats been added. I would say this makes a good companion to something like IK's Syntronic or Arturia's V Collection, adding the more unusual vintage synths and keyboards.