Yup UVI stuff is some of the best.

Their sound design team are the best imo, and their libraries are definitely my favorite amongst the popular developers. Many UVI libraries sound better than Kontakt, but most would never know due to the hype around NI products. UVI's stuff really does stand out sonically.

 

I'm not sure why a company being bought by other companies suggests it is not rated highly, especially in this current age where VC is trying to ruin every music company

 

Well, if you combine companies that work in the same industry, it can be very beneficial for both parties and also for the users. You save costs and profit from each other's know-how.

It's different if Native Instruments was bought by a hedge fund, the investors then want to make a return, i.e. profit, and the user is left with the short end of the stick because non-profitable products are discontinued.

 

Depends how much the company was purchased for. They probably never intended for the company to become part of Imageline. A company which is not publicly traded, with no board of directors representing shareholders, etc. could have been doing so well they could have told Imageline to take a hike. They did not sell because of their grand success, that we know about.

 

I bought it, thanks for sharing! Long time fan of UVI stuff. Falcon is an insane synth. Easily one of the best if you take the time to learn how to program / navigate it. Memories sounds great. Really nice addition to the synth family.

Side note - the two freebies, the reverb sucks, but the compressor is surprisingly nice. Added a nice density and glue to the master on an EDM track im working on. I normally wouldnt reach for a neve style comp with this style, but i had the session open, so gave it a go. Barely tapped the two stages, 1-2db of GR per stage, it just worked. Really nice considering its a freebie.

 

I was thinking like this too ... but there is a whole "production process" behind UVI banks.
Their "capture chain" is really high level, and when compared to "straight" virtual analog synth, UVI sound really shine.

So i prefer now to use UVI than most VA, until i need deep preset programming.

 

can you elaborate? or can you please link me where i can read up on their process?

 

You can't just hear it? Their samples that are the basis of Falcon Factory and expansions are all very nice high quality. They are "produced", no way around it.

If you want to hear something that is "Not Pre-Produced" in Falcon, try Mayhem of Loops library. Then any other library. They are not "night and day", but the difference is quality is so different than any other expansion. It's maybe why you cannot buy it anymore, or someone was violating copyright. That expansion sounds like something you'd get from userland for free on some sample website. Vintage hardware synths raw output never sound as clean as their expansions' samples.

 

Sadly, they are NOT talking about it
It is their secret "signature" sound signal chain.
And i clearly hear it, and love it.

That's why the same hardware sampled in Kontakt and UVI will NOT sound the same.
And even the best VA will not sound the same.

Most ppl think it is "only dry sampling", so everything will sound the same.
Not ... and UVI know it.
Same with Spectrasonics.

They simply talk about "class A signal chain" and such ... almost nothing.
They want to keep it secret, no name dropping.

 

I can hear it. I own a lot of their catalog. Just was curious, as im a nerd.

ahhh bummer! would be fun to know. Im going to go out on a limb here and guess, its all recorded through a focusrite scarlett solo usb.

 

It would be great to know, but I do not see that happening either. If I was pressed to guess, it is probably a nice UAD with the effects plugins running as external dsp. Having to process that many files would really benefit capturing them "perfect" on the way in, and it could be very consistent. Maybe SampleRobot to do the key triggering via midi. Either that or the Behringer clone from Temu.

 

You are welcome, It's really great

 

MOTU's early-to-mid 2000's virtual instruments also used UVI's engine! MOTU's Mach Five library was also done by UVI. Instruments like MOTU BPM, Ethno and Electric Keys were all done by UVI, and once UVI jumped ship, MOTU discontinued them almost immediately (which is a shame, they were all great).

I've written about this before, and I say this as someone who has purchased many of their libraries; the problem with UVI is that although the GUIs are always gorgeous, and the sounds are very high quality, the patches themselves are really often quite "samey". No matter what instrument it is, it's the same types of Toto synth brass, the same bell sounds, the same Tangerine Dream arps, the same digital clav sounds, the same harsh leads. This is because they don't sample factory presets, they program those synths by themselves and then sample those.

One other caveat is also that the instruments are HUGE. Tens of gigabytes each, sometimes.

However, I'm very intrigued by their later offerings! Instruments such as the Quadra series and Percussion Factory. They seem really inspiring and useful.

 

As developers, I like their ethos and have supported them for years. Their plugins are not overpriced and have real value for the buck.

Falcon is all I use exclusively now for sound purposes and owning almost all their libraries, I can find pretty much all I need. Their libraries sound fantastic and are extremely well thought out, especially with some of the built in features like their arp and creative layering options. I experiment quite a bit with the arp features in their libraries which help me come up with sequences I normally wouldn't create on my own. Thats been a huge game changer for me.

Their effects are outstanding. Shade is by far one of if not the best utilitarian plugin in the market, not just for eq, but also for compression, distortion, phasing, chorusing panning and custom lfos. Ive built a custom library of presets for Shade which saves me a ton of time when mixing and for me its become my desert island plugin. I also use Relayer and Sparkverb as my main delay and reverb plugins.

 

I had had Kontakt before and when Falcon came out, I took the chance to delete Kontakt completely and free myself from Kontakt permanently and use Falcon instead. I have created my own presets with Falcon and Falcon offers a lot of setting options, you can actually do anything with it.

For me, it is the best virtual synthesizer on the market. It sounds powerful and the famous UVI engine loads samples much faster than others, and the quality of the sound can also be described as high quality.

Whether you love it or not, one disadvantage for many is the GUI, i.e. the graphical interface, which is not very user-friendly for many and many users tested the Falcon and then left it again. The color of the GUI is due to the main competitor JKontakt, Team UVI set out at the time to break up the Kontakt monopoly. If you get involved with the Falcon and work a little, it is easy to use. I would like a few different skins.

Spoiler: The ' Tone Adventure ' Expansion by CHE for the ' UVI Falcon ' Hybrid Instrument

The ' Tone Adventure ' Expansion by CHE for the ' UVI Falcon ' Hybrid Instrument

Hello UVI Falcon Hybrid Instrument Users, Music makers, Artists, Robots and Aliens.
Welcome to the Tone Adventure Expansion for the UVI Falcon Hybrid Instrument.
You get 250 presets divided into 17 areas with the full Falcon Sound Spectrum.

41 x ARP, 8 x ARP SLOW, 11 x ARP SUS, 12 x BASS, 15 x DRUM, 17 x FORM,
15 x KEYS, 19 x LEAD, 6 x MULTI ENV, 12 x PAD, 3 x PLUCK, 25 x SEQ,
12 x SEQ EXP, 4 x SFX, 19 x STEP ENV, 16 x SYNTH, 15 x USEFUL

" Where the language stops, the music begins "
E. T. A. Hoffmann

About UVI - Falcon
The UVI Falcon is a Creative Hybrid Instrument - Explore the intersection of
sampling and synthesis with 15 oscillators, 80+ effects, modulation generators,
scriptable event processors and more. Falcon provides a sophisticated
set of tools for near infinite sound and instrument design potential.

"Falcon might very well be the most powerful synth/sampler ever made, with
a large number of oscillator types, modulators, and effects." (SoundBytes)

The ' Tone Adventure ' Soundbank by HO for the Falcon - Details

• 1 Tone Adventure Falcon Expansion with 250 Presets
• Comes with: Read me PDF & Install help
• Format: Presets (*.uvip) & (*.Wav)
• For: UVI - Falcon v1.2.1 or newer
• Genre: The full Falcon Spectrum
• Release Date : March 2017
• Sound Design by: CHE
• Bank File Size: 44 MB
• Price: Free - Present

Inclusive 15 Drum Samples (WAV - 23 MB) by CHE.

Sonic Sirius - Synthesizer Soundsets
Freeware Soundsets for Software and Hardware Synthesizer
http://ohlenbostelhelge.magix.net/public/

FREE DOWNLOAD
http://ohlenbostelhelge.magix.net/public/misc.htm

 

IMHO UVI is one of the best developers of music software.
The fact that they were bought is I believe the result of bad management but most of their products are still 2nd to none.
Look at Falcon for example. If it wasn't for its high price tag, this synth would have a much larger customer base.

 

I own about 90% of UVI products. They have instruments that sound real. They also has very fast load times if you store the libraries on an M2 SDD. The UVI sounds have a lot of clarity and seam to require very little processing to sit well in a mix. It would be good to have more flexibility with there patches but there are limitations using sample based instruments. Most of the UVI library's are usable in various genres. Like other sound companies, there are a few shit libraries. this one company I recommend to most fellow producers.

It's interesting that even though I own Komplete 15 collectors edition, I find that the majority of my track use UVI sounds. NI Libraries for the most part are pretty decent, But they is a lot of crap that is not worth purchasing. If you compose for video then maybe the NI catalog will be useful. The majority of us producers for club or commercial radio music will not be using those avant-garde library's. For the most part they are just bunk and a waste of hard drive space.. Anything that is titled "Play Series" is shit too.. There were 3rd party Kontakt library's making similar (2 sample/sound source Combination) products in 2010.. And those sounded like shit too..

Arturia sound libraries sound foggy or cloudy... Sometimes the preset sound flat or hallow.. I also find I need to spend a significant amount of time processing or layering their sounds to fix in the mix. Maybe their emulations are true the original hardware.. But If I am preset surfing, there sounds are quite favorless.. I think Arturia shines with there FX plugins.

Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2 was released 10 years ago.. This product is a real disappointment. They have added some nice features over the last decade but overall it is still the same 2015 product...The electric bass patch's sound very good, but there is so much bloat of useless libraries & presets that is not worth the install.. The Synth Hardware patch's are very good, So are the Keyscape library's. Spectrasonics should release an VST multi Effect Rack plugin with all there FX for 3rd party use... Easy way for them to make a bit more cash and stay relevant.

Omnisphere reminds me of NI Maschine software... Why bother... It's like they are driving those 2 products in to the ground by not staying current with quality updates and new software versions.. .1 or .2 updates are fine yearly, but you should have a new version of your software at least every 5 years.

My 2 Cents..
I prefer to take presets and tweak them for my tracks.
I do not waste my creative time with sound design.
That is what a sound designer is for.

 

We almost agree on everything here @oldskoolproductions

Half UVI soundbanks for me.

Kontakt : some orchestral banks, Ethno World 6 (pure gem without equivalence) ... and some other gems

Arturia : bugs, crashes ... and FLAT sound.

Omnisphere 2 and all others Spectrasonics products : nice, effective ... but over used and MANY fillers.

Nexus : never really "clicked" ... and even less now we can emulate Virus and other synths ;D

 

I find that most of their libraries require some kind of manipulation, internal or external, to fit in a mix. Especially dense mixes. Somewhere in he middle of Sampletank & Omnisphere (as an example).

 

I did not have a pleasant experience with their support team.