Thursday, October 14, 2010

Software Reviews Part 3

Helix - $150 (8.75/10)
Audjoo's Helix delivers huge range and firepower at a fair price. I immediately noticed how excellent it was for making softer arp and pad sounds. Despite the complexity and number of voices your patches can have, they remain pretty easy on your CPU. I was rocking out for a while on a tasty 40-saw lead that I made, and my CPU never went higher than 7. Helix is also quite versatile, allowing the creation of huge rave leads, smooth pads, basses, and classic analog sounds. My only real complaint is how goofy the envelopes and LFOs are to use at first. They work well once you get the hang of them though.


Successes
-Lots of waveforms and morphing options.
-Inexpensive compared to other similar synths.
-Low CPU usage
-Can handle lots of voices.
-Nice filter and effect selection.

Failures
-Takes a while to get used to the envelopes.
-The LFOs are a bit different as well.
-Occasionally, default waveforms will be panned to one side and the init patch has delay already selected.

12 comments:

  1. Hey, Helix...where have I just heard that before?
    Does it come with presets, and when you say the envelopes are weird, does that mean you have to use the 'knobs' or can you just drag around the envelope points with the mouse?

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  2. It involves several knobs and sliders that are somewhat confusing and different from others.

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  3. well. it's software. It'll never be perfect.

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  4. i'll be sure to check that software out.

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  5. Looks good bro, I'm looking to upgrade my software

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  6. Nice to see it's lenient on the CPU usage. Not that it would be an issue for myself personally, but I know a lot of people, including the guy who films and edits all our skate clips, who run on ancient legacies who can barely handle Firefox.

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