Spectrasonics Stylus Vinyl Groove (Macintosh and Windows)

3-gigabyte core library. Elastic Tempo, Pitch, Pattern and Feel with Groove Control (tm). 1000 Kicks, 1000 Snares, 500 Hi-hats.

Overall User Ratings

Overall:
* * * * * * . . . . 6 out of 10
Features:
* * * * . . . . . . 4 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
Value:
* * * * * . . . . . 5 out of 10
I Want It:
* * * * . . . . . . 4 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * * * . . . . 6 out of 10
Support:
* * * * * . . . . . 5 out of 10

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"Hiphop only -- And you'd better not buy it used."

Overall:
* * . . . . . . . . 2 out of 10
Features:
* * * * * . . . . . 5 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Value:
* * * * * . . . . . 5 out of 10
I Want It:
* * * * * . . . . . 5 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
Support:
* . . . . . . . . . 1 out of 10
 
 
 
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Feature:
The most useful feature is the groove control. Here, you are given a bunch of standard midi files that correspond to the loops. This means you can drop the SMF into your MIDI sequencer and change the grooves to your liking, even add fills, etc. The disadvantage, as was pointed out in another review, is that you can't change the drum kit that corresponds with the particular SMF. So if you want to add new drum sounds, you must use a separate sequencer track with a second instance of Stylus set to a different kit. And if all of the drums you want aren't in that kit, then you might need a third or fourth track, etc.

Quality:
Stylus does not use up a lot of memory or CPU, so it works pretty well on slower machines. I used it on a 1 GHz PIII with 512 MB and it ran fairly reliably.

Value:
Now that the price of Stylus has fallen (it used to sell for $299) it's more appealing than it used to be. And if you are primarily doing hiphop, it's probably great.

Desirability:
It's undoubtedly merely practical. There are many other ways to get good drums into your sequences. It's a great "extra thing" to have in your arsenal if you can get it at a really low cost (but not used!!!!), but unless you're doing exclusively hiphop it's probably not going to be the only thing you'll ever need.

Sound:
The sound quality is excellent, however it ONLY contains hiphop beats, NO rock or alternative beats at all. It's great if you're doing rap, dance, etc., but completely useless if you're doing rock, alternative, metal, jazz, blues, folk, songwriting, or arguably even techno styles.

Support:
BE FOREWARNED - Unlike most other software companies, Spectrasonics licensing agreement does NOT allow you to sell your software to someone else once you've gotten tired of it. And yet, there are often second hand copies available via the usual used channels. This is particularly a problem for the buyers of second hand Spectrasonics products, since they often unwittingly purchase the discs used without even knowing they aren't technically allowed to buy them. When you buy any used Spectrasonics product, the buyer must pay an additional $50 fee to register the product or it won't work. And not only that, once you've paid the fee you are still NOT ALLOWED TO PURCHASE UPGRADES for example to Stylus RMX. This means that including the cost of the used discs, you can easily spend MORE than the cost of a new copy and STILL not be able to purchase the upgrade to RMX -- you must still spend the full amount. This policy is quite unfair to buyers but Spectrasonics refuses to flinch on this.

Overall:
If the upgrade policy were more fair, this product be an excellent stepping stone to Stylus RMX. But it's not. So given the style and flexibility limitations, for the cost it would be better take a look at other options.

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"FAIR WARNING!!"

Overall:
* * * * . . . . . . 4 out of 10
Features:
* . . . . . . . . . 1 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
Value:
* * * . . . . . . . 3 out of 10
I Want It:
* . . . . . . . . . 1 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
Support:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
 
 
 
Feature:
This is where you either love or hate this software, and I HATE it. You essentially have to use the app as a source of pre-built loops. Thats nice, but I don't know anyone that makes good original music that will just use existing loops. This is a good app for getting a good feel. So now you have that feel, now what do you do. It would be nice to go in and change kick in the loop to another kick sound. Or maybe you would want to program the beat yourself using the best of the 1,000s of kick and snare samples they have. Well you can't. Even though this is essentially a closed sampler, the makers of Stylus don't allow you to custom assign sounds to specific keys on the keyboard. This is incomprehensibly stupid and needlessly limiting. For example suppose you want to build a kit. You will need to open half a dozen Stylus plugins - a plug in dedicated to the snare menu, a plug in dedicated to hat menu. Now you have a lot of your PCs resources and tracks dedicated to what should be a simple beatbox.

Quality:
Looks and sound great

Value:
Absolutely not. Its is a professional sounding application for people with novice skills.

Sound:
The sound is great. I love the sound. Thats why the rest of the application is so maddening.

Support:
No experiences

Overall:
I feel cheated with this product. Its very expensive, and very limited in the ways that you can use it. I bought it because Spectrasonics says that you can build beats from scratch with the sounds. That is a gross exagerration.

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