Steinberg Hypersonic Virtual Music Workstation (Macintosh and Windows)

Overall User Ratings

Overall:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
Features:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
Value:
* * * * * * . . . . 6 out of 10
I Want It:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * * * . . . . 6 out of 10
Ease of Use:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Support:
* * * . . . . . . . 3 out of 10

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"King hit"

Overall:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
Features:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * * * * * * 10 out of 10
Value:
* * * * * * * * * * 10 out of 10
I Want It:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
Ease of Use:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
 
 
 
Feature:
As a plug in MIDI synth this is a work of love. Well set out GUI very usable in minutes. The most useful features are the well thought out presets loader with it's categories of instruments and the chainer with the ability to stack up to 16 presets. There are Vsti out there for that purpose alone but they'll set you back about $100 alone.

Quality:
It's a delight. Doesn't crash or use lots of CPU. This will be great for both recording and playing live MIDI synth.

Value:
Fantastic value.

Desirability:
It's not the most aesthetic of my many plug ins. But that's more than compensated for by it's sheer versatility and enormous soundbank.

Sound:
Sure it's true some of the sounds are a bit weak. But that's no big deal. And it misses a huge point completely..... Simply go into the preset and tweak it a bit with some of the many effects parameters and you've got monster pads......and that's just with one preset. Start stacking presets using the chainer and you're into serious thick nasty tonality. The range of sounds producable from this one synth is awesome.

Ease of Use:
Easy to use. Only one snag I've hit so far is I'm having difficulty saving combi patches that I make. For some strange reason they get saved in the wrong place. But it's most likely something I'm doing wrong.

Support:
Haven't needed it so I can't really comment.

Overall:
I can imagine getting many years of satisfactory use out of this. The ability to stack synths, effects, drum loops, rythms, synth effects into endless arrays of combinations makes it a monster that will take years to tame......and that's before you even start tweaking and making your own presets which only adds to the complexity and intrigue further.

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"Not bad"

Overall:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Features:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Value:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
 
 
 
Feature:
Well...when I bought it, it included the cypher key that Steinberg requires for everything now, so I saved a ton of money by buying before they stopped packaging those.

Quality:
Works fine without hiccups.

Value:
Worth about the same as about a $800 hardware synth. Don't expect the sounds to be up there with a multi-thousand dollar synth as the salesman at my local store told me.

Sound:
Sounds pretty good. Some of the samples are a bit weak-sounding and it seems that some types of sounds are way overdone and other areas (like basses) are pretty limited compared to many workstations I've used in the past. A bit heavy on the analog synth side of things and a bit light on the actual samples.

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"Like a really bad keyboard workstation but not all the sounds load and some keys don't work. Some sounds are good!"

Overall:
* * . . . . . . . . 2 out of 10
Features:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * . . . . . . 4 out of 10
Value:
* . . . . . . . . . 1 out of 10
I Want It:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Sound:
* * . . . . . . . . 2 out of 10
Support:
* * * . . . . . . . 3 out of 10
 
 
 
Feature:
Great tweaking options and ease of use. Saving your own user sounds very easy. If you can right click, you can figure it out. I love the lay out. A lot of notes don't work on the acoustic pianos and maybe some more instruments as well. A lot of instruments don't work on either computer i own.

Quality:
I can't get the stupid dongle software to work, but Hypersonic works for the most part. Great packaging.

Value:
$300! What the ...! Whoever came up with their description is insane. I guess it doesn't use to much ram, but why would it when the sounds are so awful and weak. And the more powerful vsts have diskstreaming now anyway. $49.99 tops. My Casio has a mixer, sequencer, sampler, more usable instruments and i can get creative right away. Hypersonic doesn't even have a solo french horn. But it has a lot of bad new age and goofy sounds if you don't really plan on making music. Maybe for making techno beats fast it would be ok. I really think steinberg with the help of Wizoo are just ripping people off. Cubase is good, but for vsts, look elsewhere. How can it be the ultimate computer workstation and fit on 1 cd. The total program is less than 500mbs i think. I just kind of went a long with that hype, "adds more sounds to your system than you've ever dreampt of". Thats some garbage.

Desirability:
Great marketing and packaging. Even the owner's manual is very nice.

Sound:
Terrible presets. They don't even compare to those on my Casio wk-3000 which i probably payed less for and got an actual physical instrument as well. After hours of messing around with the accoustic pianos, i still couldn't get it to sound as good as the one on my keyboard. Downloadable MDA-piano is pre-set a lot better and easier to work with and it's free! You can get it at mda-vst.com. It's a matter of opinion, and hypersonic's piano does have advantages(it can have a richer, warmer sound), but after hearing it was good, I was a little disapointed. I would still rather use the freeware piano most of the time or record audio from the casio. There are a few other good sounds, but mostly they are pretty bad. The tweaking options are good, better than expected, but there is only so much you can do, and what can you expect when all the sounds are on one cd. The hype is unbelievable and completely bogus. "The ultimate workstation" Yeah right. These sounds deserve a 28.99-49.99 price tag. I was definately ripped off. It stifles my creativity, being that i have to tweak evey sound just to make it decent.

Support:
not sure about there support. Just the fact that i need it on a brand new XP computer is enough to bother me.

Overall:
I am a janitor and don't make a lot of money. So the fact that i am already looking for a new better product is pretty tough when I just spent 279.99 on it. Hopefully someone will want to buy it.

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