Sonivox Pulse - Advanced Production Instrument - Channel Virtual Instrument Software

I use this all the time with my midi keyboard and mess with all the different instruments in it and stuff. it's fun.

I read some horrible reviews of this software on other sites but for the bargain basement price of $19 I figured I'd give it a shot. I installed the software, applied the latest update and tried to make some beats. Allow me to summarize my experience in one sentence: This software is utter garbage. I expected so much more from SONiVOX. I talked with the former president of the company a few times back in the late 90s when they were known as Hruska Audio and grew to really respect them. Wow. Talk about falling far from grace. This program terribly tarnishes their name. I would avoid this software even if it were $19 and had a $39 rebate. They couldn't pay me to use it. It is very buggy and difficult to learn. The standalone version crashes other apps while it's running. (I can't even write this review in a browser while it's running. It's that bad.) I'm afraid to even run it as a plugin. There's nothing in this package that dozens of others programs can't do better. Even loading a bank of sounds is a chore. Instead of defaulting to the location where the banks are installed it points to C:. It took me 15 min just to figure out how to get a single sound out of it. It really pains me to even continue talking about this software so I'll just skip straight to the pros and cons. AVOID AVOID AVOID Pros: - Sounds are of decent quality - All of the samples are in .wav format which means they can be used in other (better) music programs - Cheap Cons: - When the standalone software is running (Win7 x64) it crashes nearly every other application including Windows Explorer, Google Chrome, etc. It does this 100% of the time. App also crashes on it's own one-third of the time after 10 min or less. - Mediocre FX and few of them - No insert FX - Layout is quite confusing - Individual samples are poorly organized. Is it so hard to put all the kicks in one folder, hats in another, etc? This is partially done but a lot of related samples may be spread into a dozen or more folders. - Interface is non-scalable so most text and controls are very tiny when using a HD screen. I tested at 1080p. - Can't browse for banks with the integrated browser - only samples - Metronome appears to be non existent. Hello, where are you? - DRM driver requires a reboot plus there's still an online authorization. (This is common these days, but still a nuisance.) - Plays drums when using a pad controller is difficult. The pads need to be hammered with a lot of force to even trigger a sound at a normal volume.

Well having a hard time to get it to work properly when I hit a pad say 12 number 1 lights up and I can't get it to store sounds in the pads I want.

Pulse was a discontinued item sold at a give away price. The problem may just be incompatibility with my DAW or the program may be as useless as it seems. This is the second product I have purchased from this company and neither of them work. (The other product was Vocalizer. I paid $99 for that program and it has been equally worthless. The problem may be in part due to the fact that it is 32 bit software and I am running a 64 bit DAW, although it should still work. It is recognized by my DAW and appears to have integrated with it). I hate to give a bad rap to a product that I have not been able to successfully install, but even the stand alone version of Pulse seems very lame. I am currently using a high end DAW (SONAR X2 Producer) so this vst does not add much in terms of value as a utility, however it did provide some additional sound banks that for me justifys the purchase.

Looked like it had more to offer from all of the video's. Sampla for me had more usable samples. I am so glad that I didn't pay $149.00 for Pulse $20 is not bad.

Product is impossible to activate. Internet activation times out, have sent the email to licenses@sonivoxrocks.com (that's not even their domain for email anymore) several times and not been responded to. Opened up a support ticket with Air, got a free copy of Xpand! 2, which I already owned. Support sucks, apparently once you actually get it activated and running it still sucks...don't buy it.

Wouldn't even install on OSX 10.8 and their customer service sucks they just ignore you completely !!! Do yourselves a favor and buy something else...

Not at all what I excepted. Not happy with it at all... WOULD NOT RECOMEND! DO NOT BUY