On the strength of the excellent magazine reviews :
especially 5* from Sound on Sound magazine
Nostalgia
and considering what it offers
and considering its rather low price EURO 147 + postage
Bought Nostalgia last week.
Having spent this weekend on Nostalgia
I can appreciate why it got rave reviews from various quarters.
It has a Lot of Excellent samples
that can easily be used to make a full album or two of various kinds of electronic music.
SOUNDS (17 banks : 1.33GB)
Of the
Synth banks:
US Classics; Japanese Classics; Playback Keyboards!
Digital ROMpler synths; Vintage Samplers;
Atmosferics; 16 String Synths
Had the most useable sounds (samples), with some really superb ones available.
(Of the samples sadly lacking
Eg Yamaha CS80 samples … just one was included !.
Any decent Roland D50 samples
These were probably due to copyright etc).
1st thing is with the synth banks is turn off the Reverb & Chorus for 99% of sounds.
One can then make use a Large selection of sounds
that don’t sound thin or harsh or “too synthyâ€or “cheesyâ€
Hence IMO useable.
A few of them need to be played on the lower octaves to sound “phatâ€.
Some of them will require a little bit of editing to sound better.
Of the
Drum banks:
Classic Beatboxes; Obscure Beatboxes (includes Korg MiniPops)
had the most useable sounds, with some real phat drums available.
Excellent for hip hop, house, electro, trance, some drum n bass
… various eletronic music from 70’s through to 2006,
even latin, rock.
(Though in some samples afew of the cymbals came across a bit harsh).
IN USE
It is very straight forward menu driven selection of sounds, which load fairly instantly.
An up down button would have been useful,
as having to always go to the menu to select a sound is not the easiest method.
The Kompakt interface is simple with buttons for Filter, LFO, Micro Tuning, Instrument Amp,
3 different fx (Reverb, Chorus, Delay with presets for each).
SUMMARY
A big thumbs up.
