I would add that apart from the current promotional $149 for Falcon 3.1, selected Soundware libraries are discounted with a 'buy 1 get 1 free' promotion. Your comments and rankings were 'on the money'...
I just bought it for half price, and it came with a £50 voucher, which I spent on a £30 preset pack with a "get one free" offer, so I basically got Falcon for £140 + 2 preset packs for free! One very happy bunny.
I thought of doing one but I don't own all the libraries. Maybe half of them. I should have put a chart in the video though showing the ones I did rate though.
I agree. I was an early adopter and my money was well spent. I kept adding libraries over time. Falcon has to be compared with Halion 7 IMO. I find the interface of Falcon easier to use, but they both have their strengths. The two places Falcon does not compete with Halion 7 are in its FM capabilities and the spectral oscillator in Halion. There are some cool third party libraries for Halion 7 out now (run in Halion Sonic free version; similar to Kontakt Player libraries), too. It helps to be a Cubase user, too. It was my first real DAW (after Cakewalk Home Studio, LOL).
I’m curious: how did Ekorain get into the S tier? What makes it *that* good? My #1 problem with Falcon as an ambient devotee is that so much of what UVI does is so blatantly, bombastically cinematic. While there’s a large overlap between cinematic and ambient, there’s also that that „huge drums and even hug-er string sections” that the two don’t share, and UVI libraries seem to sit firmly in that latter camp. (Though I did just buy Glass Orchestra, which makes me ecstatic with joy). My disappointment with “bare bones” Falcon, as I bought it a year ago (when they introduced those crazy, mesmerizing arps on acid) was that it comes with very little factory content. Like, precisely zero samples? (That, or I haven’t been able to find any). And the UVI libraries, not cheap by any means, are just presets, i.e. combinations of parameters, but they don’t seem to add any new content (please correct me if I’m wrong). I've auditioned them again recently on the UVI website and I seem to have no use for any of them (personal taste, of course, but there it is). By comparison, Phase Plant comes with tons of samples (and wavetables, and impulse responses) that are useful out of the box, and very neatly categorized. The content banks curated by Kilohearts are a mixed bag, but that’s because they do a lot of genre-oriented sets, so they tend to be of the “love or hate” kind - but if you’re into ambient, their ambient-oriented sets are really good. Thanks though for reminding me that I have Falcon 😊 Learning to use it was a steep upwards crawl, it’s SO unfriendly and (also unlike Phase Plant) not even trying to help a struggling first-time user. I've probably forgotten what little I learned last November. Have to get back to those crazy awesome arpeggiators!
Oh man, if you like ambient (and glass orchestra) you should check out EkoRain. I did a review of it a few years ago and you can get it on sale occasionally for something like $20 or $30. Its got a particle engine and these great convolution reverbs that are like combinations of some interesting delays and reverb. The mix of the two just sounds amazing.
If you go to the UVI site and browse their expansions you can see which ones contain samples in the specs near the bottom of the page. Lo-Fi Dreams, for instance, is 4.31 GB and has 10,349 samples. Inner Dimensions is 695 mb and has 2,128 samples, while the new Modular Drums is 99 mb and just contains 100 presets.
I bought percussion factory, drum replacer and drum designer, all of which haven't been updated and lack some basic modern features, I would like to get into Uvi but they're inconsistent with their entire ecosystem and it doesn't inspire confidence. That being said it's an amazing deal right now
I don't have any experience with Halion, but I would bet that there are a number of things. Falcon's arps are pretty powerful & I haven't found another piece of software that can match those.
I have VPS Avenger, Kontact 6 and Falcon. Avenger is waaaay too overpriced for it's upgrades and forget their expansions...close to costing almost as much as the program itself. I like Kontact but since its updates, my S88 Mk 1, keyboard has been phased out and it's become a very basic midi keyboard. So I'm pissed at that. Falcon is very cool and it's one of the few versatile synths on market that doesn't charge for its updates...so kudos to the UVI team. And their expansions are affordable, especially now at 2 for 1. I would have like the drum module but I'm like Triaz now that it's broken out of Kontact dependency.
UVI expansions are generally not great though. I’d probably delete them if bundled free. VPS are pricey, but premium sound design. And 50% off the 5 bundle makes them dirt cheap
I’m done with spending money with NI. Picking up Falcon as a replacement. Haven’t heard much from the stock library but I’m looking to pick up World Suite, Augmented Orchestra, and Soul Drums. Hopefully that’ll knock out the big chunks of what I’m losing by eventually leaving Kontakt.
I agree. The new Kontakt 8 is ridiculous, oh look, one-finger chords! The problem is that people make really, *really* good libraries for Kontakt today. I won’t name names, as it’s a personal preference thing, but I do wish those people stopped and switched to Soundpaint maybe. Or Falcon. Because as long as those people keep making this great stuff, NI will keep squeezing out the upgrade dollars from us.
I hope UVI change how they handle Soundware. I have them on SSD but it still takes a good chunk of time to mount them when opening Falcon the first time. I had hoped that the new search browser previews would let me not mount them all and open a Soundware on demand... but at least there are previews now.
@@spaceiswater6539 It's internal SATA2 SSD on Windows. It's noticeably slower than the external SSD I use on my Macbook. Maybe I need to change a config somewhere to speed things up on my desktop?
I can’t stand the ui of kontact. I really don’t like anything NI. Omnisphere is great but it needs an overhaul. Falcon is badass but I scratch my head with their choice of layout
I would add that apart from the current promotional $149 for Falcon 3.1, selected Soundware libraries are discounted with a 'buy 1 get 1 free' promotion. Your comments and rankings were 'on the money'...
Thanks! Yeah, I got the 2 new libraries. They are both great.
Another mighty fine video. ArcticFox does the best independent reviews on the net IMO.
Thanks Pro!
Love, Dead on!😊
Thanks!
I just jumped on the Falcon bus with this sale. I'm pretty excited to dive deep into sound design with it.
It takes a bit to understand how their system works, but once you've got it down, it is really powerful.
always cool to see your take on Falcon. A real favourite of mine
Thanks ghost.
I just bought it for half price, and it came with a £50 voucher, which I spent on a £30 preset pack with a "get one free" offer, so I basically got Falcon for £140 + 2 preset packs for free! One very happy bunny.
Yeah UVI stuff is a big value when it's on sale.
Which ones did you grab? I want that new modular drum one they just dropped.
Would love to see your rating list of UVI sound banks and Falcon expansions if possible.
I thought of doing one but I don't own all the libraries. Maybe half of them.
I should have put a chart in the video though showing the ones I did rate though.
I agree. I was an early adopter and my money was well spent. I kept adding libraries over time. Falcon has to be compared with Halion 7 IMO. I find the interface of Falcon easier to use, but they both have their strengths. The two places Falcon does not compete with Halion 7 are in its FM capabilities and the spectral oscillator in Halion. There are some cool third party libraries for Halion 7 out now (run in Halion Sonic free version; similar to Kontakt Player libraries), too. It helps to be a Cubase user, too. It was my first real DAW (after Cakewalk Home Studio, LOL).
One of these years I will have to check out Halion.
I own and love Halion 7. I'm looking forward getting UVI Falcon.
It's hard to beat at the current sale price.
Halion is not bad !
Halion & Falcon are amazing I have them both.
I wonder if UVI and NI are sharing platforms because the UI looks a lot like Kontakt.
I think everyone is trying to copy Kontakt, but not sure why. I don't think their UI is that great.
I’m curious: how did Ekorain get into the S tier? What makes it *that* good?
My #1 problem with Falcon as an ambient devotee is that so much of what UVI does is so blatantly, bombastically cinematic. While there’s a large overlap between cinematic and ambient, there’s also that that „huge drums and even hug-er string sections” that the two don’t share, and UVI libraries seem to sit firmly in that latter camp. (Though I did just buy Glass Orchestra, which makes me ecstatic with joy).
My disappointment with “bare bones” Falcon, as I bought it a year ago (when they introduced those crazy, mesmerizing arps on acid) was that it comes with very little factory content. Like, precisely zero samples? (That, or I haven’t been able to find any). And the UVI libraries, not cheap by any means, are just presets, i.e. combinations of parameters, but they don’t seem to add any new content (please correct me if I’m wrong). I've auditioned them again recently on the UVI website and I seem to have no use for any of them (personal taste, of course, but there it is).
By comparison, Phase Plant comes with tons of samples (and wavetables, and impulse responses) that are useful out of the box, and very neatly categorized. The content banks curated by Kilohearts are a mixed bag, but that’s because they do a lot of genre-oriented sets, so they tend to be of the “love or hate” kind - but if you’re into ambient, their ambient-oriented sets are really good.
Thanks though for reminding me that I have Falcon 😊 Learning to use it was a steep upwards crawl, it’s SO unfriendly and (also unlike Phase Plant) not even trying to help a struggling first-time user. I've probably forgotten what little I learned last November. Have to get back to those crazy awesome arpeggiators!
Oh man, if you like ambient (and glass orchestra) you should check out EkoRain. I did a review of it a few years ago and you can get it on sale occasionally for something like $20 or $30.
Its got a particle engine and these great convolution reverbs that are like combinations of some interesting delays and reverb. The mix of the two just sounds amazing.
@@arcticfoxstudios2018 Oh wow, thanks! I will grab it, then
If you go to the UVI site and browse their expansions you can see which ones contain samples in the specs near the bottom of the page. Lo-Fi Dreams, for instance, is 4.31 GB and has 10,349 samples. Inner Dimensions is 695 mb and has 2,128 samples, while the new Modular Drums is 99 mb and just contains 100 presets.
Falcon is looking very attractive to me, a Kontakt user who doesn't want to pay 100s of dollars just to upgrade to the current version.
Yeah, I’m probably skipping the current upgrade and waiting until next year.
I bought percussion factory, drum replacer and drum designer, all of which haven't been updated and lack some basic modern features, I would like to get into Uvi but they're inconsistent with their entire ecosystem and it doesn't inspire confidence. That being said it's an amazing deal right now
Drum designer is great, but it is getting long in the tooth.
Also burning questions if I own the full Halion is there things Falcon can do for sound design that Halion can't?
I don't have any experience with Halion, but I would bet that there are a number of things. Falcon's arps are pretty powerful & I haven't found another piece of software that can match those.
I have VPS Avenger, Kontact 6 and Falcon. Avenger is waaaay too overpriced for it's upgrades and forget their expansions...close to costing almost as much as the program itself. I like Kontact but since its updates, my S88 Mk 1, keyboard has been phased out and it's become a very basic midi keyboard. So I'm pissed at that. Falcon is very cool and it's one of the few versatile synths on market that doesn't charge for its updates...so kudos to the UVI team. And their expansions are affordable, especially now at 2 for 1. I would have like the drum module but I'm like Triaz now that it's broken out of Kontact dependency.
Triad is really good. I have the free player but have been eyeing the full version.
UVI expansions are generally not great though. I’d probably delete them if bundled free. VPS are pricey, but premium sound design. And 50% off the 5 bundle makes them dirt cheap
@@vaiman7777 I wouldn't call 275 pounds or $534 au exactly dirt cheap. haha. Works out to be around $100 per expansion.
@@fabiorubato9434 like I say, when it’s 50% off. So $50 per, and you can redeem them anytime
£28 a pop for me
I’m done with spending money with NI. Picking up Falcon as a replacement. Haven’t heard much from the stock library but I’m looking to pick up World Suite, Augmented Orchestra, and Soul Drums. Hopefully that’ll knock out the big chunks of what I’m losing by eventually leaving Kontakt.
I agree. The new Kontakt 8 is ridiculous, oh look, one-finger chords! The problem is that people make really, *really* good libraries for Kontakt today. I won’t name names, as it’s a personal preference thing, but I do wish those people stopped and switched to Soundpaint maybe. Or Falcon. Because as long as those people keep making this great stuff, NI will keep squeezing out the upgrade dollars from us.
@@SongOfItselfI agree
I love soul drums, have to get the others
I hope UVI change how they handle Soundware. I have them on SSD but it still takes a good chunk of time to mount them when opening Falcon the first time. I had hoped that the new search browser previews would let me not mount them all and open a Soundware on demand... but at least there are previews now.
Yeah, some of the patches take quite a while to load.
@@arcticfoxstudios2018 not only that, but the process of mounting the .ufs files is what takes most time for me.
I have all mine on an SSD also and they load mega fast like 1 - 2 seconds tops.
@@spaceiswater6539 It's internal SATA2 SSD on Windows. It's noticeably slower than the external SSD I use on my Macbook. Maybe I need to change a config somewhere to speed things up on my desktop?
Moving FX, Mods and Events between layers is still not possible. Why 🙈?????? That would be a great workflow improvement.
That is a good suggestion.
how large is the tag download?
Don’t recall but it took about as long as Falcon to download.
Don’t recall but it took about as long as Falcon to download.
I can’t stand the ui of kontact. I really don’t like anything NI. Omnisphere is great but it needs an overhaul. Falcon is badass but I scratch my head with their choice of layout
Yeah, I'm surprised Omnisphere has not released anything new or done an overhaul in several years.