Kratos 2 maximizer in the shop

[Kazz]

I would love it if iZotope decided to take Reason more seriously and port some more of their plugins over to RE format, but it seems as if they barely even know the Ozone Maximizer RE exists and I'm not optimistic about seeing updates or future releases from them any time soon.

Kuassa on the other hand has been consistently bringing us some of the most solid REs in the shop.  I already have the Ozone Maximizer, but if Kratos is at least as good a product (and it sounds like it is), I'm pretty sure I'll end up picking it up when I can.

[tiker01]

Has someone test if it's free latency with no oversampling? What about the cpu usage against ozone ? Thx!!!

Go to the shop and check the back plate they published really useful latency info there. I assume there is even more in the manual.

[tibah]

After going back and forth between Kratos, Onyx, Ozone and the main doubts about if I even need a new limiter/maximizer, I went with my ears and gut feeling and bought Kratos. I don't have to mention how it totally *smokes* the MClass one, but compared to the others, making a decision can be tricky, especially with the price difference. I tried Ozone many moons ago. Onyx didn't rock my world. Kratos seems to be just right.

About latency - there is not much more info in the manual. The info you find at the back, about the additonal 63 samples when using over-sampling, is the only you are going to find (unless I missed something).

Another great device by Kuassa!  Don't miss it.

[Rice]

The more I use it the more I love it...it's becoming very difficult to resist 

[ambeant]

After going back and forth between Kratos, Onyx, Ozone and the main doubts about if I even need a new limiter/maximizer, I went with my ears and gut feeling and bought Kratos. I don't have to mention how it totally *smokes* the MClass one, but compared to the others, making a decision can be tricky, especially with the price difference. I tried Ozone many moons ago. Onyx didn't rock my world. Kratos seems to be just right.

About latency - there is not much more info in the manual. The info you find at the back, about the additonal 63 samples when using over-sampling, is the only you are going to find (unless I missed something).

Another great device by Kuassa!  Don't miss it.

It's all about personal taste, for me it's about a dynamic or living sound and Kratos comes closer to that than OZone but it's sound still is not as alive as Onyx even at the lowest release, hard knee, and texture. IMHO

[Theo.M]

After going back and forth between Kratos, Onyx, Ozone and the main doubts about if I even need a new limiter/maximizer, I went with my ears and gut feeling and bought Kratos. I don't have to mention how it totally *smokes* the MClass one, but compared to the others, making a decision can be tricky, especially with the price difference. I tried Ozone many moons ago. Onyx didn't rock my world. Kratos seems to be just right.

About latency - there is not much more info in the manual. The info you find at the back, about the additonal 63 samples when using over-sampling, is the only you are going to find (unless I missed something).

Another great device by Kuassa!  Don't miss it.

It's all about personal taste, for me it's about a dynamic or living sound and Kratos comes closer to that than OZone but it's sound still is not as alive as Onyx even at the lowest release, hard knee, and texture. IMHO

shows how different we all are.. onyx actually hurts the mix every time I try it, to my ear. It muffles it and really damages dynamics. I didn't like Kratos in vst land (huge kuassa fan here and own their entire RE line bar this so please don't take this as a dig on the dev), however I haven't tried version 2. I won't even bother testing it against onyx but will do a head to head vs ozone on quite a few different styles of mix when I have some time. That said it would need to be noticeably better than ozone to make it a worthwhile buy, IMO, considering the price difference. Oh i prefer M class to Onyx too. So there you go LOL (being serious, but of course it's just an opinion). FWIW, for some reason Ozone RE doesn't sound as good to me as Ozone 5 and i wonder if they based it off ozone 4's maximizer. Ozone 6 is an ever so slightly smidgen better again. 

Regardless, what i would like to see in Reason limiter land is something to the calibre of Pro L/Slate FG-X or , get ready for it, the inexpensive toneboosters barricade pro. If they released barricade pro for 25 euros, as is, i.e, with all the features and exact sound of the vst, to me it would simply sweep up the competition and be THE limiter for reason. The thing is with barricade, even though it may be 5% behind Pro L and FG-X in terms of ultimate loudness, it is the only one i have heard where you don't need to worry about tweaking endlessly, and basically what goes in is exactly what comes out only louder. It's so ridiculously transparent, that coder is a bit of a genius, IMO.

[ProfessaKaos]

Came across a bug the other day (still happens) that produces very nasty click/pop noise with this device.
The way I came across this bug is I had Kratos on the Master and I solo'ed the snare which was fine until about 5-10 seconds of it being solo'd, after each snare hit on the next count (perfectly in time) a big click/pop noise would occur. I went in topped and tailed the snare to make sure that wasn't the problem, it was still happening, I then bypassed Kratos and it was gone, I unsolo'd the snare and reengaged Kratos which was all fine. I then solo'd the snare again and surely after few seconds of it playing the big click/pop noise came back, which you can also meter on the big meter.
The session runs at 3 DSP bars maximum with Kratos engaged. If I put Ozone or any other effects devices on the master this won't occur.
Anyone else experience this?
PS: I'm on Windows 7.

[Theo.M]

Came across a bug the other day (still happens) that produces very nasty click/pop noise with this device.
The way I came across this bug is I had Kratos on the Master and I solo'ed the snare which was fine until about 5-10 seconds of it being solo'd, after each snare hit on the next count (perfectly in time) a big click/pop noise would occur. I went in topped and tailed the snare to make sure that wasn't the problem, it was still happening, I then bypassed Kratos and it was gone, I unsolo'd the snare and reengaged Kratos which was all fine. I then solo'd the snare again and surely after few seconds of it playing the big click/pop noise came back, which you can also meter on the big meter.
The session runs at 3 DSP bars maximum with Kratos engaged. If I put Ozone or any other effects devices on the master this won't occur.
Anyone else experience this?
PS: I'm on Windows 7.

will DL the demo tonight and try to reproduce.. However, your best bet is to contact Kuassa and let them know also, as they are *very* responsive to fixing bugs, trust me on that. Really cool people.

[gullum]

I also noticed that clipping sound I had the saturation knob from softube just before Kratos and got this clipping but when I removed the softube the click went away

[aradaz]

Hi guys,

This is Arie from Kuassa.
I'm not too often in forum so this is my first post at reasontalk :frown:
Nice to meet you all

@ProfessaKaos and @gullum,
Could you please send us the Kratos 2 preset/repatch to support(at)kuassa.com?
I really wanna kill that bug!

Thank you,

[gullum]

I have not been able to reproduce the bug as it happened only this one time when I had the Softube saturknob before it

[EddieG]

Kuassa has some deliciously tweakable MUSICAL eq devices
Looks and sounds like its worth it to my ears
Lovin my Vermillion Creme pie

Yes, same for me but the times change all the time so those in need of a 1st RE maximiser this would certianly be worth trying. I really am impressed with kuassa. My latest buy of their eqs has been one of my best buys.

[aradaz]

Hi guys,

Just an update, ProfessaKaos's problem (quoted below) has been resolved on Kratos 2 Ver.1.0.2. The update fixes include the CPU Spikes when sound stops playing.

Came across a bug the other day (still happens) that produces very nasty click/pop noise with this device.
The way I came across this bug is I had Kratos on the Master and I solo'ed the snare which was fine until about 5-10 seconds of it being solo'd, after each snare hit on the next count (perfectly in time) a big click/pop noise would occur. I went in topped and tailed the snare to make sure that wasn't the problem, it was still happening, I then bypassed Kratos and it was gone, I unsolo'd the snare and reengaged Kratos which was all fine. I then solo'd the snare again and surely after few seconds of it playing the big click/pop noise came back, which you can also meter on the big meter.
The session runs at 3 DSP bars maximum with Kratos engaged. If I put Ozone or any other effects devices on the master this won't occur.
Anyone else experience this?
PS: I'm on Windows 7.

Thank you,

[Theo.M]

Finally tested this and I can't reproduce the click pop bug so far, but I did try.

I just wanted to comment on the plug in itself.. I am quite surprised as I wasn't a fan of V1, but V2 seems to really keep the source intact with minimal distortion and keep the transients alive.. loudness wise, it's aboot the same as ozone, but quite frankly on certain sources the kuassa sounds better and seems to match it or only be ever so slightly inferior on others.. I am really going to do some more master limiting with this to put it through it's paces, but my initial evaluation is that it's in the top 2 limiters for reason - basically it's between this and ozone, and between them you would absolutely not need to look for another - because ozone is so cheap now, and we know kuassa does participate in sales, my advice is to buy this on sale, buy ozone as well, and you will have both for what ozone alone used to cost Or if you want to buy this at full price to support the dev, i reckon it could probably all your master limiter duties and be your "one workhorse" in this regard. The latency is MUCH lower than ozone which also means in certain scenarios it can be on the master buss whilst actually composing, to keep errant bursts in check, without adding too much latency to your RE instrument keyboard playing.I will say though, personally, i have always liked to have more than one choice for master limiter.. 2 minimum.. as i find different ones work better on different material - i don't think onyx is a contender vs this, m-class/kuassa/ozone basically gives you all the limiting tools you would ever need.

Now where's some analog saturation emulations kuassa!

[ProfessaKaos]

Hi guys, Just an update, ProfessaKaos's problem (quoted below) has been resolved on Kratos 2 Ver.1.0.2. The update fixes include the CPU Spikes when sound stops playing.

Was my bad I was using Ver.1.0.1 but once updated to Ver.1.0.2 my problems seemed to disappear. Thanks Kuassa

[ProfessaKaos]

Finally tested this and I can't reproduce the click pop bug so far, but I did try.

I just wanted to comment on the plug in itself.. I am quite surprised as I wasn't a fan of V1, but V2 seems to really keep the source intact with minimal distortion and keep the transients alive.. loudness wise, it's aboot the same as ozone, but quite frankly on certain sources the kuassa sounds better and seems to match it or only be ever so slightly inferior on others.. I am really going to do some more master limiting with this to put it through it's paces, but my initial evaluation is that it's in the top 2 limiters for reason - basically it's between this and ozone, and between them you would absolutely not need to look for another - because ozone is so cheap now, and we know kuassa does participate in sales, my advice is to buy this on sale, buy ozone as well, and you will have both for what ozone alone used to cost Or if you want to buy this at full price to support the dev, i reckon it could probably all your master limiter duties and be your "one workhorse" in this regard. The latency is MUCH lower than ozone which also means in certain scenarios it can be on the master buss whilst actually composing, to keep errant bursts in check, without adding too much latency to your RE instrument keyboard playing.I will say though, personally, i have always liked to have more than one choice for master limiter.. 2 minimum.. as i find different ones work better on different material - i don't think onyx is a contender vs this, m-class/kuassa/ozone basically gives you all the limiting tools you would ever need.

Now where's some analog saturation emulations kuassa!

Hey Theo,
thanks for trying to replicate my issue I was having, but in the end it was my fault as I was running the release version Ver.1.0.1 and not latest version Ver.1.0.2 (update). After updating the issues I was having are no longer happening   

Your initial evaluation here is like you read my mind.

[wendylou]

I have been using iZotope's Maximizer RE ever since it came out, but after trying Kratos 2 during the sale, I bought it after some detailed comparisons to Ozone. In both listening tests and spectral analysis, it became clear that iZotope's Maximizer was boosting some higher frequencies that Kratos 2 was leaving intact. The sense that Kratos 2 is "bassier" than Ozone is actually due to Ozone boosting higher frequencies whereas Kratos 2 does not. This is clearly evident in side-by-side comparisons to the original non limited audio in the RX5 spectral analysis, plus you can indeed hear it. I generally don't limit much in my music, but used appropriately, I have learned I can still maintain good dynamic range even with moderate compression and limiting. It's also nice to have a choice among limiters. I would not have bought if If I could not hear a difference, but it is different in a good way.

[gak]

Interesting. Kuassa make some terrific stuff (though I wish they'd fix the odd artifact high note/bending squeally thing.

[EnochLight]

I have been using iZotope's Maximizer RE ever since it came out, but after trying Kratos 2 during the sale, I bought it after some detailed comparisons to Ozone. In both listening tests and spectral analysis, it became clear that iZotope's Maximizer was boosting some higher frequencies that Kratos 2 was leaving intact. The sense that Kratos 2 is "bassier" than Ozone is actually due to Ozone boosting higher frequencies whereas Kratos 2 does not. This is clearly evident in side-by-side comparisons to the original non limited audio in the RX5 spectral analysis, plus you can indeed hear it. I generally don't limit much in my music, but used appropriately, I have learned I can still maintain good dynamic range even with moderate compression and limiting. It's also nice to have a choice among limiters. I would not have bought if If I could not hear a difference, but it is different in a good way.

I've long been considering picking Kratos 2 up as an alternative to Ozone. I just might have to do so with this sale!