Spectrasonics Trilogy VST PC

i've been playing (piano/kybds) since i was 5. i've been using trilogy since its inception, both in protools and now (to ease up cpu usage on the mac) as a VST plugin in V-Stack on a PC. my primary use is in pop, r&b, and classic pop production. i am an ex-session player, now a fulltime record producer. i listen through various monitors, but primarily Dyne-Audio with Yamaha power amps modified by Mastering Labs (one amp per speaker) or big Tannoys with Adcom power amps (one for each). My protools system is HD3.

this instrument is extremely easy to use right out of the box. no problems installing in mac or pc (windows xp). copy protection is incredibly fair. the people at spectrasonics actually trust you when you go online for a challenge response more than once. most companies squawk when you "re-apply" for an additional challenge response and want you to buy a complete new product of the same thing (MOTU and Mach5 for instance).
it's so easy to use, you don't need a manual. the uvi engine (main panel) is only one page deep. how nice is that??

as fare as sound goes? i'd give it 9.5-10. the basses go from cool to outrageous and cover all types of music, although i'm really only interested in the more pop basses. the bottom is so huge and consistent, you don't even need a compressor to even it out. i rarely tweek the sounds, other than to raise it an octave. a couple of the presets are off by an octave (not consistent with the pitch of the other presets). this only happens maybe one out of twenty presets.

a fabulous product.

robbie b

it's worth twice the price. there isn't another plugin like this. it's never crashed since the day i bought it, and that's a loonnng time ago. i wish they'd come out with trilogy 2, just for more of the same but different (maybe some more solid synth basses for ballads)

I've been a bass player, mixing engineer and producer for rock, acoustic, ethnic and film scoring music. I use Trilogy with Logic 5.5 on Win XP through a MOTU 896.

Straightforward labeling of Acoustic and Electric Bass sounds. A bit confusing though in terms of how the keyboard is split between staccato and long notes. All the Spectrasonics plug-ins take a long-time to load.

Absolutely phenomenal Acoustic Bass sounds! Especially the mic'd U47 section. The harmonic distortions make for a fantastically authentic jazz sound, coupled with after-plucks on the note release (clever concept). Using the modulation wheel for light bends between notes, you can make it incredibly difficult for someone to spot the sounds as sample based!

The Electric Bass sounds are pretty good. They are smooth and provide a rich bottom end. My only slightly negative comment would be that the top end could use a little more definition to round out the tone. Nothing that a tiny bit of EQ'ing can't help (especially if you got the Sony Oxford plug-in).

The synth bass sounds are fine to me, but I'm not much of a connoseur for Electronica sounds. The Virus probably has cooler bass sounds, but I find that Trilogy fulfills the majority of my bass needs.

If you're really wanting acoustic bass sounds and don't have one (or don't have the room to record one), you'll be hard pressed to find a better sonic library for upright sounds. All the bass sounds certainly justify the investment for me.

I will put this review from a pro pop producer/arranger view. I'm into pop/europop. I use Trilogy within Logic 5.5 on a 2Ghz PC with 512Mb of RAM. As they (Spectrasonics) said, Trilogy is low on resources which is very good. Interesting is that I tried to install Trilogy for a whole day, only to find out that discs have some malfunction. After contacting a seller, this issue was resolved.

Yes, interface is very simple, good looking and intuitive. Although I'd like to have more tweaking possibilities (like real bass synths as SE-1, Juno 106 etc. have), it is basically enough.

However, sounds were my big dissapointment. I repeat, I am writing this review from a professional point od view. Do not get me wrong, but enthusiastic amateurs and semi-pros (really no bad conotation in it) look at equipment differently from a pro whose living depends on a uncompromised sound quality (because you can't cheat recording companies and targeted audience).

In my production I mostly use synth for basses, and this review is mainly concentrated on them. Well, those Moog, Prophet, Juno, SE-1 etc. bass presets sound similar to real ones, but they are definitely NOT SAME in quality. Despite 15 years of experience, I was foolish enough to think that one plug-in could possibly replace my real gear and simplify my work. Unfortunately that isn't case. Real is still real (and it will remain that way for some time).

And now into details. Sounds are dull (some), aren't punchy enough, and occupy too much of a broad bottom end spectrum (too many of them) - they don't fit into mix. If you tweak Trilogy to get rid of this, sounds change shape and at the end are not what you have had in your mind. Some presets aren't even sampled good. For example you play some fast bass line, only to discover that some notes sound differently from others in that preset. This is usual mistake in bad (or careless) sampling. This malfunction alone makes Trilogy almost useless for a professional work. I mean, let's say you are in a deadline with a project, last thing you want to think about is what sounds are bad sampled, and what are good.

Before I owned this plug-in I considered it as (almost) only virtual instrument worth to be owned, now I am sure no virtual instrument (except soft samplers, and some tiny sounds producing synths) isn't that worth (from a pro view). Exception is TDM Virus for example, but Virus works on same sound chip on ProTools (and Powercore) card as real one has inside, so it is in fact no soft synth.

This does not mean that soft synths will not evolve and become suitable for pro work, but right now this isn't case. If this opinion sounds harsh, bear in mind that a pros look for highest sound quality. Trilogy is still good for some B production.

It isn't expensive, but for that money you can buy Juno 106, which has 'real' sounds, sounds that are proven in a mix.