Spectrasonics Stylus RMX Xpanded Realtime Groove Module Virtual Instrument Software

Got it fast and right in the middle of the Thanksgiving/Black Friday rush.Spectrasonics products are legendary.I will be incorporating this into Ableton's Push, but have not received Push yet. So can't wait to see how I get on with it using it with that device.

As magnificent as this product is receiving support or having your product authorized again when you upgrade your studio's computer or operating system is non existent. The only way you can receive any kind of help is through a third party yahoo group that you have to join or some random music bulletin board that's so obscure I can't even remember the name of it. There is no support forum on the company website at all in 2011 the time of this review. If you email them for help you will never get a response, PERIOD! You have to call them long distance and leave a message and sometime within the next 2 weeks they either call back or blow you off. I've had my software in a commercial studio down as long as 6 weeks with several voice mails left on the support line (no one has ever answered).I've asked the owner a man named Eric Persing who is nothing short of a complete genius at NAMM and in the Yahoo group publicly (as many others have) about the support and the technologies they are using. The people around him become outright hostile at the inquiry this online, ask him at NAMM face to face and boy watch out! It's like having a lawn gnome threaten you with a whooping. It's the Emperor's new clothes I've never seen anything like it. A software company without support in this day and age on the company website? They're a software company!Spectrasonics Makes some of the most cutting edge products in the industry but without proper technical support how can the software with any longevity be of any use? I hold a BSc CIS and have 20 years experience in information systems pertaining to digital media, Multi Media and am both Logic and Pro Tools certified. I've never seen anything like it. If your name isn't Quincy Jones or Baby Face Edmonds you're wasting your money, these people could care less about you.I want this review to be completely honest and is respect to spectrasonics defense they have done some really nice things for their customers. They have taken their $500 sample library and offered it to customers for $100. My opinion is that at the price they weren't selling a lot of them and the sounds should have been included in the software at purchase but still that's a very nice thing to do. They have also given upgrades for RMX for free for several years. One so significant it should have been a paid upgrade. Their Trilogy Bass emulator software is nothing short of genius and their Omnisphere Synth blows everything out of the water in the industry hands down.But again I say what good is it if you can't receive tech support for software you've paid for if it doesn't work?Bottom line as a studio owner RMX has cost me money in canceled sessions because they refuse to answer email and wont return phone calls if any for weeks. What are you supposed to tell a video game company or a movie studio when you can't make your deadline? Uhhh we're waiting for spectrasonics to authorize our software?I say it again the Emperor's new clothes, it's ludicrous. I cannot in good conscious recommend Spectrasonics software to anyone.

Don't get me wrong! I love Spectrasonics and I have loved using Stylus. But it's now 2015 and Stylus' grooves, sounds, and sonic quality are not top notch anymore. I still will use it from time to time to fill in the gaps with perc loops, etc. but we NEED an update on this thing!!

I bought the trilogy of Spectrasonics software, Omnisphere, Trillian and Stylus RMX. That was nearly a $1200 investment. In comparison with other similar software, the price is obscene. I could have bought at least 3 entire DAWs which would have included multiple instruments and effects, many thousands of samples, as well as scores of other useful tools. You have to ask yourself where all the money you pay is going. The high cost of this software is completely unjustifiable. The value simply isn't there.I found the user interface to be hopelessly unintuitive, complicated and tedious to work with if I tried to use anything other than basic presets. There are layers and layers of subpages and right click menus. I trudged through the tutorial videos. But when it came to actually using the software I always ended up having to search around through tabs trying to figure out how to do what I wanted to do which hampered my workflow in a big way.Another serious annoyance I encountered was that the slightest change to my system, including frequent security updates, deactivated the software. So EVERY time I went to use the software I had to re-activate each of the licenses. This involves logging into to the Spectrasonics website, getting an activation code and plugging that code into the software. With 3 licenses it was 3 times the fun.What all this meant for me was that after activating the software, and then spending time stumbling around trying to figure out how do one thing or another, my inspiration would be totally gone. This is one of many reasons why I found myself using other software titles. There are too many other plug-ins that are far easier to work with, that sound as good or better, that don't deactivate if you sneeze too hard and that cost a fraction of the price.A serious mistake I made was buying this software without having tested it first. Spectrasonics doesn't provide trial versions of their software. I don't know of any other software company that doesn't provide at least a 14 day trial. That should have been a clue what kind of company I was getting involved with. It's a detail I won't overlook again. And now I'm giving you the advanced warning I wish I had before I made my purchase. NEVER buy software from a company that doesn't offer a demo. Especially when it's extortionately high priced like this stuff is.It was also a mistake to wait until AFTER I made my purchase to read the fine print. Had I read it beforehand I would have come to realize just what a greedy, tight, controlling and paranoid corporate entity Spectrasonics is. It's ironic that even the name, Spectrasonics, is reminiscent of that sinister organization, SPECTRE, in the early James Bond films.I would urge anyone looking at buying audio plug-ins to take the time to carefully look into the details BEFORE making your purchase. You'll quickly recognize the undesirable companies that should be avoided like this one. At the very least make sure the company you buy software from has a liberal usage policy. In this case I suffered the consequences of not taking the time to do that important bit of research.If you read Spectresonic's terms you'll see you're only actually paying for partial permission to use their samples on a highly regulated and temporary basis. You don't own anything. And in a very short time the temporary use permit you paid top dollar for will expire. So you'll have to continue paying more temporary usage fees or write it off as a loss. Is it any wonder so many people are using cracked software these days?You'll also get an idea how restrictive and questionable a matter it is if you want to use their samples in published music. Having all those limitations placed on my freedom of musical expression is the last thing I need getting in the way of my creativity. I'm a musician, not an attorney. And it was for that reason I stopped using the software altogether.I recently sold off some music gear and donated a bunch of other stuff I wasn't using. The Spectresonics trilogy was among the items I donated. I also donated some software from Arturia and Native Instruments. After I gave away the software I remembered I hadn't de-registered it. Kudos to Arturia and Native Instruments for making it a simple and painless 2 minute process to de-register their software. But when I got to the Spectresonics software it was an entirely different story. It's an understatement to say it was a HUGE hassle.This is when I found out Spectresonics charges $50 per license to do transfers. That's just uncool. I don't know of any other software company that charges such a fee. You can forget ever trying to sell this software. No one is going to be willing to pay a license transfer fee or go through the aggravation involved with transferring licenses through this company. It's guaranteed negative feedback if you attempt to sell through eBay or Amazon Marketplace.I ended up sending well over a dozen emails in an effort to de-register. They simply wouldn't respond back. I tried several times to get someone on the phone with no success. One of the few emails I received expressed suspicion of my intentions trying to de-register.At that point I was so mad I didn't care whether they de-registered the software or not. I wrote a scorching email to the clown who had emailed me as well as the company owner, Eric Persing. I pointed out how simple it was to de-register with the other companies and what a major headache it turned out to be with Spectresonics. I also mentioned I had donated the software and how insulting it was to be treated the way I had been after spending $1200.The people at Spectresonics are clearly too arrogant to apologize. I got a very obtuse email stating the licenses would be transferred and that was it. So it was clear they were getting my emails. They just apparently hoped if they ignored me long enough I'd give up. Incredibly unprofessional and totally lame.Nearly a month after I first attempted to get the licenses de-registered, I finally received an email informing me 2 of the licenses had been transferred. As if I actually cared by then. The Omnisphere license never did transfer although they de-registered it from my ownership. As far as I'm concerned this company helped themselves to $500 of my money giving nothing in exchange. Most people would describe something like that as theft or bloodsucking. The only thing missing here was the gun.Needless to say I'll never have anything to do with Spectresonics again. Had I known what I was getting into I wouldn't have considered purchasing their software in the first place. And as a direct result of my experience with this company and their massively overpriced software, my preference is going to be investing mostly in hardware from now on that I will actually own and that I can use in whatever way I see fit.Unlike software, hardware can last for decades. Plug it in, turn it on and go. Hardware can also increase in value over time whereas software becomes completely worthless almost immediately. And of course it's very straightforward selling hardware if needed. Another important difference is that you can't return software once you open it, no matter how awful it may be. Hardware can easily be returned even after using it for weeks.Also, if you think about it, eventually software synths will end up costing as much as or more than any hardware you buy after paying for multiple version upgrades. That's going to happen very quickly with this expensive software. And it's money you'll never be able to recover. That's not even considering all the time and aggravation involved with having to pay for the upgrades, downloading and installing, as well as activating and reactivating over and over again.I'm being VERY generous rating at 3 stars. I subtracted one star for the unintuitive user interface and one star for the fact that the software had to be reactivated every time I went to use it.The company, Spectresonics, earned a rating of one star. To me the producer is as important as the actual product, especially when it comes to software. And I will always have a problem with companies that charge the kind of money Spectresonics does for their software only to turn around and treat their customers so shabbily.Shortly after I posted my review, Eric Persing, the owner of Spectresonics came along to do some damage control. In addition to trying to bribe me, he attempted to play down the complaints I had about this software and indirectly accused me of lying that I had to re-activate the software so frequently. It's incredibly ill-advised to throw salt on a customer's wounds. You ought to take a look at what he had to say and my responses. I would describe his efforts as an epic public relations blunder. It's entertaining and informative at the same time. You'll get to see what kind of treatment you can expect if you buy software from this company.

About 18 years after purchasing Stylus, Spectrasonics Fully updated It to include ALL of the Expanders and the newer Core library. That’s free of charge :)

Great instrument in Spectrasonics style. The ability to import Rex files a major plus. At the heart of this program is the ability to manipulate sounds to your hearts content. Also, you can change tempo without the pitch of the sample changing.

Just arrived... WOW! ... looking forward to dig into it deeper... Great!