Product: World Suite
Developer: UVI
Formats: VST, Audio Units, AAX, OS X 10.7+ (32 & 64-bit) and Win 7+ (32 & 64-bit) Runs on UVI Workstation v2.6.8+ & Falcon v1.2.0+
Pro Tools 11+, Digital Performer 8+, Logic 9+, Cubase 7+, Nuendo 6+, Ableton Live 8+, Studio One 2+, Garage Band 6, Maschine 1&2, Tracktion 4+, Vienna Ensemble 5, Reaper 4+, Sonar X3, Main Stage 3, MuLab 5.5+
Disk Space Required: 30GB
Price: $299
DRM: iLok account (Free, dongle not required)
Demo: Not available


The Scope:

UVI introduces World Suite, a stunning world-wide collection comprised of over 320 playable musical instruments. This colossal assortment includes over 50,000 thousand samples, 8,000 plus loops and phrases. The instruments have cleverly been categorized by Region, Type, Loops & Phrases, Travelers, and Vocals.


The Interface

The program interface is based on the UVI Workstation or it can be opened via the Falcon user interface, for existing owners.


The Instruments

There are 12 Regions containing instruments from Africa, Asia, Australia, Celtic, Eastern Europe, India, Indonesia, Middle East, Occidental, South America, Spanish Gypsy, and West Indies. Instruments are also categorized by the following types: Bell, Metal, and Gong, Fretted String, Key, Percussion, Stringed, and Woodwind. When the instrument panel is opened, the UI displays an illustration of it as well as the name of the instrument, and the region of the world where it originates. The UI background contains beautiful scenery or a landmark specific to that region with a superimposed map of the continent of origin. In addition, instruments have a unique sound engine that includes Sound, Expression, Envelope, Equalizer, and Reverb, each with a unique set of controls. These controls may vary depending on the instrument that’s chosen and instruments can be resynthesized to taste with these controls i.e., Crescendo, Tremolo, Legato, and Portamento.

You can also add additional effects which may not be listed under the sound panel, via the Multi-view panel. Just click the add effect button to add: Delay, Reverberation, IR Verb, Modulation, Filters, EQ, Stereo & Amplitude, Drive & Distortion, Dynamics, 3 Band Processors, Misc. each with additional options for the specific effect. Some instruments have pre-played phrases since they’re a little less tonal, for instance, the Didgeridoo. You can build your phrases using the different notes. The key switches change the tonality. For this particular instrument, you can change the phrases with the right hand and change the tonality with the left.

The instrument panel also comes with a Layer & Key switch function. Key switches are highlighted in red on the keyboard while guitar rhythms have chord switches that are highlighted in yellow. For guitars, you can play the harmony with your left hand and do the strumming with the right. Stringed instruments are also richly diverse.


Loops and Phrases

Loops and Phrases can be mapped to the keyboard and triggered with the assigned keys to create unique patterns of the same instruments. With World Suite, you can create and assemble gorgeous sounding multis and create some incredibly diverse phrases that can be customized to your unique musical zest.

Loops can be triggered at Slice Start, Immediate, Next Beat, or Next Bar. Loops can be kept in perfect sync without the use of quantizing. Loops and phrases can be sliced up and used in very creative ways. The samples can be easily inserted into your audio track on your DAW via drag and drop. Loops and Phrases are categorized by region and then by specific instrument or type.


Travelers

Travelers are large scale music generating instruments that give a staggering amount of control as well as the vocal samples. A traveler, for instance, may consist of Drums & Perc, Big Perc, Small Perc, Tambourine, Instrument 1, and Instrument 2. Within each of these categories, one can replace the type of instrument contained in the current selection. Each of the instruments within a Traveler, has individual controls like Volume, Pan, LP & HP filters, Tune, and Reverb. Travelers are categorized by Region. The degree of total control one can achieve in the overall sound is unfathomable! We are talking 100% customization, this is truly an impressive achievement in my honest opinion!


Vocals

The Vocals within World Suite, are both enchanting and mesmerizing, they sound exceedingly crisp and natural. Vocals come in Long, Medium, and Short samples. There are various types such as Arabic Voices, Balkanish, Persian, Miscellaneous, and much more. The Vocals also are presented with Male & Female voices, young and old. The more I’ve discovered, the more captivated I have become with World Suite.


Vocal Ambience Traveler

Vocal Ambience Travelers are similar to Travelers with the exception that instead of using instruments, they utilize various vocals that can be played across the keyboard. In addition, they contain an outstanding Ambient section consisting of various drones that can be interchanged. The drones add an ethereal and dreamy component to the vocals, are a perfect complement, and serve as a background for vocal sounds.


Vocal Traveler

Vocal Travelers let you build vocal phrases and vocal atmospheres. Drones and voices from the different regions can be interchanged. The Vocal Travelers are truly spectacular and will send chills up and down your spine and the Drones are truly captivating!

* Please see below to view screenshots of the user interface.


The Scores

Sound Quality: The sound quality of World Suite is refreshingly clean and pristine. The sample resolution is 44.1kHz Recording at 88.2 kHz. The articulations for each of the instruments are truly impressive and supremely accurate. The sound engine enables further control over the samples, i.e. Timbre, Velocity curve, Envelope, EQ, and Reverb. Traditional effects are also available. Additionally, the instruments can be layered and paired with vocal travelers to add unique ambiances to your sounds. The realism of the instruments and vocals must be heard to be believed! Mind-blowing, I dare say. World Suite is delicious treat to the senses!


Ease of use: The user interface, UVI Workstation, is very easy to navigate. One simply double clicks to open the browser and locate the World Suite directory from the navigation pane. From there, one can locate instruments by region, type, loops & phrases, travelers, or vocals. There are 12 regions, Africa, Asia, Australia to name a few. Each of the regions is further divided by the instruments they contain. Instruments can be played in an authentic manner and can easily be mapped to the keyboard.


Features: World Suite is full of outstanding features. Travelers gives you full control over the instruments and the Randomize function gives different combinations of the loop which is very useful at the press of a single button. The instrument articulations are outstanding and very authentic. Samples can be mapped and routed to various destinations by a simple right click of the mouse. I knocked off a point for the size of the interface. The UI is usable however, more and more musicians and composers are utilizing wide screen, high resolution monitors which shrink the size of most plugins. I would hope to see UVI offer resizable UI’s in the future. Other plugin manufacturers have begun to implement this feature in the form of small, medium, and large UI options. I ran World Suite on a PC with 8 gigs of RAM and found it to be quite reasonable on CPU resources. On my DAW, it ranged from 4% – 14% on the CPU meter. The highest load was noted to be while playing Vocal Travelers.


Bang for buck: Excellent value. For the amount of rich sounding instruments and vocal content, it could easily cost much more.


Overall: World Suite is richly diverse and filled with mystique. Here, you’ll uncover the veil to multi-cultural layers and sounds never heard before. It would take a lifetime to travel all over the world just to hear this great assemblage of instruments and vocal samples. UVI has done the work for you and it’s all here awaiting your discovery! In an instant, you can travel to any part of the world and hear these amazing instruments that have the potential to add a special touch to all your mixes. It’s the perfect tool for cinematic scores and musical compositions that need some extra pizzazz. Musicians from all genres can greatly benefit from the sounds contained in World Suite.