Welcome to another edition of This Thing Rules! I’ve got an awesome one for you today… UVI’s Falcon. This thing is a beast – one of the biggest pieces of software I’ve ever reviewed for this blog.

I’ve been using UVI software for a long, long time… I think PlugSound Pro was the first VST over $200 that I ever purchased actually, wayyyy back in the day. So when I got to check out their new flagship, I was extremely excited. Before I dive into all the features (well, maybe not all of the features, but as many as I can fit in and still make this a timely review haha), check out this demo, “The Breakthrough,” which I made entirely using Falcon.

If I do say so myself… That was a pretty killer track with some Hard-core synths. Lots of great, useful stuff is included in the presets, but like any great synth software, this thing is super expandable. Actually, it’s not specifically a synth, so much as it’s a hybrid-synth… Meaning it blends synthesis with samples, just like a program like SpectrasonicsOmnisphere does. That means more sounds, more effects, more combinations, and more possibilities. For the sake of getting this piece up sooner rather than later, I didn’t dig into every nook and cranny of Falcon (I’m not even sure I’d be qualified to go over some of the more hardcore options like macro scripting haha), but I’m going to go over as much as I can in this short review… And trust me when I say, I’ll be getting around to everything I didn’t yet play with sometime in the future.

While listening to “The Breakthrough,” you’ll hear a lot of stuff going on. Some of the presets I just loaded as is, but some I made use of the tools available to change and build into new, custom sounds. The first thing you hear is “Stellar Pax,” an almost dub-step style Arp bass line. It’s a really heavy, aggressive sound, made even crazier by the mod wheel. There’s also the main keyboard I used called “Key Therapy” which is the kind of stand out electronic keyboard I could see myself using time and time again. At times during the song I layered that keyboard with “Keytar Hero” and “Nylon Guitar” to build the main lead up even bigger.

The background of the track includes many synths and pads such as “Geometry Drone Wheel” and “Lunar Mission.” These are big, thick, full sounds which have dozens of parameters that can be edited. On top of the actual editing, you can add many built-in effects, all with their own presets. Reverbs, distortions, compressors. There are so many options for getting the sound you want. One electric guitar sound, “Guitar Distortion Booth” which comes in towards the end, I ended up adding and tweaking almost a dozen effects, ranging from Analog Crunch and Dual Delay for getting that killer crunchiness, to a built-in Maximizer and 3 Band Shelf EQ that helped make the sound stand out in the mix.

It’s not just single effects though. Next to the effects section is a multi-effects section which includes various presets that add multiple effects, already proven to work great together, to the sound you’re playing with. It’s starting points like this that help guide you through all of the endless options. Then come the event presets, which allows you to try even more options, although I only really messed with the Arp presets in the course of making this demo.

I was going to originally say in this review that my only real disappointment is the lack of included instrument presets. Sure you can make an endless number of your own custom sounds using the included tools and effects presets, but I like when software has a nice existing library to play with. Most of the categories only have a handful of preset instruments, and it’s particularly lacking on drums, drum loops and percussion… But then I found out that you can actually load any of UVI’s other software packages through Falcon, rather than the usual UVI Workstation. This is quite frankly, a game changer. Mainly because I already own so much UVI software! Awesome synths like Energy, Digital Sysnations or even my oldest pro package Plugsound Pro can be loaded up to run them through all of Falcon’s powerful tools, essentially creating a much larger built in library – especially if you already own some UVI software (and Falcon currently comes with a $100 voucher to use towards buying some of those libraries). UVI is a pretty big name in software synths, so I’d be surprised if you don’t have at least one or two of their other products. Another note about presets is that I’ve already seen a couple companies offering 3rd-party expansion packs for Falcon… so I think we’re going to see a long life for this product.

There is a lot more to dive into with Falcon. If you’re interested, I definitely suggest checking out the site UVI has set up for more information. The features list just goes on and on. Certainly too much for me to get into in this review, which is already probably one of the longest I’ve done. They have provided some great video tutorials as well like this one:

UVI’s Falcon is available now for $349.00 (there is no Black Friday sale, but they will be running sales on most of their other packages, which like I said, can all be loaded into Falcon). If you already own some UVI products, it’s an absolute no-brainer. This will unlock so many new ways to use what you already have. If not, it’s still one of the best new pieces of software I’ve used in a long time, and with the amount of options and features available, I could see this becoming one of my most used, go-to products in the future.

David Rosen is an award-winning music composer. He composes original music for films, commercials, jingles, video-games and all other kinds of media projects. He has a vast music library of original tracks available for licensing and is also available for custom compositions. Contact him on the ABOUT page for pricing and availability for your next project.