Review: UVI World Suite

Hot on the heels of Synth Anthology II, UVI has doubled down in a completely different direction with World Suite. A 28+ gigabyte behemoth of meticulously sampled instruments from a variety of cultures, World Suite aims to be your 'one stop shop' for bringing ethnic sounds to your compositions. I spent some quality time with World Suite to see if it was on the level with the other recent offerings from UVI.

The Diversity

World Suite is huge, there is no denying that. There's over 50,000 samples, 325 instruments, and 8,000 loops that are expertly organized by both instrument type, genre, and geographical area of origin. It's inspiring and a little staggering at the same time to think about all the possibilities that are present. There are plucked instruments, percussion, wind instruments, and keyboard instruments aplenty to choose from. After spending a significant amount of time surfing through the patches, I really couldn't think of any ethnic instrument I would need that I couldn't find inside of World Suite.

UVI World Suite's Hungarian Cymbalum.

The Engine and Scripting

I'm slowly becoming a very big fan of UVI's Falcon and Workstation instruments that are used to load up UVI's libraries like World Suite and Synth Anthology II. UVI instruments tend to be extremely 'lean and mean', snappy, responsive, and reliable. I found that World Suite not only met those expectations, but elevated them. Patches loaded up with satisfying speed, and the GUI is not bogged down with excessive bloat. The background images and GUI enhancements are elegant, sleek, functional, and pleasing to the eye.

One of my favorite functional traits of World Suite is the extremely intelligent and convenient use of key switches. Key switches are an expected element of most major sample libraries at this point, but World Suite handles them in a really fantastic fashion. You can tell that there are definitely a few keyboardist producers on staff at UVI. Rather than simply 'key switches across the board' on every patch, the key switches and articulations are well thought out and make a lot of sense. I noticed this especially on the percussion patches in particular. I was able to really create some fantastic layers of latin percussion with several instruments without my hands ever leaving the keyboard. It was immensely satisfying, and I can't wait to explore the rest of what World Suite has to offer.

UVI World Suite's Indian Sitar.

The Sound

I had no doubt that World Suite's sounds would be top notch. UVI tends to be at the head of the pack in terms of sample quality and World Suite is no exception. The sounds of World Suite are rich, expressive, incredibly playable, and sound fantastic. The effects are sleek and usable, and you can utilize the whole gamut of Falcon's wizardry if you happen to be lucky enough to be running World Suite inside of Falcon.

Conclusion 

After getting to review of UVI's past offerings, I had very high hopes for World Suite. I'm glad I wasn't disappointed. World Suite not only lived up to my expectations, but exceeded them in many ways. If you're looking for the best way to bring ethnic flair into your productions, you need look no further than World Suite.