Audio Nebula

This is the only product I have ever felt strongly enough about to review. I have messed arond with 200+ soft synths over the last 15 years. In my subjective opinion this is the best sounding soft synth that there is. The one negative is that preset manager isn't obvious. (Use the one in the middle of the screen, not the far left). Once you find the patch manager (which is there at the bottom) it should be straight forward to save patchs.

It's a hidden gem, FM synth for the 21 century. Despite the fact that there are quirks in the interface, designer did a very complex job to fit such a complex thing like FM synthesizer on one screen. So designing sounds is very fast unlike other FM synths on the market with many pages and menu diving.

Aurora can sound beautiful like a modern Montage and raw like a old 8 bit DX synth.

Randomizer is pure inspiration for new sounds.

Love it.

Aurora Fm is a great FM synth. Not your usual fm synth, there are a lot of subtilities to be found on that one. Feedback routing, Distinct waveform (and you can morph them back to sine wave), Modulations are really deep but everything is kept easy to access on a one page UI.

The sound quality is awesome, and you can set oversampling and dithering as you want if you in search for aliasy/lofi stuff.

If it isn't enough, you can add to that the 4 multiparts, all the algorythms you'll need and the nice effects.

A real workhorse to design sounds quickly and as precisely as you need and a real bargain.

On the con side Preset browser could be improved.

IMHO, Aurora FM is one of the very good sounding FM Software synthesizer that you could find in the market. I have been using it in many of my projects for the last 2 years, it has never disappointed me. Even in its raw form, I find the sounds from this synth to sit relaly well in most of my mixes. With a little bit of thrid party FX (Delay and Reverb to be specific), the sounds can be further improved. On my 3 years old laptop, this plugin does not eat up much resources (mostly in signle digits) even with multiple instances running.

Ryan (the developer behind this wonderful plugin) has been simply amazing with his constant mailers (no spamming) and important updates to the VST. He is also a very friendly developer who listens to the customer's suggestions on imporving the plugin.

I highly recommend this VST for anyones who is looking to add some fine FM goodness into their prodcution.

This Aurora FM synthesizer is really an extraordinary VST synth. I was trying to find a FM VSTi that could reproduce the same kind of elastic sounds as the Yamaha TX81Z I used to own. Like everyone I used Dexed for some time but it does not really deliver and then I slowly lost interest in FM... until I found the Aurora ! If you think all FM synths sound the same, just try to load the same sysex preset in Aurora and then in Dexed, and enjoy the difference. The sound is MUCH clearer and enjoyable in Aurora, it is obvious from the first note that the oscillators and coding are first-rate. Thank you very much for bringing this wonderful synth to us ! It is now one of my go-to vsti's along with Aalto and Chromaphone.

Aurora FM by Audio Nebula
http://www.audionebula.ca.

I nearly let this stunning synth slip under the radar. What a mistake that would have been.

Since I already had Dexed, I thought, "Who needs another DX7 emulator?" Recently, I took another look at Aurora FM, not expecting much in the way of surprises. Now that I've been getting to see and hear for myself what it can do, Aurora FM frankly has become my go-to synth for FM.

What did I discover? The user interface is brilliant. All controls are conveniently laid out before you on a single screen. This synth is all about you, the sound designer, and you, the player: efficient mouse-interaction, instant, meaningful visual feedback. With Aurora FM, it's easy to make live corrections on the fly, to think by ear.

Another shock: this synth is completely about FM, 21st century FM. It's about FM synthesis inspired by modern modulation synth legends like the Alesis Ion and Waldorf Q. So, when Aurora FM is able to load and translate Yamaha DX7/DX21/DX27/DX100/TX81Z/DX11 patches, it's not to emulate or recreate ancient history, but to use them as a starting point to going light years further via today's technology and programming.

Besides, nothing is off the shelf about Aurora FM. It is a very high-resolution, precision musical instrument. In fact, In the short time I've been using this synth, I've come across a whole FM world of beautiful new sound combinations that simply wouldn't have been possible in the mid 1980s. For example, how amazingly musical and fresh the many included micro-tonal scales sound in Aurora's sample precise FM colors.

PRO:
Rewarding to play, intuitive to program.

Currently with the introductory price of $14 US [$17 CAD].

CON:
The introductory exceedingly low price might cause some musicians mistakenly to under-value this fine synth.