Plogue

I want to start by saying that this synth really is a DX7....

I played a few notes and was immediately transported back to DX7 land...

I had a few of those synths back in the day and OPS7 nails the sound and the feel exactly...

Being able to load all of the Sysex files is brilliant because there are so many banks of great sounds available that weigh in at just a few KB each...

The editing inside OPS7 is streets ahead of what was available with the hardware and having access to all of the parameters is an invitation to actually program FM sounds...something that was painstaking with the original miniscule LCD...

On a purely practical level, OPS7 is my sort of synth...

The install is only a few MB and it uses a minimal amount of CPU, but the sound is huge with a ton of attitude...

It sits great in the mix and blends and layers well with other instruments, yet it still maintains it's sense of character and definition...

One of the bonuses, is that you can layer two independent engines together a la DX1 and create some very interesting textures with the layers...

I like the focus that Plogue bring to their soft synths...

Their focus is on the sound engine and the dynamics of the instrument with a minimalist GUI and a straight foward interface...

I'm really enjoying using OPS7 and it was easy for it to slot into my existing workflow because it sounds so damn good...

Anybody looking for an FM synth should check out OPS7 because I believe that it is the best DX clone out there and with the improved editing fuctions, one of the finest FM synthesizers ever released...

Thanks for the OPS7 Plogue...

This one's a winner and it gets 5 Stars from me :).

For me it is the most authentic and therefore best DX7 emulation so far. The following words are necessary to complete the review and make no sense, neither does the rule.

Number 1 free sfz player till 2021 :) thanks. Could easily convert SF2 files into SFZ file too with the built in ARIA Engine.

This is an answer on the Review of "Tagirijus" of the 17th February 2020 - because his 3 points need some explanation:

1. Installs two additional programms (TableWarp and Aria or so) and will not deinstall those, if you deinstall sforzando.

This is true. But:

The Aria-Player is the sample-playback-engine of Sforzando. So this is a necessary part of Sforzando. The TableWarp is just an Example-synth installed along with Sforzando. It is very small - only some kb - and it sounds quite useful.

2. Is not a SF2 Player, but needs to convert the SF2 to SFZ first.

Also this is true. But:

Sforzando is not dedicated to SF2. SF2 is ONLY a nice add-on. Sforzando can read sf2 - more or less - and converts it to sfz. The "more or less" means that:

3. Will not play / convert it correctly so that the patches are not playbale.

This might be the case for certain sf2-files. Just because Sforzando is not dedicated to SF2. If you need a real SF2 Player you should look for something else.

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So let's come to the topic of "Sforzando": Sforzando is basically a monotimbral sfz-sampler. And it is one of the best, because it is (1) easy to install, (2) easy to use and (3) easy on CPU. For me Sforzando is very stable (windows-10), and you can use a lot of instances at the same time. The handling is straight forward and if you are advanced you can create your own GUI.

Also the sfz-format has tremendous advantages: You just can edit any sfz-sample file with any text-editor. So you have full control and you can simply change and adjust any multisample to your special needs. SFZ is not a proprietary format - and so it is future-proof. That is important if you want to be sure that you can use your sample library in the future without hassle. In the development of SFZ there are the versions 1.0 and 2.0. Sforzando can play version 2.0 - and it understands some additional sfz-commands.

1. Installs two additional programms (TableWarp and Aria or so) and will not deinstall those, if you deinstall sforzando.

2. Is not a SF2 Player, but needs to convert the SF2 to SFZ first.

3. Will not play / convert it correctly so that the patches are not playbale.

This is really a suprisingly great plugin. You can really get some great result if you put some effort into it. Try to use several plugins at once to create a choir, for a free VST this is amazing. Check out the video review: https://youtu.be/BvgAYGM1_Nk

I absolutely bidule.

It really is a huge problem solver for me.

I have the standalone in my startup, it fixes things like the poor velocity output from my keyboard controller, it remaps a stock Behringer FCB1010 foot controller to control the selected track control script for live 9.

And remaps to use the FCB1010 as a stompbox using guitar rig 5.

I use it as a vsti in live 9 to host MIDI plugins like Cthulhu.

I really would be lost without plogue bidule.

This is a SFZ file player that has tremendous potential. Directly dependent on Aria Engine (used for sound banks Garritan) this player plays perfectly the SFZ 1.0 and SFZ 2.0 versions. The forum engine is very reactive, competent people can quickly respond to simple or advanced topics (some of the developers of the engine are themselves on the forum).

A SFZ file can be placed on the player (with drag & drop possibility) that reads and instantly updates the SFZ file when it has been changed. The parser of SFZ opcodes indicates whether the file contains errors or unkown opcodes.

Tested with up to 15 simultaneous instances I have not had a complaint from any slowdown in my machine (Dual Core CPU 2.6 GB).It is available on several platforms (Mac and PC) that really boring for the developer of sound bank.

Specificity of Sforzando is that it contains a panel MIDI controls. This panel makes the SFZ file dépendent player but brings a lot of control over the patch.

The biggest flaw is that it has no effect and is not multitimbral but it is difficult to find a synthesizer / sampler of this quality for free.

I think this player is the SFZ player of choice because it is reliable, robust and accurate and there is more and more high quality sound bank in SFZ format.