Energy PRO

interface ...

some people would call this ugly but i like it ... its very functional and i find it clean and clear to use ... everything on one page and logically laid out

sound ...

pretty much a one trick pony but it does that 'vaguely-303' type sound as well as you need ... i primarily use it not for bassy sounds but for high-pitched burbling liquidish noises and this it does real well

features ...

again not a huge featureset ... but the thing it does [step-sequencing in a vst plugin coat] it does very well and fills a gap in the market [although there do seem to be a few more of these in development now ... jorgens phraseSEQ amongst them] ... its much more than just an arpeggiator ... more of a limited featureset sequencer ... has some well chosen and useful little effects built-in too ... the facility to have unlimited patterns to play with is a bonus too [good for fills and variations]

documentation ...

never jorgens strong point i have to say ... on the other hand it is fairy easy to get to grips with if youve got some basic synth / sequencer knowledge

presets ...

doesnt ship with any but there are quite a few energy packs available from the massiva website and these are of reasonable to good quality

support ...

jorgens support and advice is second to none ... often to be found here or on the massiva forum or on the massiva yahoogroup or always ready to answer direct e.mails ... never fails to respond or offer a fix in just the sapce of a few hours ... nice bloke

value ...

$19 ... need i say more ?

stability ...

i use it in massiva where its ROCK solid ... not heard any other host users complain either though

overall ... jorgen has once again spotted a hole for a specialised plugin and has filled it admirably ... he has a knack for producing stuff that [at least for me] works in an entirely predictable and intuitive way

Energy Pro is for me the right synth at the right time. Let's examine it's two components.

As a synth there are several analog style waveforms, two oscillators, blend, several filters, LFO routings and the usual compliment of sound making tools that make for a good sounding synth, not exceptional, simply good.

As a pattern sequencer/programmable arpeggiator Energy Pro rocks. You can create your patterns on the grid which is monophonic or polyphonic. You can make the sequence shorter than the 16 steps or longer, up to 128 steps I believe. And if you want you can render your creations to .wav audio. Besides that you can program many sequences within one instance of the VSTi and do so through midi too.

If it were only a synth Energy Pro would be a decent deal at the $19 cost but with it's great pattern sequencer it's a steal. Besides that it's an awful lot of fun to work with.

There are expansion packs available, in essence saved sounds and patterns which can be found at the web site. Obviously you can save your own as well.

This, I'm hesitant to call it just a synth, this piece of kit is great for those old school electronic arpeggiations as well as anything current. The sound of Energy Pro works well with the sequencing which also lets you create a filter envelope that evolves with the sequence, there are also gate and other controls that make for highly expressive arpeggiations/sequences.

There is a synergy between the synth and sequencing engines which makes Energy Pro quite effective. It's a great tool, check out the free version to get the vibe of this instrument, it's well worth your time.

Energy Pro is excellent for simulating old-fashioned analog step-sequencers, ala vintage Tangerine Dream ("Rubicon" era, etc).
Contrary to what was said on a review of the free version, Energy IS a sequencer (and not "just an arpegiator", even though it can be used that way), but more in the "vintage" definition of what a step-sequencer is: you have an unlimited number of patterns, variable number of steps (including odd-numbered, which is great for prog-ish odd-meter sequences), controllable glide, gate/volume for each step, and a ramp for per-step control of the filter's cutoff. To my ears the synth has a warm, punchy sound that's great for everything from vintage analog-style bass-lines (think Bill Leeb/FLA) to nice screachy lead sequences.

Current version 1.3 has improved and new synth functions (controllable waveforms for each oscillator, cross-modulation, etc), and has fixed the tempo-sync problem in SONAR that the earlier versions had. Works great in both Orion Pro and SONAR (using FXpansion's DX-VST adapter, with no crashes or glitches on my system.

What's nice is that you can trigger your sequences live on the fly via MIDI, which is perfect for generating long Tangerine-Dream-style patterns interactively.

Jorgen's email tech-support is excellent: quick and responsive.