Computer Music announces Dominator

Computer Music magazine, UK, has announced Dominator, the next synth to be added to the CM Studio. Programmed from the ground up to CM's own specifications, Dominator takes the venerable sound of classic analogue synths and beefs it up with modern routing, modulation and waveshaping options.

Dominator will be available for Windows in VST instrument and VST effect formats.

Features:

Triple Oscillators

• Three oscillators per voice with a choice of six waveforms (Saw, Pulse, Sine, Triangle, Sync Saw, Sync Pulse).
• Pulse width modulation per voice and coarse (4 octave range) and fine tuning adjustments.

Oscillator Control

• Dedicated LFO to control vibrato depth and pulse width modulation.
• Glide time setting and mod wheel vibrato depth control.
• Analog control for adding fat analogue-style detuning.

Voice Control

• Four voice modes (monophonic, polyphonic, unison and chord mode).
• Unison with 2, 6 or 12 voices.
• Chord mode with 5 user-definable intervals (plus root note) for building up complex chords to be triggered from a single key.
• 6 play modes for mono/unison/chord, for controlling when glide should be applied and when envelopes should be reset.
• Smart mode for handling successive presses of the same key, or Reset mode, where all envelopes and oscillators are reset for each note, for a punchier sound.

Mixer

• Independent levels for each oscillator.
• Noise and ring modulation (between oscillators B and C) can also be mixed in.
• An external input signal can be mixed in on the VST effect version (this is mixed into each voice).

Amplitude Envelope

• Classic ADSR envelope with velocity sensitivity.
• Optional 'Warm' VCA mode gives a non-linear analogue-style response.

FX

• Chorus modeled on the classic Roland Juno chorus, with depth and rate controls.

Dual Filters

• Two fat multimode Moog-style filters per voice, with 5 filter types (lowpass 12/24dB, bandpass 12/24dB and highpass 12dB).
• Filters can be overdriven and can be made to self-oscillate, just like true analogue filters.
• Keytrack, velocity and filter envelope can all be used to modulate the cutoff frequency.
• Optional 'Warm' mode drives filter harder to add more oomph and body.

Filter Envelope

• The classic ADSR envelope for modulating cutoff of the filters.

Waveshaping

• Optional waveshaper per voice with five different modes and drive control (goes up to 11).
• Transistor, diode, hard clip, sine and rectifier shaping modes.

Routing

• Waveshaper and the two filters can be configured in five different arrangements, including serial and parallel configurations, for flexibility.

LFO

• LFO with sine, triangle, square, positive-only square, sample and hold and noise shapes.
• Can modulate amplitude, oscillator pitch B, oscillator pitch C, filter A and filter B.

Modulation Envelope

• ADSR envelope to modulate filter B, pulse width modulation, vibrato depth, oscillator pitch B, oscillator pitch C and noise level.

Dominator will be on the cover DVD with CM109 which hits the streets in the UK on January 17th, 2007. For now, CM have put together a demo tune using Dominator as the only sound source (including the drums), to show you just what it can do.