Following on from the success of the M-Tron plug-in, GMEDIA Music has just announced a long awaited follow up plug-in instrument, The Oddity.

The Oddity is modeled on the classic ARP Odyssey which was used by artists as diverse as Gary Numan, Herbie Hancock, Kraftwerk and Portishead. In much the same way as the analogue vs digital debate rages today, the Minimoog vs Odyssey debate raged just as hard back in the halcyon days of synthesis. The Minimoog may have had the bigger profile but it was widely acknowledged that the Odyssey had the edge in terms of features as well as a more abrasive sound.

"In much the same way as the M-Tron turned a whole new generation on to those sounds, we're certain the Oddity will do the same in terms of monophonic/duophonic synths", commented GMEDIA Music's Dave Spiers. "The Oddity is the result of a lengthy collaboration between ourselves and Ohm Force whereby both parties brought their unique skills to the project. As a result we were able to extensively model many of the original instrument's components in order to get as close as possible in terms of functionality, character and tonal textures. We look at it as the first plug-in synth with serious balls, particularly when using the duophonic mode with some ring modulation.

The Oddity features two syncable oscillators - fully tunable across a six octave range, with sawtooth, sine, square and variable pulse width waveforms. White and pink noise. Monophonic or duophonic modes. Host syncable LFO. Ring modulator, resonant lowpass filter, highpass filter. Sample & hold, portamento, two envelope generators and a wealth of modulation routing options.

Further enhancements include velocity sensitivity, the famous Ohm Force patch-morphing feature, plus a unique "flying slider" feature whereby it's possible to grab faders with the mouse and throw them at varying speeds recording the changes in your host application.

The Oddity, VSTi Mac and PC, is supplied with 5 banks of 64 sounds and will be on sale, boxed, from the 1st December 2002 at £79.95 ($129.95)