Invader

Anything by e-phonic you can generally rely on as being eminently useable, usually with lots of sonic character, and there's no disappointment with Invader.

It's aimed at being a spcialFX synth, which is exactly what it does best, so don't expect to be able to play Chopsticks on it, or even play a recognisable note depending on the settings!
Invader is a VSTi that I load up often when I'm doing dub. It's just perfect for those heavily delayed synth bleeps and warbles that you use for effect rather than as part of any melody. In fact, every now and then I get a sound from it that's quite reminiscent of my MS20 - generally it's not aimed at being a clone of anything in particular, but when you patch up weird sounds, it can take on some definite analogue character. It can range from mild but interesting to complete modulation madness, and it does it better than most general synths.

Sound - as stated, it has it's own character, and occasionally takes on the character of quite esoteric h/w synths. The perfect sound for dub, ambient, experimental, or soundtracks. It can be obviously digital and thin, but more importantly can be full and warm-sounding.

Features - plenty of scope for modulation mayhem - you can modulate pitch, filter, FM, amplitude, and the mod sources and destinations are quite flexible. One of the nice things about Invader is that you don't have to be an expert programmer to get weird sounds from it. OK, it helps to know what you're doing if you have a specific sound effect in mind, but any beginner can have immense fun and good results by just twiddling knobs at random. Many synths work the exact opposite way - play with too many parameters and you ruin a sound if you're not careful. But Invader invites you to make silly sounds, and then delivers. Not a huge amount of oscillators but it really doesn't need that many.

GUI - if you're not familiar with synthesis, then you could be scratching your head to fathom it out, but it does actually make sense and is logically laid out. My only beef is the GUI is a bit too small for my screen settings - too many GUIs are designed for low res, but if you're working with a big host it's often better to have very high res, so you can get more of your mixer channels etc on-screen - but this makes some GUIs very small and difficult to read from any distance. I would like it bigger.

Presets - not many, but I'm not convinced that Invader needs any more. Because it's designed to make weird specialFX by modulation, you'll probably have to make your own, otherwise they're too distinctive and easily recognised to be of original use. It really is a breeze to get your own sounds - simply move any or all knobs until the sound is as weird as you want it to be.

Stability - no crashes, and a surprisingly small CPU hit considering it's Synthedit. I'm often not flattering about Synthedit VSTi's, but it shows it can be good if programmed well with thought (which e-phonic has done)Read Review