MegaHertz

Guy Rotem, the person who made Megahertz used to work for Waves where he made (amongst other things) the excellent synth: Element 2. It is impossible for me to review Megahertz on its own as it so similar to Element 2 that I have to compare and contrast them. TLDR: Element 2 is better and Megahertz is bland.

Both synths are virtual analog attempts. They are basic, 2 oscillator plus sub plus noise subtractive synths. They have one filter, LFOs, some basic effects like delay, reverb, chorus, distortion. You might say "so what, boring" but the reason I always loved Element is it just sounds so good. It has a rich sound and it's easy and fast to dial in the sound you want.

Here is the list of things disappointing about Megahertz when compared to Element:

1. The user interface is ugly and basic looking.

2. There are only 2 LFOs: one mono and one poly. (Element has 4).

3. Megahertz misses one filter type compared to Element (bandwidth reject).

4. Megahertz has no bitcrush effect.

5. Megahertz has no pre/post filter select for the distortion.

6. Megahertz has no FM control on the filter.

7. Megahertz has only one saw type on the LFO, element has up and down saw.

8. Megahertz has no "sin mod" on osc 1.

9. Megahertz has no arp.

10. Megahertz's sequencer is only 8 steps (element is 16).

The only things I think Megahertz has that Element doesn't:

1. It has a phaser effect.

2. It has a gate sequencer separate to the note sequencer.

3. It has polyphonic LFO (although only one of the two LFOs can do this). Element has controls on the LFO named "Pol +/-" although they aren't labelled on the interface. I assumed they were supposed to turn poly on off for LFO but they are actually a phase control.

4. It has a mini, pretty useless oscilloscope display.

5. The modulation is done by modular wires type interface which may allow some modulations you can't do in element (but I'm not sure).

Element 2 just sounds better in my opinion and it can be obtained a lot cheaper in Waves frequent sales or "get one free" offers.It has actually been given away free by computer music mags this year (2020).

A powerful instrument with very fat and high-quality sound, a must-have instrument for electronic music producers.