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All Reviews by wikter


By wikter
On 30th June 2006
Version: Final

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  GUI
Sound
Features
Docs
Presets
Support
VFM
Stability
mda JX10

About this Synth there's a lot of things to be said.
It seems much more based on SH series from Roland but as long as I've not searched along the Roland Keys history I can't say that for sure.

The oscillator section is based on two Pulse (width modulable) oscillators, but the only controls are 2nd Osc detune, 2nd Osc Coarse and Mix. It's a bit limited in comparison with some ones, but in fact, it does the job.
The filter section is a selfoscilating resonant LowPass filter modulated by a very fast envelope with bipolar modulation (positive and negative).
The Amp envelope is also very fast (try short attack and decay time), altough pads can also be achieved by pushing the fader up to the end.
Finally, an LFO that modulates the filter and the oscillator PWM or Pitch. It's a shame that you only have the possibility to modulate one parameter of the escillator, but the fact is that this lack of controls allows this synth to be very easy to understand.

The envelopes are very fast and it's easy to adjust them to fast rates without getting artifacts.
The resonance starts selfoscillation very early when the fader is moved and its sound doesn't matches for Pads os Basses easily.

Altough it do the job with Basses, Pads, Drones, stabs... its sound and play modes (wow, it's polyphonic) gives good classic Leads, arps and glissandos.

And rating the KVR values...

User Interface:
No Gui... Ok, I'm so used to work with no Gui that I can't imagine it out of the Logic faders.

Sound:
As long as it has no effects, it sounds dry and the presets doesn't help, but adding a flanger+Xdelay gives a more exciting machine. The ease of control also lets you focus on the music, forgetting to adjust tones of controls.

Features:
Altough it's feature limited and lack a bunch of parameters, it is fast to understand and tweak, and very low on CPU usage. Also, the voice modes helps when searching classic sounds.

Documentation:
Forget about it. Not needed

Presets:
Useful when you need to create a new sound, but not specially inspiring.

Customer support:
Unknown and unneeded.

Value for money:
Freeware. It costs a download.

Stability:
On Logic, I've found two kind of problems, it can clip Equalizer bands inserted after it and sometimes it stops sounding... in fact, it stops sound when an eQ after it is clipped. Well it only happens tweaking it while it's played, but it's a shame that it happens (altough it happens rarely)
 
    

By wikter
On 28th November 2004
Version: 1.006

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Andreas Ersson polyIblit

Maybe it's not the best virtual instrument for long convolving pads, but their oscillators and filters has enough thickness to fit it's sound quality among some analog machines.
I use it for basses and leads, and sometimes for a soft analog pad, but it is the king of bass sounds for some electronic styles. The envelopes fast response and also a faster filter than most around the net (free & commercial) will open you a door to get punchy sounds with only one oscillator... but there are two more to thicken the sound. In this point, the resonance may not work as you'd like, in fact doesn't autooscillate easily, but it helps keeping control over the sound... and if autoosc is needed, just push the reso to the top....

To use it you should have some experience with other easier instrument, because it's modulation capabilities are enough complex to get lost when modifying presets to fit a sound within a mix.

And referring to some of the questions about doc, support... I've never needed the documentation, and neither those presets (that are really useful, but just presets), and I've never thought:
"oh, sh** it'd be great to have a thing here to do somthing" or the opposite when I've found a lack.
Maybe its user interface is not the best due to its distribution and because all the knobs are of the same size, but when you get used to it that's not a problem.

It's correct and useful, and like analog machines, you'll have to tweak very fine it's knobs to get the sound that you're looking for (but sure you'll find it).
 
    
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