Sonic Charge

One of the Best Drum Synths out there.

Sequencer is powerful, easy and fun.

Patternarium is an almost endless source of inspiration and free patterns and presets.

Free updates for life .

Only Cons I've ever had with it have been addressed over the years and the newer Skins make it much easer on the eyes too.

Very Creative Multi Effect that spice up all kinds of sounds, works best on rhythmic sounds or to make statics sounds rhythmic. It can be harsh and noisy or working like a Saturator or Compressor. But mostly it destroy sounds.

Additional Firmware unleashed a bunch of creative Effect-Types u cant get from the basic Version. RingMod, Reverbs, Stutter and Glitchy Effects.

You have a Random Function, yes but its a bit hidden and complicated, the community wanted a better solution. The Devs wrote a script then, now u can very simple add a Random Button yourself in front of the Plugin. Now we have one Click Random Button!!! That just awesome. These Devs are definitly cool.

A very bizarre yet cool synthesizer with a new approach to "designing synths sounds".

Pros:

• Easy to understand workflow / handling.
• Can sound very good and clean and organic.
• Unbelievable low on CPU, seriously low.
• Never crashed so far.
• Is inspiring, since it's not a common way to get / create synthy sounds.
• Still in development, as far as I know; also Sonic Charge is very responsive via mail and their forum, which is also a big plus.

Things could be a bit better, in my opinion:

• The principle of preset designing could be taken even further, imo. E.g. having different aspects of the sound character to be randomized instead of the whole sound at once.
• The price might be a bit high for what it is, but in the end - as far as I know at least - the future versions are included for now. This might change, according to what I've read in the Sonic Charge forums, but in the end it's cool to know. So this is no real pro or con point tbh. :D.
• One review said that the preset system is good. Well to me it's not that good. It is good indeed to be able to click on a preset and directly be able to play it. This happens in the systems open dialogue box, though. So what might be missing is some kind of tagging functionality to better search through presets. The way it is now is: click and play and see if this sound fits. With THIS specific synth, it's no biggies, while the principle is to generate new random sounds anyway. So it's okay to me.
• New random sounds are often a bit too bizarre and not usable to me. Rather experimental, but this might also be a matter of taste or genre. I tested other random synths in the last weeks and Synplant indeed does a really good job in the end compared to ther synths, which generate random presets. So again: it's a rather subjective con point here again. And also not 100% negative.

Super easy and fun organic sounding drum maschine.

Easy on the CPU and to learn :).

Good support from developer.

On star missing.

Because okay...i love Microtonic but it can be more...better:

• no polyrhthm.
• hidden random switches.
• too less per Step editing (volume, pan, pitch).
• to less sound editing on the Oscillators (FM, PWM...).

A bit more...we always want more...

Cheers*.

Fantastic! Endless possibilities for different rhythms and sounds. I can lose hours at a time just tinkering with this.

Already there (aka "Pro"):

• extremely CPU friendly and fast loading.
• easy and fast to set up in general.
• good sounding.
• almost endless (?) patterns online in the Patternarium.
• minimalistic yet powerful.
• scriptable things.
• preset format is "open". So it seems to be some kind of JSON format, which is nice for geeks like me (-;
• many parameters can be linked to MIDI CC#s.
• easy and minimalistic, but useful preset system.
• after 10 years (if I read correctly) the development seems not dead yet, I guess ... at least that's my assumption, since the last update was in april 2020. Still waiting for the dev to "verify" (-;

Could be there (aka "Cons", or better: "Feature wishes"):

• some more sound noise types.
• filter envelopes.
• linking velocity to more parameters than just the three ones.
• polyphonic mode in the "Pitched MIDI mode".
• adjusting the decaying curves (especially for the pitch mod).

Really looking forward to the future of this plugin. (=.

INTRO
Echobode by Sonic Charge is an enjoyable, inspiring, and unique delay effect that features a frequency shifter inside a feedback loop, which creates an array of inharmonic overtones and dreamlike timbres. There's something about the look, virtual feel, and sound that make this hybrid delay a joy to launch. As with all Sonic Charge plugins, Echobode is extremely versatile and capable of producing sounds that range from solid sounds to pure sonic insanity. As a result, this delay unit can be an everyday effect for chorus, delay, flange, gate, phase, tremolo, ring modulation, etc. This delay can also be used and abused for the occasional sprinkle of madness. I found this plugin useful for any and all tracks, but especially rhythms and atmospherics.

Under the hood revs an engine that goes way beyond a delay with a bit of freq shifting. The shifter, along with the delay, phase, and filter can all be modulated with a user selected LFO that is outputting through various waveforms and shapes, including: sine, saw, square, and random shaped. There is something called a Smear Control that displaces the phases of the signal spectrum through a series of all-pass delays with a range of 0 to 121 milliseconds. And most importantly, at least for EDM, it can all (globally or independently) be synced to tempo. The power of this little delay unit makes experimentation fun; yet, with great power comes great responsibility — I created some really cool effects, but also made a big mess. I highly advise using or tweaking presets until you master Echobode, unless of course you get your kicks living on the edge. ;-)

PROS
• Easy purchase, download, install, and authorize.
• Neat, clean, attracting, inspiring, one-window interfaces.
• Easy to use knobs and toggle switches.
• Excellent algorithms that yield an accurate delay and impressive sounds.
• Amazing presets (200+).
• Small footprint.
• CPU friendly (for most patches)
• Bargain price.
• Innovative, responsive developers.

CONS
• It doesn't shine shoes or take out the trash (sorry, I couldn't find any cons).

SUMMARY
I'm a big fan of Sonic Charge, and Echobode is a fine addition to their collection, which also includes: Bitspeek, Microtonic, Permut8, and Synplant. Like it's siblings, Echobode boast sonic capabilities that range from subtle to severe, making it an extremely versitile audio software offering. To quote another reviewer,"[Echobode] is a Swedish-Army Knife for Interesing Audio Effects." After a few week's of noodling and recording, it's hard to disagree with that statement. Therefore, I highly recommend this plugin to virtually anyone working with virtual audio. Tommy Zai gives Echobode two frequency-shifted thumbs up in perfect time. Thank you, Sonic Charge, for creating another exciting plugin and selling it at an affordable price.

For more info: https://soniccharge.com/echobode