Cherry Audio Releases Mercury-4 Compuphonic Synthesizer!

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Mercury-4 Polyphonic Synthesizer

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I made a Mercury-4 NKS mapping for Komplete Kontrol / Maschine controllers. It has the entire top panel and a couple other controls mapped and organized into logical sections with proper labels — 40 parameters in total.

It's not hard to map additional controls if you want to add more…just be aware that the radio button groups (arpeggio, assign mode, and reverb type) don't map very well to knobs.

This is just a single "Init" preset. You can import it into Komplete Kontrol (or Maschine) via File > Open. Once you load the preset, you can use the Mercury-4 patch browser to load patches and the mapping will still work.
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Stormchild

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I'm surprised it has taken so long to see a decent Jupiter 4 emulation, unless I've missed one?
I'm half expecting Arturia to put one out at some sage? PPGwave too please if you're reading :wink:

I had a test run this morning and it certainly inspires with a pleasing grungy vintage sound.
Having some issues with distortion when modifying sounds, so constantly having to check the volume and VCA level, but not too much of a problem.
Nice presets.

I like it!

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Hemmick Reef wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:47 am I had a test run this morning and it certainly inspires with a pleasing grungy vintage sound.
Having some issues with volume distortion when modifying sounds, so constantly having to check the master volume, but no real issue.
I'm finding that to be a challenge too. Keeping the amp level low (watch the clipping light) and turning up the master volume is a good way to deal with it. The number of voices is a factor too. If I increase the voice limit from 4 to 8, I need to drop the amp level by about 3 dB.

With mono patches, a bit of clipping can sound good, but for poly patches, if you're playing anything other than fifths or octaves, clipping usually sounds pretty bad.
Stormchild

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tony10000 wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 5:09 am Is it just me, or are all the Cherry synths starting to sound the same?
Pretty much all of the VST VA synths ever made 'can' pretty much sound the same, there is only so much difference that can be achieved mixing a few basic oscillator shapes and a subtractive filter and minimal modulation (limited by copying old hardware's limitations).

Personally whilst I admire the work in this and 1000's of other bits of software modelling old hardware, the old analogue stuff is the least interesting stuff to model in my opinion.
X32 Desk, i9 PC, S49MK2, Studio One, BWS, Live+PUSH 3 Standalone, Reason, Osmose, Summit, Pro 3, Prophet8, Syntakt, Digitone, Drumlogue, OP1-F, Eurorack, TD27 Drums, Guitars, Basses, Amps and of course lots of pedals!

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Many old synths have a specific character. If it doesn't recreated very well, it's just another synth....

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Vortifex wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:23 am
wwjd wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 12:50 am"couldn't be sharper" ...could not agree more. How could it possibly be sharper?? Are people using potatoes for monitors?
If that were the case everything would look bad... but it doesn't. Look I know you're always a tad evangelical about Cherry Audio and that's fine, but try to understand that just because you don't have an issue it doesn't mean others don't.

This is how it looks compared to Massive X. On the left, small and fuzzy. On the right, larger, clear and distinct. For me the difference is significant.

Image
Not getting that blur at all on my screen, odd. Do you use HDMI because i had problems with that then switched to displayport cable and perfect (on a mac, with an external monitor).

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Synth Master Jedi wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 4:01 am This is just based off of what I've read, and if it's wrong, then somebody is welcome to come and set the record straight, but I believe that the random arp inside the Jupiter-4 is not random at all and that's what makes it special.
I always thought the Jupiter-4 arp was different - could never pin it down with other arpeggiators. The CA manual actually explains it. It's a bit odd, they explain it like this:
Octave Four (highest) - Notes play in a two-octave range (played notes + one octave above).

Octave Three - Notes play in a three-octave range (played notes + two octaves above).

Octave Three - Notes play in a four-octave range (played notes + three octaves above).

Octave One (lowest) - Notes play in a five-octave range (played notes + four octaves above).

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I downloaded the demo not expecting to like this one but I really do enjoy the sound a lot. It has a very nice character although is limited in scope by the very nature of the hardware.

It's one of my favorite Cherry Audio GUIs as well. Much less fuzzy than their Eight Voice for example. Still not the highest quality GUI of any synth in my collection but a step up in my opinion.

(EDIT: Although the giant empty black box on top that only holds the name plate is a waste of space).

I certainly don't need yet another analog emulation and my budget for new synths is pretty small these days but for $39 it's hard to resist. I may have to pick it up next month. :tu:
None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Priceless

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AnX wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:01 pmPriceless
Everything is until you draw your last breath. :)
Enough of Plato though.

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I like how this sounds. I don't think it sounds the same as other cherry synths but I'm willing to be proven wrong. I'm also conflicted cause I'm not sure if it's sounds close to a Jupiter 4. I'd love another comparison video like they had with the memorymoog. The square wave isn't doing it for me like the hardware, but I havent messed with it that much yet. The square wave sound is what I'm most interested in with a Jupiter 4.
Last edited by briefcasemanx on Fri Sep 17, 2021 4:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Compared this against the Roland Pro-Mars. The Roland had a slight edge on the filter for me, with a bit more balls with very high resonance. But the vibe is similar on both. The Cherry version sounds pretty decent to me. Except the Space Echo/Delay portion, but that's no biggie. Just wish I could lock those parameters in an off state. I watched the Starskey Carr video before bed and there's some weird stuff with the LFO shapes at fast speeds and it could probably do OSC FM better, but it's a nice little synth. The trick seems to be to drive the VCA pretty hard and then drop down the level to compensate. It ended up being my first Cherry purchase just because it was fun and maps so well to the System-8.

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Is there a switch somewhere to turn off the bloody arpeggiator ? (edit : nevermind, I found it : you just need to press any button in "assign mode"
Last edited by abducted on Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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abducted wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:31 pm Is there a switch somewhere to turn off the bloody arpeggiator ?
From the manual:
Assign Mode and Arpeggio Controls
A unique aspect of the Jupiter-4 design is that the arpeggiator does not have an "on/off" switch, per se. Instead, the white Arpeggio section direction buttons interact with the blue Assign Mode buttons - only one of these buttons is active at any time, so pressing any of the Arpeggio or Assign Mode buttons disables any other currently selected mode buttons. At any given time, Mercury-4 is either in a "live play" mode (one of the blue Assign Mode buttons pressed), or one of the Arpeggio direction buttons is pressed, enabling the arpeggiator.
Short answer: press one of the blue buttons.

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thanks

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