Cherry Audio's next synth is (probably) a Polivoks on steroids

[IvyBirds]

Hmm? there are something like 6 minimoog emulations out there. The market says you're stretching.

So you don't consider even 6 Minimoog emulations available as plugins to be a ton?

Myself personally, I have the Arturia, Gforce, Cherry Audio, Synapse, and NI versions of Minimoog Plugins, plus the Moog version on iPad. Not to mention all the other plugins I have that have ladder filter models and emulations like Diva, or the many samples of Minimoog sounds I have in things like Omnisphere, and UVI UltraMini

Like I said I have a ton of Minimoog plugins, and I don't even have all of them. I am covered when it comes to that sound

No one is buying this for for that sound

Lol you literally bought the same synth 6 times, yet claim no one will buy another synth with a sound close to one you bought over and over again. I can't argue with that logic.

Yep and I did so over a period of several years, as I was looking for a Minimoog plugin that sounded the best and I found it

The problem with your argument is that if you want a Minimoog sound, the Polivocks is not really a great choice for those sounds.

So if you are wanting a Minimoog plugin you have a ton of options, and no one is buying this plugin to make Minimoog plugins

[bobbackwards]

It sounds good, I like it.

[stoopicus]

Bones asked

BTW I generally agree with your overall initial take that there's more interest in a Juno than a Polivoks in your reply to BONES, it's just the rest of the post that I consider kind of a hot take.

How does TAL-Pha get 41 pages and this only gets 8? It makes no sense to me. I have TAL-Pha, it's OK but it's nothing special. OTOH, this thing is truly special.

You are not going to have 41 pages talking about just a "good over all synth" in 2024

...but that is exactly what a thread about a Juno Alpha is

The Juno was a good overall synth with a somewhat special chorus addition and was loved because it was simple to get good (at the time) sounds out of - but next to even (say) the Jupiter it was limited in most aspects. It was simply a good overall synth but really kind of bland in comparison to others available. People loved it (and still do) primarily because it was easy to get to good places fast with it for the sounds popular at the time.

[BONES]

That is manifestly untrue because I have TAL-Pha and there is nothing at all special about it, like there is with something like Softube's Model 84, for example. It's just another bread & butter synth with minimal character.

What I think it comes down to is reputation and people love TAL, they are wary of Cherry Audio. To me that's just stupid. Taken on merit, I think Atomika has a lot more to offer than TAL-Pha, regardless of what kind of music you want to make.

Because the Alpha Juno was way more popular because it was way more versatile for many different genres of music, while Polivox was not

The Alpha Juno was never popular in its day. Quite the opposite. I remember the music shop in Townsville having a 1 and a 2 for about 18 months. They eventually dropped them to around half-price, just to be rid of them, and they still took a while to sell. It was trying to compete with things like the Korg DW8000 and Ensoniq ESQ and it just couldn't. If PoliVoks wasn't popular in its day, it was because it was very hard to get hold of. I'd never even heard of it until 10 years or so ago, much less seen one.

This is great if you want filthy distorted overdrive tones, but if that won't work with your music you are just not very into it

That might be what it does best but it is still a perfectly usable synth for all that other stuff. And that's the thing, what can TAL-Pha do that 100 other VSTi can't? It doesn't have a party trick like this does.

If you are trying to top out the East German Industrial Chart you will love this, if not you will find this to be a specialized tool, that doesn't fit

That's ridiculous because 90% or more of the sounds we all use can be made by pretty much anything. I'm already using it for string pads. One day there will be a One Synth Challenge with PoliVoks and people will use it for all kinds of different genres. That's just the nature of synthesisers. Ultimately, do you buy a synth to do all the things any one of a hundred others can do or do you buy a synth for that other 10%, where it has something unique to offer?

So if you strip out the aggressive tones what do you have? Minimoog? Wow like there is not already a ton of Minimoog Plugins that sound awesome

The only one I can think of is the GForce MiniMonsta, because you don't have to use the Dog-awful ladder filter. Same with PoliVoks - all the good without the bad.

Like you said it's an aggressive Minimoog and you get this for Aggressive Tones, without that it's just not very interesting in 2024 when there a ton of other options for that

Like what? I'd say what you said applies about a thousand times more to TAL-Pha - it's just not very interesting in 2024 when there are actually a tonne of other options for that. Yet it gets 41 pages.

No one is buying this for for that sound

Except it doesn't really sound like a f**king Model D. It does the kinds of things you might have wanted to use a Model D for but it does them it's own way, usually better and easier because it has such a great, unique filter as well as the big oscillator sound.

[machinesworking]

I said it already but it's worth repeating, it's also very good for ambient and low fi type stuff, not every sound that it excels at is aggressive, that's just idiotic, because it has overdrive and a wild FM doesn't mean you have to use it for every sound..

Zebra is a digital Wavetable synth, I ended up using it for a Moog type sound because I liked the results better than Diva or the Moog hardware here. People with arbitrary rules for what to do with a synth are weird, and probably fueling the market, but it's funny watching the oddball blanket statements that get made.

[IvyBirds]

Zebra is a digital Wavetable synth, I ended up using it for a Moog type sound because I liked the results better than Diva or the Moog hardware here. People with arbitrary rules for what to do with a synth are weird, and probably fueling the market, but it's funny watching the oddball blanket statements that get made.

My statement is only oddball and arbitrary when taken out of context, and that context was replying to why this synth isn't getting the attention that TAL-Pha did

As I have said many times now I agree that this synth can do more than just aggressive sounds, the issue is the marketplace doesn't see it that way and most of the chatter about it online both in this thread and others like it on other similar websites and social media makes it all about the aggressive sounds and the filthy filter

Since this seems to be getting lost let me rephrase

No one is buying this because it's a Minimoog Clone from the Soviet Union to make Minimoog sounds

Read the reviews

"Evil, aggressive, screaming, wild, industrial, and different—that’s what comes to mind when I think of the Polivoks Synthesizer. Cherry Audio wants to bring this unpredictable, growling character to your DAW in its new emulation. "

https://synthanatomy.com/2024/10/cherry ... r-daw.html

"the Polivoks has become sought-after on the second hand market due to its distinctive sound, which comes from its notoriously unstable oscillators, gritty filter and quick-to-distort signal path."

https://www.musicradar.com/music-tech/s ... ynthesizer

Cherry Audio themselves shared this on their Twitter/X account

"It is one of my favorites so far, especially because of its brutal and assertive sound. I dig the modeled Polivoks filter, which is super fun and allows for many wild, dirty sonic adventures."

https://x.com/cherryaudiovst/status/1844126562192593092

I could go on but there is no need. This plugin is being marketed and reviewed as a dirty aggressive monster of a synth. Fair or not that is reality and no one is buying this to get Minimoog sounds, which was the oddball statement I was also replying to you might know the person who I was replying to

Yep, it's a more aggressive soviet era Minimoog with a lot of great advantages. No one says the mini fits into only one category..

[Shabdahbriah]

I don't think it sounds like a Minimoog. I never owned nor even played a Minimoog. I don't have any Minimoog clones, in hardware or software. I'm not getting it because it doesn't sound like a Minimoog. I'm getting it, because it has its own "distinctive sound".

[frag]

Nothing special about CA synths, it's nice to have them but you can do without them.
Atomika presets and demos show nothing special, it's just another CA synth, nothing unique about it.
I really liked GX-80, Sines and Dreamsynth, but they're all poorly written, particularly Sines which uses more resources than Diva (but doesn't sound nearly as good).
In the end, you get what you pay for!

[stoopicus]

Seriously this reflexive Cherry Audio hate is tedious. If you can't see how this synth is different from, say, PS-20 or GX-80, I am not sure what to say.

[Shabdahbriah]

^^^ Indeed. ^^^

[bobbackwards]

I am a mediocre bass player who plays guitar poorly and keys even worse so I am not really qualified to talk much about synths and such but this is KVR so...I picked up Atomika on a whim because I do use quite a bit of synthesizer in my songs and I like stuff that is unique. Like I said, I am not a good keyboard player so I try to use interesting sounds to "fill in the gaps." I quite like Atomika so I checked out CA's other stuff and quickly went down the Voltage Modular rabbit hole. Again, I am not really qualified to comment on the overall efficacy of a particular synth but I am having a metric crap-ton of fun with VM and I have already put Atomika on several tracks...What's my point? Nothing really, it's just that I had never really noticed Cherry Audio before and now they have my money. I am sure whatever criticisms people have are legitimate in whatever their individual context might be but for me price, flexibility, and unique tones are the combination I look for. As always, horses for courses...

[Shabdahbriah]

I am a mediocre bass player who plays guitar poorly and keys even worse so I am not really qualified to talk much about synths and such but this is KVR so...I picked up Atomika on a whim because I do use quite a bit of synthesizer in my songs and I like stuff that is unique. Like I said, I am not a good keyboard player so I try to use interesting sounds to "fill in the gaps." I quite like Atomika so I checked out CA's other stuff and quickly went down the Voltage Modular rabbit hole. Again, I am not really qualified to comment on the overall efficacy of a particular synth but I am having a metric crap-ton of fun with VM and I have already put Atomika on several tracks...What's my point? Nothing really, it's just that I had never really noticed Cherry Audio before and now they have my money. I am sure whatever criticisms people have are legitimate in whatever their individual context might be but for me price, flexibility, and unique tones are the combination I look for. As always, horses for courses...

Been into VM since day one, and would highly recommend the PSP Ultimate Modular Collection, which is currently on sale for $39 (instead of $149).

[IvyBirds]

I checked out CA's other stuff and quickly went down the Voltage Modular rabbit hole.

Voltage Modular is one of my favorite pieces of music software ever. I love to run it in stand alone to host other plugins that's where the magic really starts. It becomes almost like a DAW

[machinesworking]

I could go on but there is no need. This plugin is being marketed and reviewed as a dirty aggressive monster of a synth. Fair or not that is reality and no one is buying this to get Minimoog sounds, which was the oddball statement I was also replying to you might know the person who I was replying to

Yep, it's a more aggressive soviet era Minimoog with a lot of great advantages. No one says the mini fits into only one category..

Again, the original argument here is why the Juno is more popular, it's IMO sentimental value, not the nature of the synth. Not many people even know what a Polivoks sounded like, but most remember Junos in music stores. You likely weren't aware of the Polivoks before this plugin, not a lot of people were. I was, it's always been on my radar, a more aggressive Minimoog has a place for sure.
The fact that it's an obscure soviet era synth is IMO the main reason it's not as popular as a sentimental synth like the Juno. Unfortunately there is a reason why developers keep on making Mini, OB, P5 etc. plugins, it's not because they're inherently the best, it's because humans are sentimental creatures and the market can bear multiple versions of the Juno.

[zerocrossing]

I wish this responded to polyphonic aftertouch. Their other instruments do, not sure why they didn't implement it on this one.