cesSynth1

I've only had this a couple of days now, so It's early for a review. But when something makes such a strong impression, you have to react.

Unfortunately the impression this synth has made is not too favourable. I've tried every pre-set, and other third party patches, and haven't found one decent sound. As for programming it myself, well, that hasn't yielded any decent results either. It just doesn't have any warmth or character (IMHO), and for a 2 osc synth, it's surprisingly bland and thin sounding.

I'm not really sure what the programmers were trying to achieve when they designed this. It doesn't seem to belong in any musical category, and could potentially slow down the music-making process, if one spent too long searching for a sound. Of course, you can always say "sometimes I need a really crappy sound for an arpeggio riff" and while that's often true, there's a big difference between crappy and un-inspiring.

I'm sorry if I've upset anyone with these comments, but it just doesn't stack up when compared to other VSTi's. The only thing I can say about it is, it seems quite stable. I don't know about support and I didn't get any manual with it, but that won't be necessary anyway as I shan't be using it.

Sorry LoftSoft

good news for logic users, you get to automate everything, including all of the waveform shaping parameters, which is a recipe for some peerless harmonics. it's a shame there's no unison/stereo output to go with it. cpu is reasonable.

..and i find the interface a little cumbersome for two reasons:

first of all, several parameters range from - to + values and there's no way to instantly center them by say shifting and clicking. it's a bit fiddly trying to zero out all of the envelope level settings for instance. -/+ swings are another nice feature but i'd settle for being able to patch it quicker.

is that really a valid criticism tho? too many options??

the parameters are also set with a rotary movement, ie. if you move the mouse further away you can make finer adjustments.. all times are set in milliseconds. since most of my patches require very short times i always find myself pulling far down to the bottom left.. an exponential scale as opposed to linear on pot values would suit me much better :)

..and a high pass filter would go a long way on this baby :p

but i feel like a cur listing my criticisms like that, because it's unique oscillators are a conceptual work of art, and for me the filter, oscs, et c. all modulate smoothly under external control. stable performance too. it's the first vst plug-in that has made me feel like paying up, which i've done :)

even though you really don't have to :) :) top vsti.