reFX had obviously been reading my wish book with this one. I remember the first VSTi plug-ins I used was Chris Huelsbeck's MicroSynt (yeah I know I was about five years late to the party, I was happy enough with AXS before then) and what struck me was how SID-like it was. I approached Chris rather naively and asked how difficult it would be to combine a VST instrument with a SID emulator; he pointed out that there already was such a product - quadraSID.
I was like "Wow, a virtual SIDStation!" and I've been in Galway-heaven ever since. The recent, unexpected release of v1.5 has given it a new lease of life. The new Vanguard-esque GUI and fantastic presets (thank you again Mister Huelsbeck) have really put a new shine on this already superb little plug-in.
GUI reFX opted not to make quadraSID resemble anything like a C64 in all its beige plastic glory (they saved that for Trasher 2). A very functional display - no knobs to tweak! Since v1.5 there's a been a nice compact option with a preset browser ideal for people like me who can't program a synth for toffee.
Sound Well, it sounds like a C64. I read somewhere it's based on the code used by the VICE emulator which is pretty damn authentic; I spent most of my life listening to the real thing and I can't fault it. Multiply that by four and what you get is more SID than you can handle. As if my tracks weren't enough like loading music already...
Features The 6581 and 8580 are there, even the infamous filter bug is there and can be disabled at will! The only thing missing is a facility that would allow me to program it in BASIC. ;-)
Docs All very well documented, not that anyone who's used to programming a real one would need to read to manual. Nice bedtime reading for the rest of us.
Presets Brilliant - all the sounds from the Commodore era are here and that's all I wanted. The fact that the synth is capable of a lot more than a single SID is a bonus and many of the presets demonstrate this very well.
Support v1.5 was a complete surprise, there wasn't huge demand for an update but Mike did it anyway. Not only that but all of the bugs I found were ironed out in v1.5.1 which performs flawlessly on my system.
VFM There are freeware SID emulations doing the rounds, some better than others but nothing can touch this. It's not exactly expensive; neither are the new Rob Hubbard presets (a must) so the cost isn't an issue bearing in mind what you get.
Stability No issues - it does its thing and doesn't give me any grief whatsoever.
Overall Whether you like the SID sound or not, if KVR had a Top Gear style "cool wall" this would be in the sub-zero category, right next to the special fridge that has Vanguard in it. :-)Read Review
