ARP Odyssey

How are there no reviews for this already? This is one of the best VSTi money can buy. Does it sound exactly like a real Odyssey? Probably, certainly more than close enough to make your own Odyssey-like sounds or to use in place of the hardware in a mix. What's more important is that it sounds great. It has both the grit and presence that made the hardware such a stand-out in the late 70s and early 80s. I don't think Billy Currie could have done what he did with any other synth of the era. His synth solos are the stuff of legend, made possible by the unique way the Odyssey works.

This is not an easy synth to get to grips with. Where every other manufacturer was laying out their controls to reflect the signal path, ARP had the idea of putting things together that a player might need to tweak on stage. So the layout is, quite frankly, weird and it takes a lot of getting used to. But once you get your head around it, even a little, you can do some amazing things. Two oscillators with a distinctive hard sync sound that is easy to dial in, a low-pass filter that doesn't disappoint (although neither is it a standout), two envelopes (1xADSR and 1x AR), an LFO and a Sample & Hold modulation source give it remarkable flexibility. It does great basslines, beautiful pads and great leads. The hardware came with three different filters over it's life and you can choose any of them in the VSTi.

Korg offers a range of extras, including polyphony with unison (the original was duophonic), a sequencer and a range of built-in effects. Accessing the effects and sequencer is a bit unusual, you have to use your mouse's scroll wheel to scroll up to reveal them, or use the different UI sizes, which reveal more or less of the UI, rather than the expected bigger or smaller interface. The effects are useful, if not outstanding. You can also choose which of the hardware's three generations your VSTi looks like, that choice is saved with your patch. When it came out in 2017 it had a reputation as a bit of a CPU hog but these days, on modern computers, it's not bad at all.

Ultimately, you buy this for the amazing sound quality. It is a synth you can use almost anywhere, for almost anything, and it will always give you what you need. You put up with the unintuitive layout and the non-resizable GUI because when you hear it, none of that matters any more. I also have Oddity (2 & 3), which are also great but there is just something about this one that really works for me. It's a very special instrument.