Ethereal is a very nice and unique synth from Concrete FX. While basically an substractive synth with three oscillators and around 20 waveforms to choose, including sounds like rain and noise beneath the standart ones, the possibilities are much increased through sample import and a additive section which allows drawing your own waveforms. The so made or choosen oscillators can modulate (FM) each other and are send through two serial or paralel filters with 12 different models to choose from, including comb filtering and a formant filter; the outputs of these filters go to an fx section with modulation, delay and reverb fx. While these specs might sound not so unusual, the addition of very complex syncable envelopes, some syncable LFOs with user-drawable shapes and a hell of a lot of modulation options make it nearly a modular synth, certainly comparable to something like Green Oaks Crystal, if not more complex. Because of a very clever page design for the options ( for example, one page for the fx and one for the LFOs), presets for the envelopes and for the additive section and a generally clear layout, it is quite easy to understand hovewer, and this together with a unique preset evolver which allows to create various changed versions of a preset makes programming it actually confortable and fun. With these specs, it is clear that Ethereal can do nearly anything soundwise, but its speciality and strength are strange evolving pads of middle complexity, rhythmic loop-like sounds, fx and fx-like melodic sounds. Its basic sound is digital, clear and warm, reminding me much on the typical EMU sound; it sounds great. It comes with 160 presets, most of which are really good and usable; however, some of the sample-based ones are out of tune. At least on my system, the present version of ethereal could be a bit more stable; while it never crashed, sometimes it switches the sound on and off. The manual is o.k. but not really easy to understand for a person not so versed with the concept of DSP-Programming, some more explanations (What is additive synthes, a comb filter...etc) would have been nice. The customer support of John is amazingly good, i would rate it 12 if possible - he is answering questions always very fast and is very open to recommendations - i have seen him compile a version of his plugs in some hours to test out a specific problem one person had ! All in all, this is a very good, usable and original synth and, above all, it is very fun to play with it or make new sounds; since it is also very low priced, it has to be one of the best synth deals out there.Read Review
