Hypersonic

It's no secret Hypersonic 2 was kept on the down low to most people, but for those that have heard of this, because it's a ROMpler it wouldn't appeal to them due to the lack of sounds that would live up to a certain standard.

To me, Hypersonic 2 is actually one of the most versatile synthesizer workstation plugins (now standalone since v2) I've ever used. It was my first VSTi to ever touch and the upgrade has actually made a huge leap forward in terms of usability.

Everything on this synthesizer works out of the box. Comes with over 1800+ presets at your disposal, around 5 different synth engines (Sampler, Analog/US-1, Organ, FM, and Wavetable.) that can layer on top of each other. On TOP of that, it comes with a plethora of user-editable effects and parameters that just make things so much better and versatile, it's pretty much a sound programmer's dream in my opinion.

I will have to agree some of the samples provided for some of the more acoustic instruments (Strings particularly) aren't exactly fantastic, but the majority of them (Piano, Guitar, Woodwinds) do a much better job than any other sampler I've seen out in the market.

That lazy man's auto-mastering-hype thing on the config menu didn't make sense to me. Shove that on the low and use an external EQ as it makes HS2 in general tinny/unbreathable.

Aside from that, version 2 introduced the capability of making your own presets from scratch rather than editing an existing one. The edit interface is a bit touchy, however the workflow and its behaviour on output of sound implies endless sonic possibilities. It actually would be possible to simulate a Roland D-50 or any of the vintage Korg synthesizers with Hypersonic alone, only you have better samples to use than what they originally had. My personal favourite effect is the distortion amps. That's character there.

Too bad this didn't come with an FX VST, it would've been nice to be able to use its inbuilt effects elsewhere, but otherwise it's pretty much THE virtual Korg Triton (poking the hoax last year) availabie in the form of a VST instrument.

Well done Steinberg/Wizoo, though with Wizoo's disappearance it's unlikely there'll be anymore to do with this grand prince. :( Best value for money (shop sells for almost AU$600 bucks, beats buying a professional keyboard synth in my opinion), but not for the sample-enthusiast in mind, more for the synthesizer programmer enthusiast.Read Review