Minimonsta

I just purchased the Minimonsta about two months ago and after using it in a number of songs, I'm wishing I hadn't waited that long!

The first thing to note is that this synth is so much more than just a Minimoog emulation. Sure, you can ignore the added features and use it as a "pure" emulation of a classic synth if you'd like. But you would be missing out on some really innovative and amazing stuff if you did.

For serious sound manipulation, you can assign an LFO and Envelope to nearly every parameter on the synth. And with the Melohman functionality (each patch is comprised of 12 patches and you can morph between them in real-time using a specific octave of your keyboard controller) you've got some serious sound manipulation options.

This ability to manipulate sound does come at a price, though. I've had a patch or two use up to 30 percent of my CPU while running in Cubase SX 3 and my machine is an AMD Athlon 64 4000+! To be fair, there are only a handful of patches that tax the processor this heavily and most CPU issues can be tamed by bringing down the polyphony or you can always freeze the track, of course. In any event, the sound quality is so amazing that it's not a surprise to see such high CPU usage when using the polyphonic patches and playing a number of voices. As you would imagine, monophonic patches are much more manageable.

This is now my "go to" synth and I use it as much (if not more) than the Virus and Reaktor. I would say that puts it in pretty good company.

To sum it up, anyone who composes electronic music (of any genre) should own the Minimonsta. Even if you own the original Minimoog you won't get this level of control and sound manipulation. This is easily the best synth purchase I've made since the Virus.

Another home run for the GForce team. Straying even further away from a straight emulation than they did on their previous synths, Minimonsta combines a first-class Minimoog emulation with the wild & crazy Melohman performance features. This means that it's not only one of the best analog synth emulations available, but also one of the most fluid and flexible for live playing.

The huge preset library covers all the standard Minimoog bass & lead sounds but also takes advantage of the Minimonsta's polyphony and open-ended modulation routings to do some very convincing pad and effect sounds that would be completely impossible on a real Minimoog. Each of the supplied meta-patches covers a nice range of variations on the main sound without going to the wild extremes of Symptohm, which makes most of them suitable for improvisation right out of the box.

My only two minor complaints are that the UI is a little hard to read, with small labels and controls that don't indicate their position very clearly. And, unlike previous GForce synths, this thing can be very cpu hungry with certain settings, especially in unison mode. Reducing the polyphony helps this quite a bit.

Overall this is one of the very best sounding and most playable software instruments available. It's a steal for the current price. If you're in the market for a Minimoog emulation, you'd be nuts not to get this. If you're just looking for a great analog sounding instrument that's a blast to really *play* then you need this too.