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.Read Review