Rhino

The best way to describe this synth is by reversing the metaphor of the "one-trick pony". To me Rhino is sort of an "all-the-tricks-except-one pony". But let's start with the many great features of this wonderful peace of gear.

Rhino is a rather complex 6 oscillator FM synth with a powerful assortment of filter types and a rich effects section. Add to this a waveshaper and a built-in sequencer and you get a lot of parameters to keep track of. The GUI does a wonderful job at that. Once you get used to the controls being located on seperate pages you'll feel right at home and in control. The superb modulation matrix deserves an extra mention for ultimate user friendliness and ease of use. And the tasty coloring adds to the stylish appearance.

The nature of this synth lends itself best to complex and evolving sounds of any timbre. It ranges from metallic to silky, from smooth and deep to in-your-face. The combination of FM, AM, flexible syncable envelopes, two very nice sounding filters and orginial high quality effects let's you create just about any pad you can think of, the lushest atmospheres or the craziest effect sounds. Which brings me to Rhino's only shortcoming, if you can call it that: because of the filter character it's quite difficult to coax a fat VA moog-like dance bass out of it. That's one of the very few tasks it seems to have difficulties with, which is also apparent from the otherwise excellent presets available. But hey, you've got hordes of other synths for that.

The presets. Since Rhino was released we've been blessed with regular updates which include some of the best presets available in any synth. New ones are being cooked up while I write this. Definitely another strong point of this synth. Along with these presets Tick released new skins, a new font, new wave forms, new filters(!), new effects and all of that for free. The very few technical problems of the synth (of which I never experienced any - no crashes whatsoever) are being addressed immediately. All in all customer support at its best.

The documentation is excellent as well and there are sound design tutorials on the site.

The value for money of Rhino is unmatched. You get an extremely musical, inspiring and fun synth with substantial regular upgrades and tons of goodies at a very low price. Even if you couldn't program a synth for shit, it'd still be worth the money for the presets alone. You simply can't go wrong with this one.Read Review