Rhino

i cannot say enough good things about rhino. the most important thing, it sounds great.

i challenge anyone in the market for a synth in this price range -- compare rhino's presets to those of any other. in my book, the presets mean a lot; if the synth developer and his right hand man cannot enthrall me with presets, what are the odds i will be able to do any better?

after spending about six months with top ranked synth demos, this is the one i choose. it certainly was not the first synth that came to mind, as i was a bit put off by the plain-jane interface. but during my evaluation, this is the one i kept coming back to.

what sets this synth apart is the wide range of high quality of sounds that anyone can easily produce. in fact, you have to work fairly hard to create a bad sounding preset on this synth.

the interface is different than most, but in a good way. rather than focusing primarily on knobs for adjustment, most of the adjustments are presented graphically. for example, the osc amp envelops are done this way, where you reach into the plot, drag points, and shape curves. to me, this is much more intuitive than twiddling ASDR knobs. more importantly, it provides infinite control; rather than limiting you to just a few slopes.

the typical analog-like controls are conveniently presented at the top level; and you can create a ton of great sounds there. in "analog" mode as i like to call it, using none of rhinos esoteric features, just two additive osc with conventional wave shapes, envelops, filters and effects, the sound tops most others *designed* to do only that. however, rhino goes far beyond the basics, and provides the most complete (almost overwelming) feature set of any synth in its price range. from that standpoint, it is almost like getting an AB... and an FM... in one package. the six osc FM mod matrix is a real winner; with its DX7 sysex import (sort of; it loads them and they sound good, but as of this writing they do not sound the same).

as for osc wave shape options, you've got it all -- about 100 built in osc wave shapes / loops, an additive wave tool to roll your own shapes, a wav file reader, and a wave shaper to modify them. like most features, the wave shaper has its own graphic envelop.

if there is a downside to this synth, it is cpu usage. rhino can bring the fastest of todays cpus to its knees; but i believe that is because rhino has so many features which can be simultaneously used. in my personal back-to-back comparison with other synth demos, using *the same number of features*, rhino was typically equal or better in cpu usage.

perhaps cpu's will get faster as time goes on.Read Review