Toxic III

I own Rhino and have demoed Sytrus, Blue and FM7 - all fine synths, but I am attracted to Toxic for two main reasons:

1. The layout. Having EVERYTHING one on page makes it v-e-r-y easy to edit and see what makes up the patch. It becomes much more accessable rather than to be spread out over many pages. The look is clean, easy-to-read and, with the exception of a few minor quibbles, makes "sense".

2. The sound. Of course that is what it all comes down to, but with some more complicated synths, I get a headache tweaking thousands of parameters long before I get to the sound. Toxic is lush and full and quite "playable". While it can be coerced to do weirdness, it seems best suited as a performance instrument though it lacks aftertouch. Pads, organs, rhodes, strings, basses - all quite convincing without too much of the "metallic" overtones present in some FM synths.

It also features a decent arpeggiator and a rich but simple filter section. Effects are limited, but do the job.

The manual is nicely designed, but too basic. Would like to see a little bit more on the FM part of the synth or at least some links to information rather than assuming the user is already experienced in that area.

Summation:

Does it have every bell & whistle and an endless list of features with highly tweakable multi-point envelopes? No. Will you miss them? I doubt it. You can get to where you want to go fairly easily and are rewarded with a thick, organic sound. Don't be put off by it's relative simplicity. I had long wanted a Yamaha FS1R hardware synth and now the desire is laid to rest in this well-designed, tasty instrument.

BTW, check out my new soundset soon to be added to the Toxic website to see what this baby is capable of. (Tom Johnson)