Vanguard

I don't understand it - a good synth is a good synth, now and in five years time. And Vanguard is most definitely a good synth, maybe even an excellent one. With a sound somewhere between a vintage analogue and the C64's SID chip, and a character of presence all of it's own, Vanguard is an instrument capable not only of the much advertised big trance sounds, but also experimental, abstract pads and tones, chippy blips and bloops, oldschool sequences via it's arpeggiator... and the trance gate is useful well beyond the realm of trance music, combining with the arpeggiator in interesting and fun ways.

Vanguard features a highly fixed architecture, which is in many ways very limiting. You have three oscillators - each has it's own triangle wave LFO which can alter PWM, detune and the master filter's cutoff. You then have two envelopes, which have preset knobs to affect the patch's parameters in a hardwired way, such as cutoff, resonance, volume, PWM, detune, etc.

Throw on some classy effects which augment the sound rather than glossing over it - such as variable unison/spread, a very nice overdrive, reverb and delay... and then make the filters AND oscillators multimode, and you have quite a variety of sound, which will both require and inspire creativity.

To make up for this very fixed routing, the oscillators can make a variety of different shapes, and many of them respond in their own unique ways to the PWM parameter - we have Amplitude Modulated sine sweeps, synced noise, a strange digital burbling waveform which seems to work by turning on and off the digital bits in a logical way, as well as the old classics such as variable pulses, pitched noise, and Phase Distortion style morphing sines. Similarly the filter has a whole bunch of modes, including rare choices such as a resonant 6db lowpass, bandpasses feeding a waveshaper, and dual filters.

Layering these, and making careful use of the envelopes and LFO's, you can get some very cool abstract sounds, covering bass, lead, pads, effects, and videogame effects. The sound quality of Vanguard has been described as 'plasticky', and it can do that sound very well, although the sound has undergone a number of revisions, and going into the setup panel allows you to choose between a few different setups regarding antialiasing and oscillator versions. A lot of people liked the way Vanguard aliased, but it's nice to have the option for a more silky sound, if you so desire.

Typically I use Vanguard for abstract leads, SID inspired leads and pads, digital sounding effects, and arpeggios. At times I wish for more flexibility, for example, the modwheel is hard routed to raise the filter cutoff, and aftertouch will always bring in vibrato, but I've made a staggering range of sounds, and the sexy interface really pulls you in and makes you want to tweak.

All in all a very rewarding, and unique sounding synth, which looks and sounds like a solid object, rather than code. If you're looking for pure analogue emulations, look elsewhere, but lovers of SIDs and digital/analogue hybrid sounds should find the sound of Vanguard very enticing.Read Review