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All reviews by JimmiG
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If you are like me, you probably already have half a dozen freeware and shareware VA synths laying around that you haven't even had the time or motivation to really get into..
Why should you spend this kind of money on such a seemingly simple subtractive synth, then?
Oscillators
The biggest argument for this synth is the sheer number of oscillators (called "voices" in Sylenth-speak) that it can generate and play back. It comes with four "real" oscillators, which is already more than most VA's have. In addition, each oscillator can produce up to eight detuned virtual oscillators, for a total of 32 oscillators. With 16 voices (of polyphony), you can get up to (16x32=) 512 oscillators going at the same time. The synth lacks a "master unison" to stack and detune the 16 "real" voices, but 32 oscillators from pressing a single key should be more than enough, no need to get silly here. Sylenth1 is the "king of the supwersaw" - Most softsynths only offer one Unison oscillator and one or two regular ones, or only a "master unison", kicking the synth into monophonic mode. The only synth I can think of that beats it is the hardware Virus TI with its hypersaw oscillator, free sub oscillators and master Unison mode. It also offers many additional features and a much broader sonic pallette, but it does cost at least 10x more. Still, Sylenth is capable of producing many Virus-like timbres.
Filters
While the oscillators sound very warm and full, the filter is a little too "polite" for my taste. With a high resonance setting, the audio signal is attenuated for the benefit of the self-resonance sine. This means you'll almost never get dangerous resonant peaks that might damage your ears or speakers, but it also means that the filter seems mellow and tame sometimes. With a bit of drive and distortion added, it can sound pretty nasty, but it takes some effort to get there.
Features, or rather, Limitations
This is where you really need to think hard if the synth is for you, especially considering the asking price. As other have stated, many important features are mising, resulting in a very basic synth ”on paper”. PWM is mising though you can fake it using two oscillators (a bit fiddly with multiple detuned waves). Oscillator sync is missing. The mod matrix is fairly incomplete. The Tempo Sync button is global only. Serial filter routings are impossible. The features that are implemented on the other hand are rock solid. I think it's a matter of different philosophies when releasing the 1.x version of a synth. The developer can implement all features he ever dreamed of implementing, which many do. This results in bloated, buggy plugins with high CPU usage, unexpected behaviours and frequent crashes. The other route, which fewer choose, is to thoroughly test what you have now and release it. Then, add new features with incremental upgrades, again thoroughly beta testing and optimizing each new feature that goes into the synth. I do hope the developer intends to add new features for free – asking for more money for upgrades at this point would be a little unreasonable.
GUI
The GUI simulates a real hardware synth, with a mixture of knobs, sliders and LCD's. The layout is similar to ReFX's Nexus with a big LCD in the middle and various controls surrounding it. The LCD is used only for effects and the arpeggiator (unlike Nexus where it's the main patch browsing facility), but it's positioned in the center of the window. The controls you actually use when creating a sound are towards the edge of the window. This doesn't quite make sense from a workflow perspective as it puts the effects rather than synth parameters in focus. I also prefer GUIs where the value of the current parameter is displayed as a tooltip. When it's displayed on a separate "LCD", you essentially have to look in two places at the same time - at the knob to judge its relative position, and at the LCD to see its numerical value.
Conclusion
It may sound like I'm very negative about certain aspects of this synth. This is not true at all. With a synth this good sounding and easy to work with, every little flaw really stands out. The synth is also still in its infancy, and future updates might add new features or refine existing ones. Other than the small faults, the synth is thought out and extremely easy to work with. It's tweakable and meant to be played. You won't be hand-drawing envelopes or spend hours setting up intricate modulation routings and custom waveshapes with this synth. You will however be creating powerful, musical sounds in no time.Read Review
Why should you spend this kind of money on such a seemingly simple subtractive synth, then?
Oscillators
The biggest argument for this synth is the sheer number of oscillators (called "voices" in Sylenth-speak) that it can generate and play back. It comes with four "real" oscillators, which is already more than most VA's have. In addition, each oscillator can produce up to eight detuned virtual oscillators, for a total of 32 oscillators. With 16 voices (of polyphony), you can get up to (16x32=) 512 oscillators going at the same time. The synth lacks a "master unison" to stack and detune the 16 "real" voices, but 32 oscillators from pressing a single key should be more than enough, no need to get silly here. Sylenth1 is the "king of the supwersaw" - Most softsynths only offer one Unison oscillator and one or two regular ones, or only a "master unison", kicking the synth into monophonic mode. The only synth I can think of that beats it is the hardware Virus TI with its hypersaw oscillator, free sub oscillators and master Unison mode. It also offers many additional features and a much broader sonic pallette, but it does cost at least 10x more. Still, Sylenth is capable of producing many Virus-like timbres.
Filters
While the oscillators sound very warm and full, the filter is a little too "polite" for my taste. With a high resonance setting, the audio signal is attenuated for the benefit of the self-resonance sine. This means you'll almost never get dangerous resonant peaks that might damage your ears or speakers, but it also means that the filter seems mellow and tame sometimes. With a bit of drive and distortion added, it can sound pretty nasty, but it takes some effort to get there.
Features, or rather, Limitations
This is where you really need to think hard if the synth is for you, especially considering the asking price. As other have stated, many important features are mising, resulting in a very basic synth ”on paper”. PWM is mising though you can fake it using two oscillators (a bit fiddly with multiple detuned waves). Oscillator sync is missing. The mod matrix is fairly incomplete. The Tempo Sync button is global only. Serial filter routings are impossible. The features that are implemented on the other hand are rock solid. I think it's a matter of different philosophies when releasing the 1.x version of a synth. The developer can implement all features he ever dreamed of implementing, which many do. This results in bloated, buggy plugins with high CPU usage, unexpected behaviours and frequent crashes. The other route, which fewer choose, is to thoroughly test what you have now and release it. Then, add new features with incremental upgrades, again thoroughly beta testing and optimizing each new feature that goes into the synth. I do hope the developer intends to add new features for free – asking for more money for upgrades at this point would be a little unreasonable.
GUI
The GUI simulates a real hardware synth, with a mixture of knobs, sliders and LCD's. The layout is similar to ReFX's Nexus with a big LCD in the middle and various controls surrounding it. The LCD is used only for effects and the arpeggiator (unlike Nexus where it's the main patch browsing facility), but it's positioned in the center of the window. The controls you actually use when creating a sound are towards the edge of the window. This doesn't quite make sense from a workflow perspective as it puts the effects rather than synth parameters in focus. I also prefer GUIs where the value of the current parameter is displayed as a tooltip. When it's displayed on a separate "LCD", you essentially have to look in two places at the same time - at the knob to judge its relative position, and at the LCD to see its numerical value.
Conclusion
It may sound like I'm very negative about certain aspects of this synth. This is not true at all. With a synth this good sounding and easy to work with, every little flaw really stands out. The synth is also still in its infancy, and future updates might add new features or refine existing ones. Other than the small faults, the synth is thought out and extremely easy to work with. It's tweakable and meant to be played. You won't be hand-drawing envelopes or spend hours setting up intricate modulation routings and custom waveshapes with this synth. You will however be creating powerful, musical sounds in no time.Read Review
TAL-U-No-62
Reviewed By JimmiG [all]
November 5th, 2007
Version reviewed: 1.2.1 on Windows
This is one of the "gems" among the hundreds of virtual analogue synths out there. Feature-wise, it's fairly unimpressive, but it's designed almost to the exact specifications of the original it tries to emulate (the Juno-60 if you haven't guessed). The user interface looks almost exactly like the original, or how I imagine a rack-mount version would look like. Those limitations might be frustrating at times, but it also forces you to think outside the box and can be quite inspiring at times. It also makes it quick and easy to design your own sounds from scratch, as it doesn't fill up the screen with a bewildering array of knobs and sliders. It does seem to lack a Unison mode, which is slightly dissapointing.
In terms of sound, I'm not the right person to judge. I nearly got my hands on a real Juno-60 once, but lost the auction. The developer's website does contain sound samples directly comparing it to the original, and to my ears it sounds very close. The filter sounds very unique. It's not warm and smooth like a Moog filter, it has a different, slightly colder but very pleasant character. The Juno is Japaneese of course, while the Minimoog is American, so some "cultural" differences are expected. The Chorus unit is another of the great strengths of this synth, and is also available as a stand-alone VST effect for use with other instruments.
You won't get extremely complex sounds out of this, but the smooth filter and excellent Chorus enable you to create some nice strings, though the real strength of the synth lies in 80's style synthbasses. Lead sounds I tried to create with this synth didn't seem to "cut through" the mix like some other synths but rather sounded like they're just below the surface so to speak. Other synthesists may be more fortunate, or skilled. The presets include a nice set of basses and some presets which appear to be copied from the original.
The synth is quite CPU hungry, which can become a problem if you use it for chords/polyphonic sounds. Since the synth architecture is so simple, I think it should be more CPU friendly. Some optimizations would be welcome, as long as they don't affect the sound (The "Save CPU" button caused some strange things with many patches). Still, you can use the CPU saving feature when previewing your track, and then render to audio when you're happy with the sound.
With its accurate emulation of a famous vintage instrument, this could easily be a commercial plugin, but it's actually Freeware! It's not extremely versatile, but it does what it sais on the "box" and it does it extremely well. So if you've ever wished you had a Juno-60 in your bedroom, go ahead and download this right now!Read Review
In terms of sound, I'm not the right person to judge. I nearly got my hands on a real Juno-60 once, but lost the auction. The developer's website does contain sound samples directly comparing it to the original, and to my ears it sounds very close. The filter sounds very unique. It's not warm and smooth like a Moog filter, it has a different, slightly colder but very pleasant character. The Juno is Japaneese of course, while the Minimoog is American, so some "cultural" differences are expected. The Chorus unit is another of the great strengths of this synth, and is also available as a stand-alone VST effect for use with other instruments.
You won't get extremely complex sounds out of this, but the smooth filter and excellent Chorus enable you to create some nice strings, though the real strength of the synth lies in 80's style synthbasses. Lead sounds I tried to create with this synth didn't seem to "cut through" the mix like some other synths but rather sounded like they're just below the surface so to speak. Other synthesists may be more fortunate, or skilled. The presets include a nice set of basses and some presets which appear to be copied from the original.
The synth is quite CPU hungry, which can become a problem if you use it for chords/polyphonic sounds. Since the synth architecture is so simple, I think it should be more CPU friendly. Some optimizations would be welcome, as long as they don't affect the sound (The "Save CPU" button caused some strange things with many patches). Still, you can use the CPU saving feature when previewing your track, and then render to audio when you're happy with the sound.
With its accurate emulation of a famous vintage instrument, this could easily be a commercial plugin, but it's actually Freeware! It's not extremely versatile, but it does what it sais on the "box" and it does it extremely well. So if you've ever wished you had a Juno-60 in your bedroom, go ahead and download this right now!Read Review
GUI
This is one of the greatest strengths of this synth. The GUI is sweet to look at, but also very clean, functional and easy to use. The Main page contains most of the things you'd need to tweak, and keeping other features on separate pages reduces clutter. The knobs and buttons don't have tooltips, but the name and value of the parameter is displayed in the virtual "LCD" display and idicated by a virtual "LED Ring".
Sound
I bought this after selling my Novation Nova hardware synth, because I missed the smooth analogue Novation sound. Well, now I once again have that sound! It's really very similar, including the filter overdrive and DoubleSaw waveform. The effects also sound similar though they lack some features from the classic Novation synths.
Features
This is a bread and butter virtual analog synth, and it does that job very well. There are some limitations, though. While the Nova had highpass and bandpass filters in 12db, 18db and 24db flavours, as well as a number of extra parallell and serial combinations of filters, the V-Station only comes with one LP filter, switchable between 12db and 24db. Also, the modulation routing capabilities are a bit limited. You can't freely assign LFO's (LFO2 can't modulate osc pitch, LFO1 can't modulate filter frequency or res for example), and there's only one Mod Env. Also, the limitation of 8 voices seems a bit restrictive when today's CPUs can handle much more. If you choose to use 4 voices in unison mode, the synth becomes duophonic, for example. This is a shame as some very powerful string arrangments would have been possible if more voices were available. The arpeggiator also loses the hundreds of preset and user patterns available on the Nova, which seems a bit backwards as PC's have much more RAM than the old Nova synth.
Docs
I've almost nevver looked at the docs because the synth is so self explanatory, but they seem very well written. Combined with the clear and user friendly layout, this makes it a great learning tool for those who are new to analog synthesizers.
Presets
Basses: Check, Synced Leads: Check, "Phat" Danze Soundz: Check, Arpeggios: Check, Pads and Strings: Check. You get most of the basic bread and butter analogue sounds you might need, but with few surprises. They aren't categorized at all, but the list of factory presets is mercifully short. You really need to program your own sounds to take full advantage of this synth.
Support
Never had to use it but I've only heard got things from others who have
Stability
The plugin is very stable and has never crashed under XP SP2 and Cubase SX3. The plugin consumes about 10% CPU with effects and 8 voices active on my Athlon64 3500+. This is higher than some of the most efficent synths, but still very good. The sound quality is excellent and very close to its hardware counterpart, which justifies this CPU usage. In these days, when some plugins consume 60% CPU for one voice, this is very refreshing.
Value
There are tons of freeware, shareware and commercial virtual analog synths available. There's no reason in particular why you should by this synth, but then again, there's nothing in particular against it. If you do buy it, you'll get a solid instrument, that despite lacking a few advanced features, will probably become one of the first synths, hard or soft, you reach for when you need an analogue-style sound in your song. If you've owned (or still do) a Novation synth and you're familiar with the sound, you'll be happy to know that this little plugin has the same sound. Finally, this is a great synth for those who are just getting into synths, with room to grow as your skills and techniques improve.Read Review
This is one of the greatest strengths of this synth. The GUI is sweet to look at, but also very clean, functional and easy to use. The Main page contains most of the things you'd need to tweak, and keeping other features on separate pages reduces clutter. The knobs and buttons don't have tooltips, but the name and value of the parameter is displayed in the virtual "LCD" display and idicated by a virtual "LED Ring".
Sound
I bought this after selling my Novation Nova hardware synth, because I missed the smooth analogue Novation sound. Well, now I once again have that sound! It's really very similar, including the filter overdrive and DoubleSaw waveform. The effects also sound similar though they lack some features from the classic Novation synths.
Features
This is a bread and butter virtual analog synth, and it does that job very well. There are some limitations, though. While the Nova had highpass and bandpass filters in 12db, 18db and 24db flavours, as well as a number of extra parallell and serial combinations of filters, the V-Station only comes with one LP filter, switchable between 12db and 24db. Also, the modulation routing capabilities are a bit limited. You can't freely assign LFO's (LFO2 can't modulate osc pitch, LFO1 can't modulate filter frequency or res for example), and there's only one Mod Env. Also, the limitation of 8 voices seems a bit restrictive when today's CPUs can handle much more. If you choose to use 4 voices in unison mode, the synth becomes duophonic, for example. This is a shame as some very powerful string arrangments would have been possible if more voices were available. The arpeggiator also loses the hundreds of preset and user patterns available on the Nova, which seems a bit backwards as PC's have much more RAM than the old Nova synth.
Docs
I've almost nevver looked at the docs because the synth is so self explanatory, but they seem very well written. Combined with the clear and user friendly layout, this makes it a great learning tool for those who are new to analog synthesizers.
Presets
Basses: Check, Synced Leads: Check, "Phat" Danze Soundz: Check, Arpeggios: Check, Pads and Strings: Check. You get most of the basic bread and butter analogue sounds you might need, but with few surprises. They aren't categorized at all, but the list of factory presets is mercifully short. You really need to program your own sounds to take full advantage of this synth.
Support
Never had to use it but I've only heard got things from others who have
Stability
The plugin is very stable and has never crashed under XP SP2 and Cubase SX3. The plugin consumes about 10% CPU with effects and 8 voices active on my Athlon64 3500+. This is higher than some of the most efficent synths, but still very good. The sound quality is excellent and very close to its hardware counterpart, which justifies this CPU usage. In these days, when some plugins consume 60% CPU for one voice, this is very refreshing.
Value
There are tons of freeware, shareware and commercial virtual analog synths available. There's no reason in particular why you should by this synth, but then again, there's nothing in particular against it. If you do buy it, you'll get a solid instrument, that despite lacking a few advanced features, will probably become one of the first synths, hard or soft, you reach for when you need an analogue-style sound in your song. If you've owned (or still do) a Novation synth and you're familiar with the sound, you'll be happy to know that this little plugin has the same sound. Finally, this is a great synth for those who are just getting into synths, with room to grow as your skills and techniques improve.Read Review
