Virtual Instrument

Rating: **** 4/5 Stars. Sandstorm provides an easy‑to‑use platform for creating evolving soundscapes and sonic textures.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars. The instrument allows users to pick any two clarinet textures from a library of 15 available textures, blending and shaping them with onboard tools.

There’s a lot to like about MiMU’s unusually gelatinous take on granular synthesis.

HALion is back, and it’s bigger, better and FMier than ever!

The MiniFreak V is every bit as good as its hardware counterpart.

Arturia’s colourful soft synth goes from strength to strength.

Imaginando VS is a visual synthesizer designed for music and musicians.

Klevgrand introduce a new take on wavetable synthesis.

Choreographs is not so much a Kontakt instrument as a perpetual motion machine.

MusicLab’s virtual guitars get a major overhaul.

Can Dreamtonics really deliver a session singer in software?

When is a piano not a piano? When it’s been ‘augmented’ by Arturia...

Cherry Audio recreate that rarest of beasts, the Elka Synthex.

EastWest give the classic string machine sound a modern twist.

Rating: 4/5 Stars. Fluffy Audio’s Simple Opera Singer may provide a compelling alto and soprano solution for your next musical needs.

Rating: 5/5 Stars. The latest release in Heavyocity's Mosaic Series, how does Mosaic Pads measure up?

If you are working in genres such as lounge, hip‑hop, downtempo or lo‑fi, Tympo's  ‘performative drum instrument’ will be right up your street.

Now in its third decade, MetaSynth is still a synthesizer like no other, and its companion sequencer Xx follows the same path...

Rating: **** 4/5 Stars. Vocalise 3 provides 7GB of vocal‑inspired sample data and runs in a dedicated front‑end within Kontakt 6.7.1.

Rating: 4.5 Stars. Fledgling company Vegas Audio’s new drum plug-in tempts you to take a chance on a roll of the fruit machine...

Rating **** 4/5 Stars. If you need something to help you cook up dynamic drones, creepy cues or surreal synths, Timedrops has a lot to offer.