Virtual Instrument

With a new synthesis engine, some new ideas about interface design and 50GB of novel samples ranging from lightbulbs to burning pianos, Omnisphere will be Spectrasonics biggest soft synth yet. Its creator, Eric Persing, gives us a sneak preview.

Long considered to be terminally un-hip, string machines are on the brink of a revival. Will Gforce's VSM advance their rehabilitation?

Music Lab impressed us with the playability and sound quality of their virtual acoustic guitar instrument, Real Guitar — and now they've gone electric...

If recording a real piano isn't for you, there's no shortage of very convincing software alternatives.

It's been a long time coming, but has the latest version of Steinberg's Groove Agent been worth waiting for?

Is ‘scanned synthesis’ the best thing since sliced bread, or a triumph of hype over substance? We put Humanoid Sound Systems’ Windows soft synth on the test bench to find out.

There was always something quite special about Roland's classic Jupiter 8 analogue megasynth, but can Arturia capture that magic with their emulation?

•Rob Papen Albino 3 •SSL Drumstrip •Starplugs Admiral

Is it really necessary to give up an entire hard drive in order to get your hands on a good-sounding drum library? XLN Audio think not.

Combining multitimbral sample playback, loop tempo matching, synthesis, multi-effects and an 8GB sound library, is Plug Sound Pro the only software sound source you need alongside your DAW?

When it comes to hands-on control, we're used to being told that the mouse is a poor substitute for knobs and faders. This unique soft synth might just change all that...

Three more recently released libraries and virtual instruments get installed and tested to oblivion! • Muse • Chris Hein Guitars • Sample Lab Luscious Grooves: The Dark Side

The latest offerings in Ueberschall's Liquid Instruments series focus on vocals, aiming to provide you with a flexible band of personal backing vocalists via a front-end based on Celemony's Melodyne.

Digidesign's march into MIDI sequencing territory continues with the launch of a plug-in emulating classic electric piano sounds.

Is Native Instrument's new stand-alone soft synth as big as they say it is?

Giga Virtual Instrument gives you Tascam's Giga sampling engine as a plug-in for the first time.

Can an 8 Megabyte plug-in really compete with the new generation of multi-Gigabyte sampled grand pianos?

This new software instrument majors on lively and evocative loops and phrases that can be flexibly combined to create convincing world-music atmospheres.

Old synths never die, they get reproduced as virtual instruments. So it is with Waldorf's Micro Q, which forms the heart of Terratec's impressive wavetable-based soft synth.

Five new evocative sampled Chinese instruments in virtual instrument form at a seriously low price.

We find out how well Steinberg's new take on the virtual orchestra conducts itself...