Acustica THING

Acustica’s soft synth debut is a recreation of everyone’s favourite ’80s polysynth.

THING is the first VST/AU/AAX virtual instrument from Italian software developers Acustica, joining their vast line‑up of audio processing plug‑ins in a new ‘Marea’ (the Italian word for ‘waves’) range that promises more synth emulations down the line.

It’s an odd name for a synth, THING, and especially so for one which (as many aficionados will already have spotted) is so clearly referencing Roland’s Jupiter‑8, the high‑end analogue synth produced from 1981‑1985. But why not? It’s certainly distinctive, and makes a change from yet another arbitrary code‑like name or metaphorical whimsy.

Actually THING is two synths, THING8 (TH8) and THING5 (TH5), which are both part of a standard installation. TH8 is the more sophisticated, with a user interface that’s very close to the original Jupiter‑8 top panel, while TH5 has a friendlier, simplified parameter set and no arpeggiator.

It Don’t Mean A Thing

Focusing on the full‑fat THING8, to describe its basic topology is very much to describe the Jupiter‑8. There are two VCOs with switchable waveforms (sine, triangle, square/PWM, with a noise option in VCO2) feeding a filter section with a simple static high‑pass stage and a much more fully equipped 12/24 dB/octave low‑pass. There’s a single multi‑waveform LFO (though VCO 2 can also be switched to a low‑frequency mode), and two envelope generators. Notable synthesis niceties include sync of VCO 2 by VCO 1, and variable cross modulation (bidirectional linear FM) between the oscillators, for clangourous noises. There’s a fixed key follow option for envelope times (getting shorter as you play higher), and plenty of ways to deploy modulation concurrently but independently. Jupiter‑8s have an interesting section to the left of the keyboard, where the pitch bender and a modulation button (instead of a modulation wheel) could be set up to control the pitch of the VCOs (separately or together), the filter frequency, and modulation amounts going to oscillators and filter. That’s intact in TH8, albeit with controls set above the keyboard instead, and with the modulation button replaced with a more useful and standard mod wheel (which explains the related loss of the LFO Mod Rise Time fader). A welcome trade‑off of authenticity for versatility.

It’s a legendary synth of course (and one for which, as a kid growing up in the early ’80s, I’d have happily traded a body part or two) but this topology is not in fact especially complex, and Acustica have largely held firm to that original conception. The control layout is very similar, give or take a bit of horizontal condensation. Terminology is the same throughout too, and the eight‑note polyphony limit is retained. In fact the only significant changes, apart from the switchable filter emulations and effects we’ll come to in a minute, include jettisoning the original’s dual‑layer architecture (and a repurposing of the original’s Lower/Upper Balance knob as a pan control), and an understandable axeing of preset and memory switches.

There are a few novel enhancements. An additional, second RESON[ance] knob can be found in the filter section: Acustica tell me they added it to compensate for the inability of the hardware Jupiter‑8’s filter to go into self‑oscillation. So it’s a variable boost, and for the filter types that could already self‑oscillate it can make for some glorious harmonic chaos. It’s a really welcome feature. TH8 also gets velocity sensitivity knobs for the VCF and VCA sections, but there seems to be no facility for the synth to respond to aftertouch.

Many of the effects are taken from Acustica’s extensive range of processor and effects plug‑ins, and include some rare and unusual hardware models, like the delays shown here.Going further, TH8 is equipped with an effects section that many early '80s Jupiter owners, having already shelled out the equivalent of about £15,000$17,500 in today’s money, could only dream of. (A Jupiter‑8 has no effects at all: not even the chorus that would become an iconic feature in the Juno series.)

A Saturator module offers 15 different hardware amp and pedal emulations. Chorus then has obvious similarities with the Roland Juno chorus, though here increased in scope with a harmonic saturation bias control, and variable noise. The delay section offers emulations of 20 historic analogue, digital and tape‑based delays, with a stereo ping‑pong option and MIDI Clock sync divisions. Finally a reverb offers 10 different algorithms (and CPU‑saving equivalents alongside) with pre‑delay and size parameters, and a ‘dark’ option.

Many other sound and playing possibilities come from combinations of the controls at top left of the plug‑in window and the green voice assignment buttons. There are more interactions and subtlety than I can describe here, but basically a Superstereo effect duplicates sounding voices, and to varying degrees pans the resulting voice...