EastWest Iconic

Iconic recreates a collection of instantly recognisable classic synth sounds but places them in a modern UI that gives the user plenty of ways to make the underlying sounds their own.

EastWest take all the famous synth sounds from the hits of the ’80s and put them in one virtual instrument.

Songs reach ‘hit’ status for all sorts of reasons, but one ingredient that is more common than most is the presence of a hook. Heck, if you are really good at this stuff, your song will contain multiple hooks. These ear‑worm elements are often supplied via a vocal/lyric line, but instrumental hooks — a drum groove, bass line or guitar riff, for example — can be just as effective. However, if you listen to music from the ’80s, the hooks were just as likely to be supplied by a synth; hear just a snippet of the synth hook, and you instantly know what the song is. In short, many of the iconic hits from that period feature equally iconic synth‑based hooks.

While every student of contemporary music will undoubtedly appreciate this concept, EastWest have had the very neat idea of turning that concept into a virtual instrument. Designed for their Opus platform, and available as either a one‑off purchase or as part of EW’s ComposerCloud+ subscription service, Iconic attempts to deliver the sounds found in some of the most classic synth hooks ever recorded, while also giving the user sound‑design tools to make them their own for a modern production context. So, are the sounds of Iconic deserving of its title? Let’s find out...

Make It Iconic

EastWest’s team is, of course, hugely experienced when it comes to creating top‑tier virtual instruments. However, they did draft some rather special additional expertise into the Iconic project. This included musician and synth programmer Anthony Marinelli. If you ever wondered who created all those classic (yes, iconic) synth sounds on Michael Jackson’s Thriller album, now you know. Anthony’s list of credits includes work with Lionel Ritchie, Supertramp, Van Halen, Giorgio Moroder, Quincy Jones and a whole host of others. If you want to recreate iconic synth sounds from the history of hits, bringing on board someone who actually created the originals seems like a pretty smart move, especially as he also brought his collection of classic synths along with him. Keyboard legend Greg Phillinganes — who played on the Thriller sessions and has credits with Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Toto, Lionel Ritchie, John Mayer, Donna Summer and Bruno Mars — was also involved in ensuring the authenticity of the sounds being created.

Iconic uses EastWest’s impressive Opus playback engine and, as with other Opus‑based instruments, Iconic is delivered with its own custom (and very stylish) front‑end. This includes some excellent sound‑design options featuring dual filters, amplitude and modulation envelopes, an LFO, arpeggiator, ring modulation and a range of creative effects options. Many of these are, of course, elements you would find within a synth engine but, as a synth, Iconic is a hybrid design as the role of the oscillators — and the base element of each of Iconic’s core sounds — is taken from detailed sample‑based sounds designed using a range of classic hardware synths. It’s a tried and tested approach (for example, IK Multimedia’s Syntronik adopts a similar strategy) and capable of providing all the depth of the original sounds but perhaps without all the CPU demands that a physical model of the original oscillators might entail.

Opus provides plenty of ways to customise your own sound‑design efforts within Iconic, including MIDI note mapping for each of your sound layers.

In designing the sounds to be sampled, Anthony Marinelli had an impressive array of synth hardware at his disposal. These included the ARP 2600, the Synclavier II, a Jupiter‑8, a Phrophet‑5, a CS‑80, a Minimoog Model D, an Oberheim OB‑X and a Fender Rhodes. The instruments were sampled directly but also using a re‑amping process and recorded back to analogue tape. This was pushed hard to provide tape saturation and harmonic distortion. Rather wonderfully, you can blend between the cleaner and saturated versions of every sound via the mod wheel, adding an interesting way of changing the character of a sound.

The core sample base runs to nearly 140GB and, from this collection of sounds, the design team have then generated over 500 presets inspired by some of the most recognisable synth hooks in the history of pop and rock. The presets have been organised into three main categories — Classic, Classic Elements and Beyond Iconic — with sub‑categories in each case for arps, basses, pads, leads, keys, poly and effects.

Name That Tune

The Classic preset category is where all those instantly recognisable sounds are to be found. Many of the original sounds were actually designed by layering multiple synths and that’s reflected here, as many of these presets use multiple layers within Opus. If you want to access individual layers created with a specific synth, then these can be found in the Classic Elements preset category.

Browsing Iconic’s Classic preset categories makes for an excellent session of ‘name that tune’ in your studio.

I’m not trying to dodge my responsibility as a reviewer here but, if Iconic is on your radar, then I do recommend you watch EastWest’s own walkthrough video about the product. The background material on how the project was put together is interesting in its own right, but the star of the show is the demonstration of some of these Classic presets. If you need convincing as to just how accurate these recreations are, the video contains plenty of evidence. For what it’s worth, I’ll happily share my own opinion; wherever you look within this preset category, if you know anything about pop and rock music from the ’80s and ’90s, there are sounds you are going to instantly recognise.

Indeed, browsing these presets was an absolute joy and induced many a smile. EastWest have supplied names for the presets that provide very obvious clues to each sound’s original inspiration. For example, there are no prizes for guessing where you might have heard Billie Stack 1, Thrilling Lead 1, In The Groove Lead, Colder Than Ice Lead 1, Take On You Lead, The Final Touchdown Pad 1, Love Is A Battle, Don’t You Want Me Pad 1, The Air Tonight, Living Prayer Poly, Jumping OBX Chords, We Built A City Poly or Sweeter Dreams. There are lots of other examples and, while it’s not a limitless list of presets, pretty much every sonic target here is well worthy of the ‘iconic’ tag and hits the sound right on the head.

Sensibly, if you want a starting point that is based on a specific synth, the Classic Elements preset category has you covered. These are also helpfully named so you can easily find your way around. Accuracy of the recreated sounds aside, what’s worth noting about both of these main preset categories is the actual quality of the sounds. They add a very convincing sense of the real thing, with all the richness and detail of the original synth hardware. Iconic or otherwise, these are just great virtual synth sounds to work with.

EastWest are keen to emphasise that Iconic is not just about classic sounds; in a contemporary music production context, it’s also a capable tool for the creation of some potentially iconic synth hooks of your own.

One Step Beyond

As well as LFO‑ and envelope‑based modulation, there is also a step‑based modulator.

That last point is emphasised by the contents of the Beyond Iconic presets category. These presets — of which there are plenty — ably demonstrate how easily the underlying sample‑based sounds can be customised within the Iconic engine to bring them right up to date for modern styles of pop, EDM and hip‑hop. Clearly, EastWest are keen to emphasise that Iconic is not just about classic sounds; in a contemporary music production context, it’s also a capable tool for the creation of some potentially iconic synth hooks of your own.

There has obviously been a lot of effort put into these presets and there are some great sounds to be found across all the sub‑categories. Some are built on single patches, while others layer multiple patches into a composite sound. However, I particularly enjoyed the arp and bass categories. What’s particularly impressive is how the essence of the hardware synth sources comes across in a really satisfying fashion. If, like me, you have neither the budget nor the physical space to fill your studio with some of these actual synths, Iconic is a heck of a way to get a genuine representation of their sounds into your own production process.

Iconic Sound Design

As mentioned earlier, Iconic can be thought of as something of a hybrid virtual instrument, combining sample‑based sound sources with synth engine elements. While the UI doesn’t let you put your sound programming skills up against those of Anthony Marinelli by getting hands‑on with the actual control sets of the original hardware (even if only in a virtual format), the instrument’s front‑end does provide plenty of sound‑design opportunities if you want to roll your own.

The UI provides a range of conventional effects options including Auto‑Pan, Ring Modulation, Drive, Chorus, Phaser, Delay and Reverb. Each of these effects modules can be toggled on/off individually and offer enough controls to let you customise your sound in all the usual creative fashions. There are also more ‘synth‑like’ elements provided. For example, top‑left are options to engage portamento, legato and polyphonic options, pitch transpose and to adjust the MIDI velocity response. Top‑right you can configure full amp and mod ADSR envelopes, while just below these you get the option to choose between LFO or step‑based modulation settings.

For further modulation options, pretty much every control within Iconic’s UI has a MIDI Learn capability.

Bottom‑centre of the UI is home to independent low‑pass and high‑pass resonant filters. Each of these offers a choice of filter types and each also includes controls to configure how the filter cutoff is modulated via MIDI velocity, the mod Envelope or the LFO/step modulator (or some combination of all three). Similar controls appear in a number of the effects modules, providing further sound modulation options.

The centre of the UI contains an X/Y pad with a choice between four more creative‑style sound modulation options. Each of these essentially provides X/Y control over a pair of parameters from elsewhere in the UI. For example, Stutter controls the LP filter’s cutoff (Y axis) and LFO rate (X axis), letting you generate some very cool filter gating or filter sweeps. Dream provides a combination of modulation of the Auto‑Pan/Stereo Double and Reverb effects for some interesting spatial modulation. Space combines Chorus and Delay modulation while, finally, Grit modulates the Phaser and Drive effects. The Automation page provides further possibilities for modulation, and right‑clicking on any parameter within the UI pops open a MIDI Learn menu so you can easily link Iconic’s controls to a suitable MIDI hardware controller.

As demonstrated by many of the presets, the instrument provides plenty of possibilities for stacking sound layers and, of course, each layer gets its own instance of all these sound modulating possibilities. If you want to make your own ‘iconic’ presets, you will not be short of creative sound‑design options.

Classic Sound Meets Modern Design

OK, so Iconic might not be for everyone. For example, some will prefer dedicated emulations of the individual synths represented here. I can see that argument if you are a hardcore synth programmer. If that’s your preference, then there are suitable software emulations of each of the individual synths used for Iconic that are available from a number of different developers. Equally, as a one‑off purchase, Iconic represents a sizeable investment, although its inclusion within EastWest’s ComposerCloud+ is yet another reason why that represents exceptional value for money if you are comfortable with a subscription model for your virtual instrument sounds.

As virtual recreations of classic hardware synth sounds go, this is truly impressive.

However, if you do crave the sounds of these classic synths, but are less concerned about the ‘virtual reality’ of the control surface, Iconic could be an ideal choice. It’s difficult to imagine anyone finding much to fault with the sound of Iconic. As virtual recreations of classic hardware synth sounds go, this is truly impressive and, to demonstrate that, you get a collection of incredibly accurate recreations of some of the most iconic synth sounds from the last 40+ years, faithfully reproduced by a team that includes some of their original creators. And, almost as a cherry on top, the instrument provides an underlying sound set, and a sound‑design engine, to let you bring those impressive sounds right up to date for your own productions.

EastWest’s Iconic is aptly named given the collection of instantly recognisable synth sounds its presets include. For some, that may be justification enough to take the plunge. However, there is more on offer than just some synth sound nostalgia. Whether it’s retro or modern, Iconic provides an excellent collection of top‑quality synth sounds in a very accessible format. Top‑notch stuff and a lot of fun to use.