Synthesizers

Never afraid of a challenge, Arturia have undertaken the first software emulation of the celebrated Oberheim Matrix 12.

As it reaches its second incarnation, we ask: is Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere the world’s best soft synth?

Serum’s slick interface belies an extremely flexible wavetable synthesizer.

Apps based on existing software are far from unusual, but Wolfgang Palm has chosen to go the other way.

Muse Research continue to refine their Receptor virtual instrument player.

XILS Labs XILS 3 is a recreation of the EMS VCS3, but there's more to it than that — much, much more.

The Receptor lets you use VST plug-ins without a computer. How does V2 improve on the original?

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

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...

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

Can this in-depth software emulation of the ARP 2600 improve on Arturia's existing 2600V?

Like the analogue modelling of AAS's Tassman but don't need its complexity or fancy its price much? The far more affordable Ultra Analog could be right up your street...

The new version of Steinberg's virtual sound module brings more and better instruments, without sacrificing convenience or ease of use.

Native's sound design software is back, and with v5, you have more control over your instruments than ever — offering fully user-definable looks, the ability to construct your own modules from scratch, and an improved library. We get patching...

Forget completely flexible software synthesis — what everyone wants, it seems, is emulations of 35-year-old monophonic analogue synths! We check out the latest modelled Minimoog, and see how it compares to the original hardware.

Xpress Keyboards features cut-down versions of NI's B4 tonewheel organ emulation, Pro 53 Prophet 5 emulation and FM7 DX-alike.

Although we only reviewed this Minimoog-emulating software instrument four months ago, Arturia have now thoroughly redesigned it, taking into account many of the points made in the original SOS review. So let's take a second look...

Completing the quartet of vintage synth emulations they began with Moog Modular V, Arturia's latest plug-in aims to reproduce the sound of the greatest semi-modular of them all, ARP's 2600. We see how it fares up against the original...

Yamaha's CS80 was one of the finest analogue polysynths of all time. How close have Arturia come to modelling its classic sound in software? We put the software up against the hardware to find out...

The latest instrument plug-in from IK Multimedia and Sonic Reality packages eight Gigabytes of samples, mostly from a huge range of classic synths, in IK's Sampletank front end.

Absynth has always dared to be somewhat different to other software synths, and version 3 continues the grand tradition, with new effects, built-in frequency-shifting, and surround processing options.