(I do not work for them or have any relationship - just a long time happy customer!). For those of us who have the ear for sounds, can actually play music, it’s a welcome labor of love from the UVI folks. The entire collection is cheaper than any used bit of hardware out there, so for those of us who dig this, not a big whine festival like some folks are making out on here. This is a great addition to somebody who has downsized his studio from hardware (like me) and still wants the classic synths and their tones/sounds. I own three of the various original “collections” and love them. For those who love the old gear but can neither afford, or want to own, them - this is a great bunch of kit. If you owned, used, or lusted after many of these rare hardware synths, this is one of the best collections out there. Because they are based on samples of the real instruments, they sound 100% like many of these classic and highly expensive instruments. Why? They have very highly sampled the instruments and created really nice GUIs ( have a touchscreen, prepare to be in heaven ) and for many of them they also sampled the root waveforms so you *can* make entirely new sounds from scratch. This is a win-win deal.įYI, I own and use several of these and they are truly awesome. Even a couple of these as hardware would cost the Moon and drive you batty, as old gear can. Again, I’m giving it the nod because I’ve played the hardware and I have yet to hear a better cross-section or one crafted so well. There may be a certain inherent “tone” to the whole thing due to the creative team and methods used (Arturia synths all have a certain aspect of their own), but after hearing the demos, I gotta say, this is ultra-cheap for what you’re getting. Its alright to use what works best for you, but we should all bitch less. Some people carp about softsynths a lot, but the practical reality is that they are very well modeled now. FINALLY giving us a non-iLok option is also welcome. UVI gives good GUI, too, as with a lot of MOTU synths. They took pains to provide enough relevant controls to keep it from just being a glorified WAV set. Sure, its a bit freeze-dried, but what’s there is more than flexible enough to be useful. I have to compliment UVI for getting a lot of the character right. I’ve had the chance to play several of the more rare synths in the collection like the DK Synergy. Sure the new ones can have better and newer capabilities and yes I do believe they should keep developing them but old sounds in its original form always have their special taste, we should keep hearing these because they inspire us in what we do and we should be adding new ones to our library.
But on stage and as an example something like the Jupiter-80 and 50 can emulate the old Jupiter-4, 6 and 8 but puts everything on the screen and forces you to use the new synths knob and button layout which wasn’t designed for the old synths that actually had a design which was made specifically and perfectly for them, and having all the knobs and sliders in front of you and where it was meant to be to do real-time sound manipulation is much more user friendly in a live scenario, plus sometimes the sound imperfection of analog synths’ sounds can be better for what you are doing or just have the different feel which a musician is looking for.
The emulation software they are developing could be useful in the studio but still depends on your computer. They may be available used but not many people.