The American M-Audio has recently become the official distributor of GForce products in the “Helen St. John” version, that is the already famous virtual synthesizers produced by GMedia Music which, thanks to the Italian distributor SoundWave, we have had the opportunity to test. M-Tron, impOSCar, Minimonsta and Oddity, these are the names of the four synths that made our speakers vibrate during the tests. And I swear to you that we have heard too many vibrations!
M-tron
The first plug-in I wanted to try is called M-tron, a simulation of the famous Mellotron. (Fig.1) The concept of its functioning was initially invented in 1946 by the American Harry Chamberlin and it was, in fact, a kind of organ, with a rather funny appearance, which inside had a series of magnetic tapes and heads, one for each key, and a final preamp, obviously, tube. When a key was pressed, the respective tape would play back until the recording ended, usually lasting about 7 seconds, and when the key was released a spring mechanism would rewind the tape quickly. The most famous sounds recorded on the Mellotron tapes were a flute, a human voice choir and a string ensemble, but in fact, over the years to come, dozens of sets of tapes were produced in order to reproduce the sounds. more disparate, from symphony orchestras to sound effects, from human voices to real band arrangements, from grand piano to Hammond organ. Many artists have made this instrument famous among which I would mention i genesis, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, but those who used it for the first time in a commercial recording were the Beatles which in 1967 they published Strawberry Fields Forever, arousing a strong curiosity among the musicians of the time in wanting to discover which instrument was able to reproduce that strange sound of a flute ... polyphonic! At the time the Mellotron had become of British production, since its project, over the years, passed through the hands of several engineers and astute sellers, who were interested in improving its functioning, some in benefiting from that promising novelty. It remained in production until the early 80s, when digital samplers began to spread on a large scale. To this day, there are very few working models still in circulation, and it's rare to find one for sale, and it's certainly even rarer to find tape sets. But evidently the GMedia guys had no difficulty in finding their Mellotron to study and imitate in a computer environment, and certainly they were very lucky to find almost all the tape sets in circulation! In fact, what impressed me most about M-Tron was the great variety of sounds included in the plug-in, 103 to be exact, for a total of about two gigabytes of samples! Each tape was sampled individually from start to finish, faithfully. And when I say “faithfully” I mean that in every sample there is really everything, even the hiss, the distortions, the drop-outs and the pitch changes. After all, I would have been quite disappointed if, on the contrary, I had found perfect and clean sounds: it would surely have been an unfaithful imitation! Well, to be honest, there is something unfaithful in the plug-in, and it is the graphical interface. In my opinion it leaves something to be desired, and the controls do not quite correspond to those of the original instrument (Fig. 2), especially the three-position ABC selector which in the original instrument was used to select one of the three tracks present on each tape, allowing the player to change the sound as if it were a real preset. On the other hand, on M-Tron this selector is used to open the control panel and perform various operations: on A the panel is closed, up B access to two horizontal sliders for the adjustment of Attack and Release (controls obviously not present on the original instrument) and on C you access the menu for loading the sample-set. However, cigarette burns and coffee cup stains have their own charm! Beyond this small, I would dare to say "poetic license" regarding the ABC selector, GMedia has not taken any other liberties, therefore we will not find filters or effects or anything else that goes beyond the simple concept of the real Mellotron. The sound is amazing, obviously monaural, the extension and polyphony are complete (35 notes), the impact on the computer's CPU is almost imperceptible. A real hoot when it comes to wanting to reproduce the sounds of the 60s and 70s with your computer, but the fact remains that this plug-in can be useful in more recent musical genres such as ambient, nu-metal, lo-fi, gothic , new age etc. especially when paired with some good effects processor.
setOSChar
What's in Oxford in England? One of the most famous universities in the world, you would say. Right, but at least until a few years ago there was also the Oxford Synthesizer Company, for friends “OSC”, a music industry with a short life but which since 1982 has left a milestone in the history of modern synthesizers: OSCar. (Fig. 3) Well, maybe it was a tribute to Oscar Wilde who had attended university in those parts about a century earlier? Meanwhile, GMedia thought about paying a big tribute to OSC with this amazing plug-in renamed "setOSChar".
Here they worked a lot with the graphics, and too well I would say. The graphical interface is essentially the same as the real instrument, same colors, same positioning of the controls, and even those hateful protuberances alternating between one section and another. (Fig. 4) The OSCar was a monophonic synth, based on two DCOs (Digitally Controlled Oscillator) capable of providing a sawtooth, a triangular waveform and a fixed or variable amplitude square, followed by two filters 12 dB on octave, low-pass, high-pass or band-pass, and the ability to pair them to get a single powerful 24 dB octave filter, with cut-off e resonance and an ADSR dedicated to it. But the big news of this synth that distinguished it from its peers and rivals MiniMoog and ARP Odyssey, was the possibility of creating completely new waveforms based on an additive synthesis that allowed to add up to 24 harmonics using the keys of the keyboard. Also, as we are already in the digital age, the OSCar allowed presets to be stored, had a small built-in sequencer and, in the second revision of 1984, also had MIDI. All this has been perfectly replicated in impOSCar, plus the possibility of polyphony, a built-in effects processor that offers nice delay and unnecessary chorus, dynamic response of the keyboard and all the advantages of software synthesizers such as full implementation. MIDI, remote control via i Control Change assignable software, host software automation support and a few hundred presets. I have never had the opportunity to personally try the original OSCar, but with this software simulation I must admit that I had a lot of fun, the possibilities of creating great analog sounds are almost endless, and even if at the beginning I was running a little eyes because of the enormous confusion that is in the arrangement of the controls, after a while I became familiar with it and I began to do my litmus test: find the exact sound I have in mind. In this case, being the emulation of a mono-synth, I wanted to put aside all the new possibilities offered by the virtual environment and use it as if I had the real OSCar at hand, and I tried to do ... you know the soundtrack of Flashdance, the piece entitled “Love Theme from Flashdance” by the beautiful Helen St. John? Well, the bass you hear at the beginning of the song. I've been listening to that record from time to time for years, and every time I do it I notice that every song has some fabulous 80s sounds. Result? With impOSCar I immediately found the right sound! Surely what made the difference was the filter, which turned out to be very sweet even by raising the resonance a little, giving the sound the right presence and that great depth in the low frequency range. I didn't continue to program other sounds because I was so fascinated by that bass that I continued to play the impOSCar with the left and the piano on my Motif with the right at such a volume that I stopped only when, turning towards the speakers, I realized that the cones of my Tannoys were about to take off!
Minimonsta
It's him, the little BIG monster! Earlier I said that one of the rivals of OSCar was the MiniMoog, who doesn't know what I'm talking about, raise your hand and… do an hour of penance! Anyone who is a fan of synthesizers cannot fail to know the MiniMoog (Fig. 5), perhaps the most famous work of the "father of synthesizers" Bob Moog, which entered the market in 1970 and is still widely used and, above all, valued at weight of gold on the second-hand market. Remained in production until 1982, about thirteen thousand copies were sold all over the world, but it is as if that were not enough, so much so that Moog Music recently thought of producing a hybrid digital-analog reissue.
Okay, forgiving those few penitents who do not yet know what a MiniMoog is made of, let me briefly say that it is a three and a half octave monophonic synthesizer, built in a small elegant wooden casing with the liftable control panel, based on three separately selectable and tunable waveform oscillators, and on the inimitable Moog low-pass filter four poles at 24 dB on octave. Additionally, one of the three oscillators can be used as a source for an LFO, there is a pink or white noise generator, and the filter has the ability to go into feedback. In addition to all this, the minimansta from GMedia adds an LFO and an XADSR both externally modulated and able to control any parameter of the synth; we also have the possibility of playing in polyphony, a delay effect, dynamic response, full MIDI implementation and the exclusive control system Melohman of ohm force which allows for timbre variations by morphing in real time between twelve different sounds. In fact, in the minimosta interface, apart from the beauty of the singular metallic black knobs typical of Moog instruments, that octave stands out with the inverted black and white colors and with leds on the keys. (Fig. 6) The graphic interface is quite faithful to the layout of the original instrument, the controls are arranged in a logical and very intuitive order, therefore it is very easy to create your own sound; in the center there is a display showing the list of presets and the keys to store new presets and load the ones already supplied, which are several dozen, including an exclusive collection created in collaboration with Rick Wakeman, the legendary keyboard player of Yes.
Let's say that this plug-in works on two levels: one concerns the traditional functioning of the MiniMoog, and the second concerns the implementation of the new features introduced by GMedia and Ohm Force. In fact, when any of the instrument's controls are modulated by the additional LFO or XADSR, it turns blue. To make this assignment, simply click on the desired control and then assign the amount of LFO or XADSR ("AMP") And then adjust the relative parameters. Well, all of this opens up a whole new world of tonal possibilities while enjoying the spectacular sound of the MiniMoog and its great low-pass filter. The system Melohman, as I said before, it allows you to switch from one sound to another using the keys of the keyboard, just like in a Hammond organ, where the first octave has the colors inverted and serves to change the sounds on the fly (this is where they got the idea those of Ohm Force!). In fact, to the right of the presets display, there are twelve black and white buttons that are used to store "snapshots", or snapshots of the current settings, and assign them to each of the corresponding keys on the Melohman keyboard, so that, for example, passing through the snapshot stored on the C to the one stored on the E, you see the controls move by themselves from one position to another, and the sound effects the transformation in a fluid and transparent way. And all twelve snapshots are stored within the same preset. This makes the minimonsta a hilarious instrument to use not only in the studio but also live! But the sound? Not long ago I had the opportunity (or should I say "luck"?) To be able to play and listen carefully to a real Moog Modular, that beast of synthesizer that Keith Emerson used to place on his Hammond organ during concerts. I must say that I was impressed, never felt so much power and harmonic richness coming out of an "electrophone". The MiniMoog essentially has the same oscillators and filter as a Modular. When I played minimonsta I still had the sound of the Moog Modular in mind and I was looking for the same tone but… something was wrong. Oh yes, in fact I forgot that I was dealing with software, and as such, the sound is also conditioned by all the surrounding technology, namely the sound card, the cables, and the monitoring system. At this point I focused not so much on his "solo" character but on his ability to get noticed within a complete mix. I then loaded the tracks of a song I was working on these days, mute the bass track currently played by the Japanese freeware Synth1, and copied it to an empty track to which I assigned the minimonsta. After less than five minutes I had found a synth bass sound much richer and more present than what I got before with Synth1, and without even having to work so much on the controls: simply a superimposition of sawtooth, square and triangular, resonance and cutoff at 9. Magic! The difference I noticed is that Synth1's bass disappeared into the mix when it dropped below 90-100 Hz and went out too much when it was around 110 Hz (the A of the second octave), while that of the minimonsta remained homogeneous and present for all notes used. In short, if a plug-in is satisfactory within a mix it means that it is really a reustic instrument, right? Then I wanted to take away another whim: you know "Chameleon", the famous song by Herbie Hancock? In that song there is a solo played with the MiniMoog, and the bass you hear at the beginning should also be from the MiniMoog. With a little bit of tweaking on the potentiometers I was able to get that sound back and play the solo with the great Herbie… but as for the performance he won!
oddity
In English it means "weird", and in fact we are not that far from the feeling I felt when I played this plugin. oddity is meant to be the simulation ofARP Odyssey (Fig. 7), very famous synth that I remember trying maybe 12 or 13 years ago in a shop. Introduced in 1972 by American Recording & Performance Co., it wanted to be the answer to the MiniMoog, so much so that it also copied the “Moog ladder filter”, Also getting a lawsuit from Moog. The simulation proposed by GMedia is quite faithful, starting from the interface (Fig. 8) with the same colors as the version "blackface"And the same provision of controls. In this case the software additions were very few, in fact Oddity responds to dynamics and supports MIDI controls and automation, but it is not polyphonic and there are no additional effects or other types of controls outside the standard ones. The structure of the instrument is quite simple, based on two synchronizable oscillators and able to operate also in mode dual, the Minimoog-like low-pass filter, a cascaded high-pass filter, an LFO, white or pink noise generator, portamento and global ADSR. Very simple as a structure but able to generate very nice lead sounds, lasers, sweeps and anything else that has a 70s character. A good simulation, in my opinion, but not as exciting as impOSCar or minimonsta.
Conclusions
GMedia plug-ins are all in VST, RTAS or AU formats for Mac or Win, install without problems and all have a very slight impact on the CPU. The passion that the developers have put in imitating the original tools is undoubtedly comparable only to the success obtained by the excellent success of their products. M-tron is a real gem, a precious digital database of the mythical sounds of the Mellotron, setOSChar undoubtedly represents one of the most successful VA synths, minimansta it's a great compromise for those who would like a MiniMoog handy but can't afford a real one, and oddity it is certainly ideal for the most imaginative.
American company M-Audio recently became the official distributor of the "Helen St. John" version of GForce products, the already popular virtual synthesizers produced by GMedia Music. Thanks to their Italian distributor SoundWave, we were able to test them for CM2 readers. M-Tron, impOSCar, Minimonsta, and Oddity are the names of the four synths that made our speakers vibrate during our tests. And I swear, we felt way too many vibrations!
M-Tron:
The first plug-in I wanted to try is called M-tron, a simulation of the famous Mellotron. (Fig.1) The concept of its functioning was initially invented in 1946 by the American Harry Chamberlin and it was, in fact, a kind of organ, with a rather funny appearance, which inside had a series of magnetic tapes and heads, one for each key, and a final preamp, obviously, tube. When a key was pressed, the respective tape would play back until the recording ended, usually lasting about 7 seconds, and when the key was released a spring mechanism would rewind the tape quickly. The most famous sounds recorded on the Mellotron tapes were a flute, a human voice choir and a string ensemble, but in fact, over the years to come, dozens of sets of tapes were produced in order to reproduce the sounds. more disparate, from symphony orchestras to sound effects, from human voices to real band arrangements, from grand piano to Hammond organ. Many artists have made this instrument famous among which I would mention i genesis, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, but those who used it for the first time in a commercial recording were the Beatles which in 1967 they published Strawberry Fields Forever, arousing a strong curiosity among the musicians of the time in wanting to discover which instrument was able to reproduce that strange sound of a flute ... polyphonic! At the time the Mellotron had become of British production, since its project, over the years, passed through the hands of several engineers and astute sellers, who were interested in improving its functioning, some in benefiting from that promising novelty. It remained in production until the early 80s, when digital samplers began to spread on a large scale. To this day, there are very few working models still in circulation, and it's rare to find one for sale, and it's certainly even rarer to find tape sets. But evidently the GMedia guys had no difficulty in finding their Mellotron to study and imitate in a computer environment, and certainly they were very lucky to find almost all the tape sets in circulation! In fact, what impressed me most about M-Tron was the great variety of sounds included in the plug-in, 103 to be exact, for a total of about two gigabytes of samples! Each tape was sampled individually from start to finish, faithfully. And when I say “faithfully” I mean that in every sample there is really everything, even the hiss, the distortions, the drop-outs and the pitch changes. After all, I would have been quite disappointed if, on the contrary, I had found perfect and clean sounds: it would surely have been an unfaithful imitation! Well, to be honest, there is something unfaithful in the plug-in, and it is the graphical interface. In my opinion it leaves something to be desired, and the controls do not quite correspond to those of the original instrument (Fig. 2), especially the three-position ABC selector which in the original instrument was used to select one of the three tracks present on each tape, allowing the player to change the sound as if it were a real preset. On the other hand, on M-Tron this selector is used to open the control panel and perform various operations: on A the panel is closed, up B access to two horizontal sliders for the adjustment of Attack and Release (controls obviously not present on the original instrument) and on C you access the menu for loading the sample-set. However, cigarette burns and coffee cup stains have their own charm! Beyond this small, I would dare to say "poetic license" regarding the ABC selector, GMedia has not taken any other liberties, therefore we will not find filters or effects or anything else that goes beyond the simple concept of the real Mellotron. The sound is amazing, obviously monaural, the extension and polyphony are complete (35 notes), the impact on the computer's CPU is almost imperceptible. A real hoot when it comes to wanting to reproduce the sounds of the 60s and 70s with your computer, but the fact remains that this plug-in can be useful in more recent musical genres such as ambient, nu-metal, lo-fi, gothic , new age etc. especially when paired with some good effects processor.
impOSCar:
What's in Oxford in England? One of the most famous universities in the world, you would say. Right, but at least until a few years ago there was also the Oxford Synthesizer Company, for friends “OSC”, a music industry with a short life but which since 1982 has left a milestone in the history of modern synthesizers: OSCar. (Fig. 3) Well, maybe it was a tribute to Oscar Wilde who had attended university in those parts about a century earlier? Meanwhile, GMedia thought about paying a big tribute to OSC with this amazing plug-in renamed "setOSChar".
Here they worked a lot with the graphics, and too well I would say. The graphical interface is essentially the same as the real instrument, same colors, same positioning of the controls, and even those hateful protuberances alternating between one section and another. (Fig. 4) The OSCar was a monophonic synth, based on two DCOs (Digitally Controlled Oscillator) capable of providing a sawtooth, a triangular waveform and a fixed or variable amplitude square, followed by two filters 12 dB on octave, low-pass, high-pass or band-pass, and the ability to pair them to get a single powerful 24 dB octave filter, with cut-off e resonance and an ADSR dedicated to it. But the big news of this synth that distinguished it from its peers and rivals MiniMoog and ARP Odyssey, was the possibility of creating completely new waveforms based on an additive synthesis that allowed to add up to 24 harmonics using the keys of the keyboard. Also, as we are already in the digital age, the OSCar allowed presets to be stored, had a small built-in sequencer and, in the second revision of 1984, also had MIDI. All this has been perfectly replicated in impOSCar, plus the possibility of polyphony, a built-in effects processor that offers nice delay and unnecessary chorus, dynamic response of the keyboard and all the advantages of software synthesizers such as full implementation. MIDI, remote control via i Control Change assignable software, host software automation support and a few hundred presets. I have never had the opportunity to personally try the original OSCar, but with this software simulation I must admit that I had a lot of fun, the possibilities of creating great analog sounds are almost endless, and even if at the beginning I was running a little eyes because of the enormous confusion that is in the arrangement of the controls, after a while I became familiar with it and I began to do my litmus test: find the exact sound I have in mind. In this case, being the emulation of a mono-synth, I wanted to put aside all the new possibilities offered by the virtual environment and use it as if I had the real OSCar at hand, and I tried to do ... you know the soundtrack of Flashdance, the piece entitled “Love Theme from Flashdance” by the beautiful Helen St. John? Well, the bass you hear at the beginning of the song. I've been listening to that record from time to time for years, and every time I do it I notice that every song has some fabulous 80s sounds. Result? With impOSCar I immediately found the right sound! Surely what made the difference was the filter, which turned out to be very sweet even by raising the resonance a little, giving the sound the right presence and that great depth in the low frequency range. I didn't continue to program other sounds because I was so fascinated by that bass that I continued to play the impOSCar with the left and the piano on my Motif with the right at such a volume that I stopped only when, turning towards the speakers, I realized that the cones of my Tannoys were about to take off!
Minimonsta:
It's him, the little BIG monster! Earlier I said that one of the rivals of OSCar was the MiniMoog, who doesn't know what I'm talking about, raise your hand and… do an hour of penance! Anyone who is a fan of synthesizers cannot fail to know the MiniMoog (Fig. 5), perhaps the most famous work of the "father of synthesizers" Bob Moog, which entered the market in 1970 and is still widely used and, above all, valued at weight of gold on the second-hand market. Remained in production until 1982, about thirteen thousand copies were sold all over the world, but it is as if that were not enough, so much so that Moog Music recently thought of producing a hybrid digital-analog reissue.
Okay, forgiving those few penitents who do not yet know what a MiniMoog is made of, let me briefly say that it is a three and a half octave monophonic synthesizer, built in a small elegant wooden casing with the liftable control panel, based on three separately selectable and tunable waveform oscillators, and on the inimitable Moog low-pass filter four poles at 24 dB on octave. Additionally, one of the three oscillators can be used as a source for an LFO, there is a pink or white noise generator, and the filter has the ability to go into feedback. In addition to all this, the minimansta from GMedia adds an LFO and an XADSR both externally modulated and able to control any parameter of the synth; we also have the possibility of playing in polyphony, a delay effect, dynamic response, full MIDI implementation and the exclusive control system Melohman of ohm force which allows for timbre variations by morphing in real time between twelve different sounds. In fact, in the minimosta interface, apart from the beauty of the singular metallic black knobs typical of Moog instruments, that octave stands out with the inverted black and white colors and with leds on the keys. (Fig. 6) The graphic interface is quite faithful to the layout of the original instrument, the controls are arranged in a logical and very intuitive order, therefore it is very easy to create your own sound; in the center there is a display showing the list of presets and the keys to store new presets and load the ones already supplied, which are several dozen, including an exclusive collection created in collaboration with Rick Wakeman, the legendary keyboard player of Yes.
Let's say that this plug-in works on two levels: one concerns the traditional functioning of the MiniMoog, and the second concerns the implementation of the new features introduced by GMedia and Ohm Force. In fact, when any of the instrument's controls are modulated by the additional LFO or XADSR, it turns blue. To make this assignment, simply click on the desired control and then assign the amount of LFO or XADSR ("AMP") And then adjust the relative parameters. Well, all of this opens up a whole new world of tonal possibilities while enjoying the spectacular sound of the MiniMoog and its great low-pass filter. The system Melohman, as I said before, it allows you to switch from one sound to another using the keys of the keyboard, just like in a Hammond organ, where the first octave has the colors inverted and serves to change the sounds on the fly (this is where they got the idea those of Ohm Force!). In fact, to the right of the presets display, there are twelve black and white buttons that are used to store "snapshots", or snapshots of the current settings, and assign them to each of the corresponding keys on the Melohman keyboard, so that, for example, passing through the snapshot stored on the C to the one stored on the E, you see the controls move by themselves from one position to another, and the sound effects the transformation in a fluid and transparent way. And all twelve snapshots are stored within the same preset. This makes the minimonsta a hilarious instrument to use not only in the studio but also live! But the sound? Not long ago I had the opportunity (or should I say "luck"?) To be able to play and listen carefully to a real Moog Modular, that beast of synthesizer that Keith Emerson used to place on his Hammond organ during concerts. I must say that I was impressed, never felt so much power and harmonic richness coming out of an "electrophone". The MiniMoog essentially has the same oscillators and filter as a Modular. When I played minimonsta I still had the sound of the Moog Modular in mind and I was looking for the same tone but… something was wrong. Oh yes, in fact I forgot that I was dealing with software, and as such, the sound is also conditioned by all the surrounding technology, namely the sound card, the cables, and the monitoring system. At this point I focused not so much on his "solo" character but on his ability to get noticed within a complete mix. I then loaded the tracks of a song I was working on these days, mute the bass track currently played by the Japanese freeware Synth1, and copied it to an empty track to which I assigned the minimonsta. After less than five minutes I had found a synth bass sound much richer and more present than what I got before with Synth1, and without even having to work so much on the controls: simply a superimposition of sawtooth, square and triangular, resonance and cutoff at 9. Magic! The difference I noticed is that Synth1's bass disappeared into the mix when it dropped below 90-100 Hz and went out too much when it was around 110 Hz (the A of the second octave), while that of the minimonsta remained homogeneous and present for all notes used. In short, if a plug-in is satisfactory within a mix it means that it is really a reustic instrument, right? Then I wanted to take away another whim: you know "Chameleon", the famous song by Herbie Hancock? In that song there is a solo played with the MiniMoog, and the bass you hear at the beginning should also be from the MiniMoog. With a little bit of tweaking on the potentiometers I was able to get that sound back and play the solo with the great Herbie… but as for the performance he won!
Oddity:
In English it means "weird", and in fact we are not that far from the feeling I felt when I played this plugin. oddity is meant to be the simulation ofARP Odyssey (Fig. 7), very famous synth that I remember trying maybe 12 or 13 years ago in a shop. Introduced in 1972 by American Recording & Performance Co., it wanted to be the answer to the MiniMoog, so much so that it also copied the “Moog ladder filter”, Also getting a lawsuit from Moog. The simulation proposed by GMedia is quite faithful, starting from the interface (Fig. 8) with the same colors as the version "blackface"And the same provision of controls. In this case the software additions were very few, in fact Oddity responds to dynamics and supports MIDI controls and automation, but it is not polyphonic and there are no additional effects or other types of controls outside the standard ones. The structure of the instrument is quite simple, based on two synchronizable oscillators and able to operate also in mode dual, the Minimoog-like low-pass filter, a cascaded high-pass filter, an LFO, white or pink noise generator, portamento and global ADSR. Very simple as a structure but able to generate very nice lead sounds, lasers, sweeps and anything else that has a 70s character. A good simulation, in my opinion, but not as exciting as impOSCar or minimonsta.
Conclusions:
GMedia plug-ins are all in VST, RTAS or AU formats for Mac or Win, install without problems and all have a very slight impact on the CPU. The passion that the developers have put in imitating the original tools is undoubtedly comparable only to the success obtained by the excellent success of their products. M-tron is a real gem, a precious digital database of the mythical sounds of the Mellotron, setOSChar undoubtedly represents one of the most successful VA synths, minimansta it's a great compromise for those who would like a MiniMoog handy but can't afford a real one, and oddity it is certainly ideal for the most imaginative.
American company M-Audio recently became the official distributor of the "Helen St. John" version of GForce products, the already popular virtual synthesizers produced by GMedia Music. Thanks to their Italian distributor SoundWave, we were able to test them for CM2 readers. M-Tron, impOSCar, Minimonsta, and Oddity are the names of the four synths that made our speakers vibrate during our tests. And I swear, we felt way too many vibrations!
M-Tron:
The first plug-in I wanted to try is called M-tron, a simulation of the famous Mellotron. (Fig.1) The concept of its functioning was initially invented in 1946 by the American Harry Chamberlin and it was, in fact, a kind of organ, with a rather funny appearance, which inside had a series of magnetic tapes and heads, one for each key, and a final preamp, obviously, tube. When a key was pressed, the respective tape would play back until the recording ended, usually lasting about 7 seconds, and when the key was released a spring mechanism would rewind the tape quickly. The most famous sounds recorded on the Mellotron tapes were a flute, a human voice choir and a string ensemble, but in fact, over the years to come, dozens of sets of tapes were produced in order to reproduce the sounds. more disparate, from symphony orchestras to sound effects, from human voices to real band arrangements, from grand piano to Hammond organ. Many artists have made this instrument famous among which I would mention i genesis, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, but those who used it for the first time in a commercial recording were the Beatles which in 1967 they published Strawberry Fields Forever, arousing a strong curiosity among the musicians of the time in wanting to discover which instrument was able to reproduce that strange sound of a flute ... polyphonic! At the time the Mellotron had become of British production, since its project, over the years, passed through the hands of several engineers and astute sellers, who were interested in improving its functioning, some in benefiting from that promising novelty. It remained in production until the early 80s, when digital samplers began to spread on a large scale. To this day, there are very few working models still in circulation, and it's rare to find one for sale, and it's certainly even rarer to find tape sets. But evidently the GMedia guys had no difficulty in finding their Mellotron to study and imitate in a computer environment, and certainly they were very lucky to find almost all the tape sets in circulation! In fact, what impressed me most about M-Tron was the great variety of sounds included in the plug-in, 103 to be exact, for a total of about two gigabytes of samples! Each tape was sampled individually from start to finish, faithfully. And when I say “faithfully” I mean that in every sample there is really everything, even the hiss, the distortions, the drop-outs and the pitch changes. After all, I would have been quite disappointed if, on the contrary, I had found perfect and clean sounds: it would surely have been an unfaithful imitation! Well, to be honest, there is something unfaithful in the plug-in, and it is the graphical interface. In my opinion it leaves something to be desired, and the controls do not quite correspond to those of the original instrument (Fig. 2), especially the three-position ABC selector which in the original instrument was used to select one of the three tracks present on each tape, allowing the player to change the sound as if it were a real preset. On the other hand, on M-Tron this selector is used to open the control panel and perform various operations: on A the panel is closed, up B access to two horizontal sliders for the adjustment of Attack and Release (controls obviously not present on the original instrument) and on C you access the menu for loading the sample-set. However, cigarette burns and coffee cup stains have their own charm! Beyond this small, I would dare to say "poetic license" regarding the ABC selector, GMedia has not taken any other liberties, therefore we will not find filters or effects or anything else that goes beyond the simple concept of the real Mellotron. The sound is amazing, obviously monaural, the extension and polyphony are complete (35 notes), the impact on the computer's CPU is almost imperceptible. A real hoot when it comes to wanting to reproduce the sounds of the 60s and 70s with your computer, but the fact remains that this plug-in can be useful in more recent musical genres such as ambient, nu-metal, lo-fi, gothic , new age etc. especially when paired with some good effects processor.
impOSCar:
What's in Oxford in England? One of the most famous universities in the world, you would say. Right, but at least until a few years ago there was also the Oxford Synthesizer Company, for friends “OSC”, a music industry with a short life but which since 1982 has left a milestone in the history of modern synthesizers: OSCar. (Fig. 3) Well, maybe it was a tribute to Oscar Wilde who had attended university in those parts about a century earlier? Meanwhile, GMedia thought about paying a big tribute to OSC with this amazing plug-in renamed "setOSChar".
Here they worked a lot with the graphics, and too well I would say. The graphical interface is essentially the same as the real instrument, same colors, same positioning of the controls, and even those hateful protuberances alternating between one section and another. (Fig. 4) The OSCar was a monophonic synth, based on two DCOs (Digitally Controlled Oscillator) capable of providing a sawtooth, a triangular waveform and a fixed or variable amplitude square, followed by two filters 12 dB on octave, low-pass, high-pass or band-pass, and the ability to pair them to get a single powerful 24 dB octave filter, with cut-off e resonance and an ADSR dedicated to it. But the big news of this synth that distinguished it from its peers and rivals MiniMoog and ARP Odyssey, was the possibility of creating completely new waveforms based on an additive synthesis that allowed to add up to 24 harmonics using the keys of the keyboard. Also, as we are already in the digital age, the OSCar allowed presets to be stored, had a small built-in sequencer and, in the second revision of 1984, also had MIDI. All this has been perfectly replicated in impOSCar, plus the possibility of polyphony, a built-in effects processor that offers nice delay and unnecessary chorus, dynamic response of the keyboard and all the advantages of software synthesizers such as full implementation. MIDI, remote control via i Control Change assignable software, host software automation support and a few hundred presets. I have never had the opportunity to personally try the original OSCar, but with this software simulation I must admit that I had a lot of fun, the possibilities of creating great analog sounds are almost endless, and even if at the beginning I was running a little eyes because of the enormous confusion that is in the arrangement of the controls, after a while I became familiar with it and I began to do my litmus test: find the exact sound I have in mind. In this case, being the emulation of a mono-synth, I wanted to put aside all the new possibilities offered by the virtual environment and use it as if I had the real OSCar at hand, and I tried to do ... you know the soundtrack of Flashdance, the piece entitled “Love Theme from Flashdance” by the beautiful Helen St. John? Well, the bass you hear at the beginning of the song. I've been listening to that record from time to time for years, and every time I do it I notice that every song has some fabulous 80s sounds. Result? With impOSCar I immediately found the right sound! Surely what made the difference was the filter, which turned out to be very sweet even by raising the resonance a little, giving the sound the right presence and that great depth in the low frequency range. I didn't continue to program other sounds because I was so fascinated by that bass that I continued to play the impOSCar with the left and the piano on my Motif with the right at such a volume that I stopped only when, turning towards the speakers, I realized that the cones of my Tannoys were about to take off!
Minimonsta:
It's him, the little BIG monster! Earlier I said that one of the rivals of OSCar was the MiniMoog, who doesn't know what I'm talking about, raise your hand and… do an hour of penance! Anyone who is a fan of synthesizers cannot fail to know the MiniMoog (Fig. 5), perhaps the most famous work of the "father of synthesizers" Bob Moog, which entered the market in 1970 and is still widely used and, above all, valued at weight of gold on the second-hand market. Remained in production until 1982, about thirteen thousand copies were sold all over the world, but it is as if that were not enough, so much so that Moog Music recently thought of producing a hybrid digital-analog reissue.
Okay, forgiving those few penitents who do not yet know what a MiniMoog is made of, let me briefly say that it is a three and a half octave monophonic synthesizer, built in a small elegant wooden casing with the liftable control panel, based on three separately selectable and tunable waveform oscillators, and on the inimitable Moog low-pass filter four poles at 24 dB on octave. Additionally, one of the three oscillators can be used as a source for an LFO, there is a pink or white noise generator, and the filter has the ability to go into feedback. In addition to all this, the minimansta from GMedia adds an LFO and an XADSR both externally modulated and able to control any parameter of the synth; we also have the possibility of playing in polyphony, a delay effect, dynamic response, full MIDI implementation and the exclusive control system Melohman of ohm force which allows for timbre variations by morphing in real time between twelve different sounds. In fact, in the minimosta interface, apart from the beauty of the singular metallic black knobs typical of Moog instruments, that octave stands out with the inverted black and white colors and with leds on the keys. (Fig. 6) The graphic interface is quite faithful to the layout of the original instrument, the controls are arranged in a logical and very intuitive order, therefore it is very easy to create your own sound; in the center there is a display showing the list of presets and the keys to store new presets and load the ones already supplied, which are several dozen, including an exclusive collection created in collaboration with Rick Wakeman, the legendary keyboard player of Yes.
Let's say that this plug-in works on two levels: one concerns the traditional functioning of the MiniMoog, and the second concerns the implementation of the new features introduced by GMedia and Ohm Force. In fact, when any of the instrument's controls are modulated by the additional LFO or XADSR, it turns blue. To make this assignment, simply click on the desired control and then assign the amount of LFO or XADSR ("AMP") And then adjust the relative parameters. Well, all of this opens up a whole new world of tonal possibilities while enjoying the spectacular sound of the MiniMoog and its great low-pass filter. The system Melohman, as I said before, it allows you to switch from one sound to another using the keys of the keyboard, just like in a Hammond organ, where the first octave has the colors inverted and serves to change the sounds on the fly (this is where they got the idea those of Ohm Force!). In fact, to the right of the presets display, there are twelve black and white buttons that are used to store "snapshots", or snapshots of the current settings, and assign them to each of the corresponding keys on the Melohman keyboard, so that, for example, passing through the snapshot stored on the C to the one stored on the E, you see the controls move by themselves from one position to another, and the sound effects the transformation in a fluid and transparent way. And all twelve snapshots are stored within the same preset. This makes the minimonsta a hilarious instrument to use not only in the studio but also live! But the sound? Not long ago I had the opportunity (or should I say "luck"?) To be able to play and listen carefully to a real Moog Modular, that beast of synthesizer that Keith Emerson used to place on his Hammond organ during concerts. I must say that I was impressed, never felt so much power and harmonic richness coming out of an "electrophone". The MiniMoog essentially has the same oscillators and filter as a Modular. When I played minimonsta I still had the sound of the Moog Modular in mind and I was looking for the same tone but… something was wrong. Oh yes, in fact I forgot that I was dealing with software, and as such, the sound is also conditioned by all the surrounding technology, namely the sound card, the cables, and the monitoring system. At this point I focused not so much on his "solo" character but on his ability to get noticed within a complete mix. I then loaded the tracks of a song I was working on these days, mute the bass track currently played by the Japanese freeware Synth1, and copied it to an empty track to which I assigned the minimonsta. After less than five minutes I had found a synth bass sound much richer and more present than what I got before with Synth1, and without even having to work so much on the controls: simply a superimposition of sawtooth, square and triangular, resonance and cutoff at 9. Magic! The difference I noticed is that Synth1's bass disappeared into the mix when it dropped below 90-100 Hz and went out too much when it was around 110 Hz (the A of the second octave), while that of the minimonsta remained homogeneous and present for all notes used. In short, if a plug-in is satisfactory within a mix it means that it is really a reustic instrument, right? Then I wanted to take away another whim: you know "Chameleon", the famous song by Herbie Hancock? In that song there is a solo played with the MiniMoog, and the bass you hear at the beginning should also be from the MiniMoog. With a little bit of tweaking on the potentiometers I was able to get that sound back and play the solo with the great Herbie… but as for the performance he won!
Oddity:
In English it means "weird", and in fact we are not that far from the feeling I felt when I played this plugin. oddity is meant to be the simulation ofARP Odyssey (Fig. 7), very famous synth that I remember trying maybe 12 or 13 years ago in a shop. Introduced in 1972 by American Recording & Performance Co., it wanted to be the answer to the MiniMoog, so much so that it also copied the “Moog ladder filter”, Also getting a lawsuit from Moog. The simulation proposed by GMedia is quite faithful, starting from the interface (Fig. 8) with the same colors as the version "blackface"And the same provision of controls. In this case the software additions were very few, in fact Oddity responds to dynamics and supports MIDI controls and automation, but it is not polyphonic and there are no additional effects or other types of controls outside the standard ones. The structure of the instrument is quite simple, based on two synchronizable oscillators and able to operate also in mode dual, the Minimoog-like low-pass filter, a cascaded high-pass filter, an LFO, white or pink noise generator, portamento and global ADSR. Very simple as a structure but able to generate very nice lead sounds, lasers, sweeps and anything else that has a 70s character. A good simulation, in my opinion, but not as exciting as impOSCar or minimonsta.
Conclusions:
GMedia plug-ins are all in VST, RTAS or AU formats for Mac or Win, install without problems and all have a very slight impact on the CPU. The passion that the developers have put in imitating the original tools is undoubtedly comparable only to the success obtained by the excellent success of their products. M-tron is a real gem, a precious digital database of the mythical sounds of the Mellotron, setOSChar undoubtedly represents one of the most successful VA synths, minimansta it's a great compromise for those who would like a MiniMoog handy but can't afford a real one, and oddity it is certainly ideal for the most imaginative.
American company M-Audio recently became the official distributor of the "Helen St. John" version of GForce products, the already popular virtual synthesizers produced by GMedia Music. Thanks to their Italian distributor SoundWave, we were able to test them for CM2 readers. M-Tron, impOSCar, Minimonsta, and Oddity are the names of the four synths that made our speakers vibrate during our tests. And I swear, we felt way too many vibrations!
M-Tron:
The first plug-in I wanted to try is called M-tron, a simulation of the famous Mellotron. (Fig.1) The concept of its functioning was initially invented in 1946 by the American Harry Chamberlin and it was, in fact, a kind of organ, with a rather funny appearance, which inside had a series of magnetic tapes and heads, one for each key, and a final preamp, obviously, tube. When a key was pressed, the respective tape would play back until the recording ended, usually lasting about 7 seconds, and when the key was released a spring mechanism would rewind the tape quickly. The most famous sounds recorded on the Mellotron tapes were a flute, a human voice choir and a string ensemble, but in fact, over the years to come, dozens of sets of tapes were produced in order to reproduce the sounds. more disparate, from symphony orchestras to sound effects, from human voices to real band arrangements, from grand piano to Hammond organ. Many artists have made this instrument famous among which I would mention i genesis, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, but those who used it for the first time in a commercial recording were the Beatles which in 1967 they published Strawberry Fields Forever, arousing a strong curiosity among the musicians of the time in wanting to discover which instrument was able to reproduce that strange sound of a flute ... polyphonic! At the time the Mellotron had become of British production, since its project, over the years, passed through the hands of several engineers and astute sellers, who were interested in improving its functioning, some in benefiting from that promising novelty. It remained in production until the early 80s, when digital samplers began to spread on a large scale. To this day, there are very few working models still in circulation, and it's rare to find one for sale, and it's certainly even rarer to find tape sets. But evidently the GMedia guys had no difficulty in finding their Mellotron to study and imitate in a computer environment, and certainly they were very lucky to find almost all the tape sets in circulation! In fact, what impressed me most about M-Tron was the great variety of sounds included in the plug-in, 103 to be exact, for a total of about two gigabytes of samples! Each tape was sampled individually from start to finish, faithfully. And when I say “faithfully” I mean that in every sample there is really everything, even the hiss, the distortions, the drop-outs and the pitch changes. After all, I would have been quite disappointed if, on the contrary, I had found perfect and clean sounds: it would surely have been an unfaithful imitation! Well, to be honest, there is something unfaithful in the plug-in, and it is the graphical interface. In my opinion it leaves something to be desired, and the controls do not quite correspond to those of the original instrument (Fig. 2), especially the three-position ABC selector which in the original instrument was used to select one of the three tracks present on each tape, allowing the player to change the sound as if it were a real preset. On the other hand, on M-Tron this selector is used to open the control panel and perform various operations: on A the panel is closed, up B access to two horizontal sliders for the adjustment of Attack and Release (controls obviously not present on the original instrument) and on C you access the menu for loading the sample-set. However, cigarette burns and coffee cup stains have their own charm! Beyond this small, I would dare to say "poetic license" regarding the ABC selector, GMedia has not taken any other liberties, therefore we will not find filters or effects or anything else that goes beyond the simple concept of the real Mellotron. The sound is amazing, obviously monaural, the extension and polyphony are complete (35 notes), the impact on the computer's CPU is almost imperceptible. A real hoot when it comes to wanting to reproduce the sounds of the 60s and 70s with your computer, but the fact remains that this plug-in can be useful in more recent musical genres such as ambient, nu-metal, lo-fi, gothic , new age etc. especially when paired with some good effects processor.
impOSCar:
What's in Oxford in England? One of the most famous universities in the world, you would say. Right, but at least until a few years ago there was also the Oxford Synthesizer Company, for friends “OSC”, a music industry with a short life but which since 1982 has left a milestone in the history of modern synthesizers: OSCar. (Fig. 3) Well, maybe it was a tribute to Oscar Wilde who had attended university in those parts about a century earlier? Meanwhile, GMedia thought about paying a big tribute to OSC with this amazing plug-in renamed "setOSChar".
Here they worked a lot with the graphics, and too well I would say. The graphical interface is essentially the same as the real instrument, same colors, same positioning of the controls, and even those hateful protuberances alternating between one section and another. (Fig. 4) The OSCar was a monophonic synth, based on two DCOs (Digitally Controlled Oscillator) capable of providing a sawtooth, a triangular waveform and a fixed or variable amplitude square, followed by two filters 12 dB on octave, low-pass, high-pass or band-pass, and the ability to pair them to get a single powerful 24 dB octave filter, with cut-off e resonance and an ADSR dedicated to it. But the big news of this synth that distinguished it from its peers and rivals MiniMoog and ARP Odyssey, was the possibility of creating completely new waveforms based on an additive synthesis that allowed to add up to 24 harmonics using the keys of the keyboard. Also, as we are already in the digital age, the OSCar allowed presets to be stored, had a small built-in sequencer and, in the second revision of 1984, also had MIDI. All this has been perfectly replicated in impOSCar, plus the possibility of polyphony, a built-in effects processor that offers nice delay and unnecessary chorus, dynamic response of the keyboard and all the advantages of software synthesizers such as full implementation. MIDI, remote control via i Control Change assignable software, host software automation support and a few hundred presets. I have never had the opportunity to personally try the original OSCar, but with this software simulation I must admit that I had a lot of fun, the possibilities of creating great analog sounds are almost endless, and even if at the beginning I was running a little eyes because of the enormous confusion that is in the arrangement of the controls, after a while I became familiar with it and I began to do my litmus test: find the exact sound I have in mind. In this case, being the emulation of a mono-synth, I wanted to put aside all the new possibilities offered by the virtual environment and use it as if I had the real OSCar at hand, and I tried to do ... you know the soundtrack of Flashdance, the piece entitled “Love Theme from Flashdance” by the beautiful Helen St. John? Well, the bass you hear at the beginning of the song. I've been listening to that record from time to time for years, and every time I do it I notice that every song has some fabulous 80s sounds. Result? With impOSCar I immediately found the right sound! Surely what made the difference was the filter, which turned out to be very sweet even by raising the resonance a little, giving the sound the right presence and that great depth in the low frequency range. I didn't continue to program other sounds because I was so fascinated by that bass that I continued to play the impOSCar with the left and the piano on my Motif with the right at such a volume that I stopped only when, turning towards the speakers, I realized that the cones of my Tannoys were about to take off!
Minimonsta:
It's him, the little BIG monster! Earlier I said that one of the rivals of OSCar was the MiniMoog, who doesn't know what I'm talking about, raise your hand and… do an hour of penance! Anyone who is a fan of synthesizers cannot fail to know the MiniMoog (Fig. 5), perhaps the most famous work of the "father of synthesizers" Bob Moog, which entered the market in 1970 and is still widely used and, above all, valued at weight of gold on the second-hand market. Remained in production until 1982, about thirteen thousand copies were sold all over the world, but it is as if that were not enough, so much so that Moog Music recently thought of producing a hybrid digital-analog reissue.
Okay, forgiving those few penitents who do not yet know what a MiniMoog is made of, let me briefly say that it is a three and a half octave monophonic synthesizer, built in a small elegant wooden casing with the liftable control panel, based on three separately selectable and tunable waveform oscillators, and on the inimitable Moog low-pass filter four poles at 24 dB on octave. Additionally, one of the three oscillators can be used as a source for an LFO, there is a pink or white noise generator, and the filter has the ability to go into feedback. In addition to all this, the minimansta from GMedia adds an LFO and an XADSR both externally modulated and able to control any parameter of the synth; we also have the possibility of playing in polyphony, a delay effect, dynamic response, full MIDI implementation and the exclusive control system Melohman of ohm force which allows for timbre variations by morphing in real time between twelve different sounds. In fact, in the minimosta interface, apart from the beauty of the singular metallic black knobs typical of Moog instruments, that octave stands out with the inverted black and white colors and with leds on the keys. (Fig. 6) The graphic interface is quite faithful to the layout of the original instrument, the controls are arranged in a logical and very intuitive order, therefore it is very easy to create your own sound; in the center there is a display showing the list of presets and the keys to store new presets and load the ones already supplied, which are several dozen, including an exclusive collection created in collaboration with Rick Wakeman, the legendary keyboard player of Yes.
Let's say that this plug-in works on two levels: one concerns the traditional functioning of the MiniMoog, and the second concerns the implementation of the new features introduced by GMedia and Ohm Force. In fact, when any of the instrument's controls are modulated by the additional LFO or XADSR, it turns blue. To make this assignment, simply click on the desired control and then assign the amount of LFO or XADSR ("AMP") And then adjust the relative parameters. Well, all of this opens up a whole new world of tonal possibilities while enjoying the spectacular sound of the MiniMoog and its great low-pass filter. The system Melohman, as I said before, it allows you to switch from one sound to another using the keys of the keyboard, just like in a Hammond organ, where the first octave has the colors inverted and serves to change the sounds on the fly (this is where they got the idea those of Ohm Force!). In fact, to the right of the presets display, there are twelve black and white buttons that are used to store "snapshots", or snapshots of the current settings, and assign them to each of the corresponding keys on the Melohman keyboard, so that, for example, passing through the snapshot stored on the C to the one stored on the E, you see the controls move by themselves from one position to another, and the sound effects the transformation in a fluid and transparent way. And all twelve snapshots are stored within the same preset. This makes the minimonsta a hilarious instrument to use not only in the studio but also live! But the sound? Not long ago I had the opportunity (or should I say "luck"?) To be able to play and listen carefully to a real Moog Modular, that beast of synthesizer that Keith Emerson used to place on his Hammond organ during concerts. I must say that I was impressed, never felt so much power and harmonic richness coming out of an "electrophone". The MiniMoog essentially has the same oscillators and filter as a Modular. When I played minimonsta I still had the sound of the Moog Modular in mind and I was looking for the same tone but… something was wrong. Oh yes, in fact I forgot that I was dealing with software, and as such, the sound is also conditioned by all the surrounding technology, namely the sound card, the cables, and the monitoring system. At this point I focused not so much on his "solo" character but on his ability to get noticed within a complete mix. I then loaded the tracks of a song I was working on these days, mute the bass track currently played by the Japanese freeware Synth1, and copied it to an empty track to which I assigned the minimonsta. After less than five minutes I had found a synth bass sound much richer and more present than what I got before with Synth1, and without even having to work so much on the controls: simply a superimposition of sawtooth, square and triangular, resonance and cutoff at 9. Magic! The difference I noticed is that Synth1's bass disappeared into the mix when it dropped below 90-100 Hz and went out too much when it was around 110 Hz (the A of the second octave), while that of the minimonsta remained homogeneous and present for all notes used. In short, if a plug-in is satisfactory within a mix it means that it is really a reustic instrument, right? Then I wanted to take away another whim: you know "Chameleon", the famous song by Herbie Hancock? In that song there is a solo played with the MiniMoog, and the bass you hear at the beginning should also be from the MiniMoog. With a little bit of tweaking on the potentiometers I was able to get that sound back and play the solo with the great Herbie… but as for the performance he won!
Oddity:
In English it means "weird", and in fact we are not that far from the feeling I felt when I played this plugin. oddity is meant to be the simulation ofARP Odyssey (Fig. 7), very famous synth that I remember trying maybe 12 or 13 years ago in a shop. Introduced in 1972 by American Recording & Performance Co., it wanted to be the answer to the MiniMoog, so much so that it also copied the “Moog ladder filter”, Also getting a lawsuit from Moog. The simulation proposed by GMedia is quite faithful, starting from the interface (Fig. 8) with the same colors as the version "blackface"And the same provision of controls. In this case the software additions were very few, in fact Oddity responds to dynamics and supports MIDI controls and automation, but it is not polyphonic and there are no additional effects or other types of controls outside the standard ones. The structure of the instrument is quite simple, based on two synchronizable oscillators and able to operate also in mode dual, the Minimoog-like low-pass filter, a cascaded high-pass filter, an LFO, white or pink noise generator, portamento and global ADSR. Very simple as a structure but able to generate very nice lead sounds, lasers, sweeps and anything else that has a 70s character. A good simulation, in my opinion, but not as exciting as impOSCar or minimonsta.
Conclusions:
GMedia plug-ins are all in VST, RTAS or AU formats for Mac or Win, install without problems and all have a very slight impact on the CPU. The passion that the developers have put in imitating the original tools is undoubtedly comparable only to the success obtained by the excellent success of their products. M-tron is a real gem, a precious digital database of the mythical sounds of the Mellotron, setOSChar undoubtedly represents one of the most successful VA synths, minimansta it's a great compromise for those who would like a MiniMoog handy but can't afford a real one, and oddity it is certainly ideal for the most imaginative.
American company M-Audio recently became the official distributor of the "Helen St. John" version of GForce products, the already popular virtual synthesizers produced by GMedia Music. Thanks to their Italian distributor SoundWave, we were able to test them for CM2 readers. M-Tron, impOSCar, Minimonsta, and Oddity are the names of the four synths that made our speakers vibrate during our tests. And I swear, we felt way too many vibrations!
M-Tron:
The first plug-in I wanted to try is called M-tron, a simulation of the famous Mellotron. (Fig.1) The concept of its functioning was initially invented in 1946 by the American Harry Chamberlin and it was, in fact, a kind of organ, with a rather funny appearance, which inside had a series of magnetic tapes and heads, one for each key, and a final preamp, obviously, tube. When a key was pressed, the respective tape would play back until the recording ended, usually lasting about 7 seconds, and when the key was released a spring mechanism would rewind the tape quickly. The most famous sounds recorded on the Mellotron tapes were a flute, a human voice choir and a string ensemble, but in fact, over the years to come, dozens of sets of tapes were produced in order to reproduce the sounds. more disparate, from symphony orchestras to sound effects, from human voices to real band arrangements, from grand piano to Hammond organ. Many artists have made this instrument famous among which I would mention i genesis, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, but those who used it for the first time in a commercial recording were the Beatles which in 1967 they published Strawberry Fields Forever, arousing a strong curiosity among the musicians of the time in wanting to discover which instrument was able to reproduce that strange sound of a flute ... polyphonic! At the time the Mellotron had become of British production, since its project, over the years, passed through the hands of several engineers and astute sellers, who were interested in improving its functioning, some in benefiting from that promising novelty. It remained in production until the early 80s, when digital samplers began to spread on a large scale. To this day, there are very few working models still in circulation, and it's rare to find one for sale, and it's certainly even rarer to find tape sets. But evidently the GMedia guys had no difficulty in finding their Mellotron to study and imitate in a computer environment, and certainly they were very lucky to find almost all the tape sets in circulation! In fact, what impressed me most about M-Tron was the great variety of sounds included in the plug-in, 103 to be exact, for a total of about two gigabytes of samples! Each tape was sampled individually from start to finish, faithfully. And when I say “faithfully” I mean that in every sample there is really everything, even the hiss, the distortions, the drop-outs and the pitch changes. After all, I would have been quite disappointed if, on the contrary, I had found perfect and clean sounds: it would surely have been an unfaithful imitation! Well, to be honest, there is something unfaithful in the plug-in, and it is the graphical interface. In my opinion it leaves something to be desired, and the controls do not quite correspond to those of the original instrument (Fig. 2), especially the three-position ABC selector which in the original instrument was used to select one of the three tracks present on each tape, allowing the player to change the sound as if it were a real preset. On the other hand, on M-Tron this selector is used to open the control panel and perform various operations: on A the panel is closed, up B access to two horizontal sliders for the adjustment of Attack and Release (controls obviously not present on the original instrument) and on C you access the menu for loading the sample-set. However, cigarette burns and coffee cup stains have their own charm! Beyond this small, I would dare to say "poetic license" regarding the ABC selector, GMedia has not taken any other liberties, therefore we will not find filters or effects or anything else that goes beyond the simple concept of the real Mellotron. The sound is amazing, obviously monaural, the extension and polyphony are complete (35 notes), the impact on the computer's CPU is almost imperceptible. A real hoot when it comes to wanting to reproduce the sounds of the 60s and 70s with your computer, but the fact remains that this plug-in can be useful in more recent musical genres such as ambient, nu-metal, lo-fi, gothic , new age etc. especially when paired with some good effects processor.
impOSCar:
What's in Oxford in England? One of the most famous universities in the world, you would say. Right, but at least until a few years ago there was also the Oxford Synthesizer Company, for friends “OSC”, a music industry with a short life but which since 1982 has left a milestone in the history of modern synthesizers: OSCar. (Fig. 3) Well, maybe it was a tribute to Oscar Wilde who had attended university in those parts about a century earlier? Meanwhile, GMedia thought about paying a big tribute to OSC with this amazing plug-in renamed "setOSChar".
Here they worked a lot with the graphics, and too well I would say. The graphical interface is essentially the same as the real instrument, same colors, same positioning of the controls, and even those hateful protuberances alternating between one section and another. (Fig. 4) The OSCar was a monophonic synth, based on two DCOs (Digitally Controlled Oscillator) capable of providing a sawtooth, a triangular waveform and a fixed or variable amplitude square, followed by two filters 12 dB on octave, low-pass, high-pass or band-pass, and the ability to pair them to get a single powerful 24 dB octave filter, with cut-off e resonance and an ADSR dedicated to it. But the big news of this synth that distinguished it from its peers and rivals MiniMoog and ARP Odyssey, was the possibility of creating completely new waveforms based on an additive synthesis that allowed to add up to 24 harmonics using the keys of the keyboard. Also, as we are already in the digital age, the OSCar allowed presets to be stored, had a small built-in sequencer and, in the second revision of 1984, also had MIDI. All this has been perfectly replicated in impOSCar, plus the possibility of polyphony, a built-in effects processor that offers nice delay and unnecessary chorus, dynamic response of the keyboard and all the advantages of software synthesizers such as full implementation. MIDI, remote control via i Control Change assignable software, host software automation support and a few hundred presets. I have never had the opportunity to personally try the original OSCar, but with this software simulation I must admit that I had a lot of fun, the possibilities of creating great analog sounds are almost endless, and even if at the beginning I was running a little eyes because of the enormous confusion that is in the arrangement of the controls, after a while I became familiar with it and I began to do my litmus test: find the exact sound I have in mind. In this case, being the emulation of a mono-synth, I wanted to put aside all the new possibilities offered by the virtual environment and use it as if I had the real OSCar at hand, and I tried to do ... you know the soundtrack of Flashdance, the piece entitled “Love Theme from Flashdance” by the beautiful Helen St. John? Well, the bass you hear at the beginning of the song. I've been listening to that record from time to time for years, and every time I do it I notice that every song has some fabulous 80s sounds. Result? With impOSCar I immediately found the right sound! Surely what made the difference was the filter, which turned out to be very sweet even by raising the resonance a little, giving the sound the right presence and that great depth in the low frequency range. I didn't continue to program other sounds because I was so fascinated by that bass that I continued to play the impOSCar with the left and the piano on my Motif with the right at such a volume that I stopped only when, turning towards the speakers, I realized that the cones of my Tannoys were about to take off!
Minimonsta:
It's him, the little BIG monster! Earlier I said that one of the rivals of OSCar was the MiniMoog, who doesn't know what I'm talking about, raise your hand and… do an hour of penance! Anyone who is a fan of synthesizers cannot fail to know the MiniMoog (Fig. 5), perhaps the most famous work of the "father of synthesizers" Bob Moog, which entered the market in 1970 and is still widely used and, above all, valued at weight of gold on the second-hand market. Remained in production until 1982, about thirteen thousand copies were sold all over the world, but it is as if that were not enough, so much so that Moog Music recently thought of producing a hybrid digital-analog reissue.
Okay, forgiving those few penitents who do not yet know what a MiniMoog is made of, let me briefly say that it is a three and a half octave monophonic synthesizer, built in a small elegant wooden casing with the liftable control panel, based on three separately selectable and tunable waveform oscillators, and on the inimitable Moog low-pass filter four poles at 24 dB on octave. Additionally, one of the three oscillators can be used as a source for an LFO, there is a pink or white noise generator, and the filter has the ability to go into feedback. In addition to all this, the minimansta from GMedia adds an LFO and an XADSR both externally modulated and able to control any parameter of the synth; we also have the possibility of playing in polyphony, a delay effect, dynamic response, full MIDI implementation and the exclusive control system Melohman of ohm force which allows for timbre variations by morphing in real time between twelve different sounds. In fact, in the minimosta interface, apart from the beauty of the singular metallic black knobs typical of Moog instruments, that octave stands out with the inverted black and white colors and with leds on the keys. (Fig. 6) The graphic interface is quite faithful to the layout of the original instrument, the controls are arranged in a logical and very intuitive order, therefore it is very easy to create your own sound; in the center there is a display showing the list of presets and the keys to store new presets and load the ones already supplied, which are several dozen, including an exclusive collection created in collaboration with Rick Wakeman, the legendary keyboard player of Yes.
Let's say that this plug-in works on two levels: one concerns the traditional functioning of the MiniMoog, and the second concerns the implementation of the new features introduced by GMedia and Ohm Force. In fact, when any of the instrument's controls are modulated by the additional LFO or XADSR, it turns blue. To make this assignment, simply click on the desired control and then assign the amount of LFO or XADSR ("AMP") And then adjust the relative parameters. Well, all of this opens up a whole new world of tonal possibilities while enjoying the spectacular sound of the MiniMoog and its great low-pass filter. The system Melohman, as I said before, it allows you to switch from one sound to another using the keys of the keyboard, just like in a Hammond organ, where the first octave has the colors inverted and serves to change the sounds on the fly (this is where they got the idea those of Ohm Force!). In fact, to the right of the presets display, there are twelve black and white buttons that are used to store "snapshots", or snapshots of the current settings, and assign them to each of the corresponding keys on the Melohman keyboard, so that, for example, passing through the snapshot stored on the C to the one stored on the E, you see the controls move by themselves from one position to another, and the sound effects the transformation in a fluid and transparent way. And all twelve snapshots are stored within the same preset. This makes the minimonsta a hilarious instrument to use not only in the studio but also live! But the sound? Not long ago I had the opportunity (or should I say "luck"?) To be able to play and listen carefully to a real Moog Modular, that beast of synthesizer that Keith Emerson used to place on his Hammond organ during concerts. I must say that I was impressed, never felt so much power and harmonic richness coming out of an "electrophone". The MiniMoog essentially has the same oscillators and filter as a Modular. When I played minimonsta I still had the sound of the Moog Modular in mind and I was looking for the same tone but… something was wrong. Oh yes, in fact I forgot that I was dealing with software, and as such, the sound is also conditioned by all the surrounding technology, namely the sound card, the cables, and the monitoring system. At this point I focused not so much on his "solo" character but on his ability to get noticed within a complete mix. I then loaded the tracks of a song I was working on these days, mute the bass track currently played by the Japanese freeware Synth1, and copied it to an empty track to which I assigned the minimonsta. After less than five minutes I had found a synth bass sound much richer and more present than what I got before with Synth1, and without even having to work so much on the controls: simply a superimposition of sawtooth, square and triangular, resonance and cutoff at 9. Magic! The difference I noticed is that Synth1's bass disappeared into the mix when it dropped below 90-100 Hz and went out too much when it was around 110 Hz (the A of the second octave), while that of the minimonsta remained homogeneous and present for all notes used. In short, if a plug-in is satisfactory within a mix it means that it is really a reustic instrument, right? Then I wanted to take away another whim: you know "Chameleon", the famous song by Herbie Hancock? In that song there is a solo played with the MiniMoog, and the bass you hear at the beginning should also be from the MiniMoog. With a little bit of tweaking on the potentiometers I was able to get that sound back and play the solo with the great Herbie… but as for the performance he won!
Oddity:
In English it means "weird", and in fact we are not that far from the feeling I felt when I played this plugin. oddity is meant to be the simulation ofARP Odyssey (Fig. 7), very famous synth that I remember trying maybe 12 or 13 years ago in a shop. Introduced in 1972 by American Recording & Performance Co., it wanted to be the answer to the MiniMoog, so much so that it also copied the “Moog ladder filter”, Also getting a lawsuit from Moog. The simulation proposed by GMedia is quite faithful, starting from the interface (Fig. 8) with the same colors as the version "blackface"And the same provision of controls. In this case the software additions were very few, in fact Oddity responds to dynamics and supports MIDI controls and automation, but it is not polyphonic and there are no additional effects or other types of controls outside the standard ones. The structure of the instrument is quite simple, based on two synchronizable oscillators and able to operate also in mode dual, the Minimoog-like low-pass filter, a cascaded high-pass filter, an LFO, white or pink noise generator, portamento and global ADSR. Very simple as a structure but able to generate very nice lead sounds, lasers, sweeps and anything else that has a 70s character. A good simulation, in my opinion, but not as exciting as impOSCar or minimonsta.
Conclusions:
GMedia plug-ins are all in VST, RTAS or AU formats for Mac or Win, install without problems and all have a very slight impact on the CPU. The passion that the developers have put in imitating the original tools is undoubtedly comparable only to the success obtained by the excellent success of their products. M-tron is a real gem, a precious digital database of the mythical sounds of the Mellotron, setOSChar undoubtedly represents one of the most successful VA synths, minimansta it's a great compromise for those who would like a MiniMoog handy but can't afford a real one, and oddity it is certainly ideal for the most imaginative.
