UVI Falcon 3 – UVI’s Flagship Instrument Gets Bigger Wings
UVI Falcon 3 delivers a significant upgrade to their flagship instrument with some exciting new features, workflows, effects and a revamped preset library.
UVI’s Falcon instrument has, rather criminally in my opinion, flown under the radar of many. It seems to be overlooked for the likes of the significantly more poorly specified Kontakt. And yet those who own Falcon know that they have one of the most powerful software synths available. For the uninitiated, Falcon rose, phoenix-like, from the ashes of MOTU’s Mach Five. Mach Five, which stalled at version 3, was developed by UVI on behalf of MOTU. For reasons known only to a few, that relationship ended and Falcon became UVI’s centrepiece.
And now it has reached version 3 itself and boasts a whole roost of new features. Ok, I’ll stop with the bird-related puns.
Oscillators
Falcon 3 now sports three new oscillators in the shape of VOSIM, Bowed String and Harmonic Resonator. VOSIM is a formant-based oscillator that UVI says is a tribute to vintage vocal synths. Bowed String is pretty self-explanatory, really. A virtual bow and string with multiple articulation modes. The new Harmonic Resonator is probably the most interesting of the three. It features a multi-layer exciter that feeds into six tunable resonators. These resonators can also be coupled and the whole thing delivers some really great sounds.
Effects
Harmonic resonance isn’t confined to just the oscillators. There is a new Harmonic Resonator that can be applied to any of Falcon’s oscillators. Opal is a physically-modelled optical compressor. The new Ladder Filter clearly takes inspiration from the one made by Moog. The final new effect is Dispersor which is a transient shaper with variable frequency, order, spread and stages.
Event Processors
Falcon has always been resplendent with scripted event processors and version 3 adds more! Snowflakes and Motion Grid are very inspiring add-ons, as are Node Arp and Motion Grid. There’s improved MPE capability. Best of all, you can now control external software and hardware instruments via MIDI Out.
Workflows
Falcon has never been a difficult place to navigate around but Workspaces is a new feature that allows you to save and recall UI states. You can now move between customised views and use templates that appear at start-up to allow you to navigate straight to where you want to go. Falcon has also had a number of UI tweaks.
Preset library
Each new version of Falcon brings with it a superb set of factory presets. Version 3 is no exception. Aside from containing superbly designed sounds, the new preset library features UVI’s new custom UI panels. Each category gets a lovely visual background and key settings shown for easy tweaking. It just adds a touch of class and a lovely visual aspect to the whole program. And the new patches show off all the new features so you can get a feel of what they can do right out of the box. There’s even a set of presets specifically for Expressive E, which I am told is for their Touché. I’m guessing Osmose users will also get some mileage out of these?
The Best Just Got Better
UVI Falcon 3 represents the very best Falcon yet. Falcon has always been the Swiss Army knife of soft synths. It can do so much and for such little outlay. It can be the only synth you ever need, with consummate ease. And once you start adding in UVI’s brilliant sample libraries and Falcon expansion packs, it just wipes the floor with any other all-in-one package.
More Information
UVI Falcon 3 is available as a free update to all registered Falcon owners and subscribers to UVI’s Sonicpass service. If you’re new to Falcon, you can buy version 3 right now for €199.00, a saving of 43% on the full price of €349.00 which, in itself, is a steal for what you get.
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One response to “UVI Falcon 3 – UVI’s Flagship Instrument Gets Bigger Wings”
I dunno, Falcon and the UVI expansions seem to be well-regarded. They not as ubiquitous as Kontakt, but that’s probably due to their better copy-protection.