Highlights This Week: A Topographical Saturation Plugin and a New Synclavier
A roundup of some of the week's most exciting stories.
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This Week's Highlights: A Topographical Saturation Plugin and a New Synclavier · Source: Forever 89 / Andrew Ward
In the highlights this week, we discuss some exciting new developments in the pipeline and some fresh new releases on their way.
In this Article:
Highlights This Week
Without further ado, let’s catch up on the latest and greatest stories from the world of musical technology this week:
Highlights This Week: Synclavier ORK II
Synclavier was once the pinnacle of music production, so far ahead of everything else on the market in almost every department at a price few could even dream of owning. After staging something of a comeback with the Regen, a desktop FM synth, Synclavier has alluded to the future release of a keyboard named the ORK II.
Although it’s not clear whether we will get eyes on the prototype this year, the ORK II was featured in the latest Synclavier brochure that was circulated at the London Synth & Pedal Expo. With a combination of additive, subtractive, and FM synthesis capabilities, the ORK II promises to be a formidable instrument indeed.
Although not much is known about its connectivity features, there is a high-end digital effects engine featuring reverbs, delays, and other expressive mod effects. From the look of the layout, the ORK II is a performance-oriented instrument with touch-style pitch and mod controllers and a set of ribbon controllers. Look out for this one!
Highlights This Week: Scalar 3
After weeks and weeks of teaser videos unveiling the new features, Scalar 3 finally became officially available this week. If you missed the prerelease info, the popular chord generator tool just became a whole lot more powerful. Instead of just being a solution to help you out of a tight spot creatively, Scalar 3 is now a complete platform for your musical sketches.
Not only are the chord-generating features more extensive than ever, but you can now create, sequence, and edit your own progressions using Scalar’s arranger and use your plugin instruments and effects library to turn your sketches into unique-sounding demos.
Scalar can be used in your DAW or as a standalone tool, which opens up the possibilities. If you’re looking to up your game in the music theory department, Scalar is a great way to do it. Through analyzing progressions from your favourite songs, you can learn how to construct them, and Scalar will help you by suggesting options for each chord.
Highlights This Week: Forever 89 Topos
In other news, Forever 89 released a feisty new saturation and amp simulation plugin with a topographical theme. That’s right, Topos uses a map that allows you to navigate to the various amp and saturation settings or even traverse between them to create unique tones and textures with guitars and other instruments.
The Topos workflow lets you set your frequency range with the filter section, select your amp type, and then choose from a range of speaker options. This means you can not only shape the tone and texture of your signal, but also give it spatial characteristics to help push it wherever it needs to go in the mix.
Like Forever 89’s Visco drum plugin, Topos looks to provide a refreshing approach to saturation with all the hallmark features and enough detail to add a creative spark to your workflow, no matter what style of music you are looking to create. The speaker modeling section is particularly impressive, so the more you explore the controls, the more fun you can have.
Highlights This Week: Behringer DeepMind X
The new DeepMind X series was announced this week, and as expected, the anticipation always runs into the red when Behringer releases something new. If you’re a user of Behringer synths or you’ve followed the company’s progress in the space, you’ll know that the DeepMind is somewhat of an icon.
Believe it or not, this fan favourite celebrates its 10th anniversary, and to mark the occasion, Behringer has rereleased the DeepMind series under the new “X” designation. The DeepMind has always been a recreation of the DCO-based Roland Juno polyphonic synths from the early 1980s, but it certainly developed its own identity over the past decade.
Well, the new DeepMind X casts off the subtle nod and now proudly dons the Juno colour scheme with classically styled wooden side panels on the 37-key 6X, the 49-key 12X, and the 12XD desktop unit. While this bold rebrand makes absolute sense from a marketing perspective, there will be a good portion of the Behringer faithful left itching for a feature-heavy update.
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One response to “Highlights This Week: A Topographical Saturation Plugin and a New Synclavier”
Scaler 3 crashes Studio One, not sure if you have version 2 that you need this, but would leave it for a while until they’ve ironed out the bugs in it!