Review: Cherry Audio Harmonia Synthesizer
4,5 / 5,0 | 
Cherry Audio Harmonia · Source: Cherry Audio
Cherry Audio Harmonia · Source: Cherry Audio
Cherry Audio Harmonia · Source: Cherry Audio
Cherry Audio Harmonia · Source: Cherry Audio
Cherry Audio’s Harmonia sees the team set aside their interests in synths of old and refocus on something new, exciting and rather unique!
Many things can be said of Cherry Audio. One thing that can’t be levelled at them is that they sit on their laurels. The dust has hardly settled since they launched their Octave Cat synth and now we have another instrument for the ever-increasing collection. Following in the footsteps of Dreamsynth and Sines, we now have Harmonia.
The name might invoke images of old organs or mouth-blown plastic oddities, but Harmonia is anything but. What we have here is something new, original and hugely enjoyable.
What Is Cherry Audio Harmonia?
Like its predecessors, Harmonia sets out to be something that is both unique and useful. The clue to Harmonia’s abilities is in its name. It might be easier to think of Harmonia as an additive synth. Additive synths typically take sine waves of different harmonic frequencies and layer them to create complex waveform structures. The Fairlight CMI set out to do this with its FFT additive synthesis engine. More successfully, Kawai exploited this technology in a number of their synths.
Cherry Audio Harmonia · Source: Cherry Audio
Harmonia has two oscillators and instead of just pure sine waves, it offers a wide range of 285 (mostly stereo) sample-based waveforms and the ability for sample import. This instantly has you creating some pretty cool sounds. Manipulating these waveforms harmonically or semi-tonally is where Harmonia begins to excel. You can now begin to sweep through the harmonics or semitones in a way that’s not too dissimilar to wavetable synthesis.
Further controls allow you to set initial volume levels for each of the eight harmonic steps. These are modulated from a number of sources such as the four LFOs on offer. These LFOs can also be used as extra envelope generators!
Simple, Productive Fun
What comes across very quickly with Harmonia is how quick and intuitive its interface is. There’s nothing worse, in my very humble opinion, than getting a new synth and then having to spend ages learning how to get something half-decent out of it beyond the presets. Whilst Harmonia has superb presets in abundance, the interface is simple, straightforward and well laid out so you can instantly start getting into it.
Cherry Audio Harmonia · Source: Cherry Audio
Each oscillator produces up to eight harmonics or semitones. You can stack a bunch of harmonics to achieve a rich and complex sound. A bit of modulation can add width and movement to that patch. You can even set each harmonic to trigger in a sequencer-like fashion.
Beyond Harmonics
Of course, the oscillators are just the start of the fun. Harmonia contains a plethora of useful sound-shaping tools. I’ve already mentioned the four independent LFOs. These are syncable and contain ten waveforms each. There’s an eight-slot mod-matrix and 17 different FX. There are seven different filter types and separate envelopes for filter and amp. Support for aftertouch is included but no MPE support as yet, it would seem.
Cherry Audio Harmonia · Source: Cherry Audio
This is all wrapped up in Cherry Audio’s superb design with a scalable UI. Over 350 presets are included with add-on banks available at launch.
Final Thoughts Cherry Audio Harmonia
Cherry Audio’s Harmonia is a very rich-sounding synth. If I have one criticism, it would be that it is much more suited to creating rich, evolving pads and drones than beefy bass lines or leads. But then nobody has a dig at a Minimoog for being a bit rubbish at pads! What Harmonia does is deliver deep, sonic complexity with consummate ease. If you’re looking for something that delivers interesting and evolving textures, this is it. If you’re a fan of wavetable sounds ‘a la’ PPG, this can go there. Equally, it can do rich, warm pads and harsh, metallic timbres.
And as always with Cherry Audio, there’s that amazing price point. An RRP of $69 but with intro pricing at $49. There are soft synths out there that deliver far less for far more. This is another clear-cut bargain and essential sonic tool.
More Information
Cherry Audio’s Harmonia is available now at the introductory price of $49.
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2 responses to “Review: Cherry Audio Harmonia Synthesizer”
I would rather buy an old K5000 to get a better experience. Hardware rules.
Love softsynths – maybe one day I’ll have an airplane hanger full of synths with me sitting in the middle like Vangelis, but there’s decades between here and there. This review was exactly what I was looking for, THANKS!