Innehållsförteckning för July 2022 från Future Music

Although the past year has hardly been a total drought in terms of new electronic music gear, we’ve definitely been going through a slight dry spell. A delayed repercussion of developers working through lockdowns – as well as the overall sluggish state of global supply chains – has meant that fewer standout new instruments were announced last year, and many of the ones that were are still yet to hit the market at this point. That’s why it was so pleasing to find such a rich selection of exciting new instruments to get hands-on with at this year’s Superbooth in Berlin, which took place a few weeks ago. There’s lots to look forward to throughout the rest of 2022 – head to the news section for a full rundown –…

Given its name, a sequel to Korg’s NTS-1 build-it-yourself synth isn’t a complete surprise, but the NTS-2’s design – along with the fact that it ships with a complementary book – does come a little out of leftfield. This is chiefly because the centrepiece of the hardware isn’t a synth engine but a 4-channel oscilloscope. This offers dual stereo inputs, which enable you to study, compare and overlap up to four signals at once. There are multiple colour display modes, and an interface that can be navigated with menu buttons and a clickable encoder. There’s also an FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) mode with a real-time spectrum analyser, along with a dual waveform generator. Each of the two oscillators can create sine, square, triangle, sawtooth, pulse and noise waveforms. As well…

Gamechanger Audio have been tinkering away in the workshop and have come up with Motor Synth MkII, a new version of the instrument released in 2019. This is powered by a unique motor oscillator engine, a system of electro-motors that are able to instantly change their rotation speed and produce musical notes. These motors can produce sine, saw, square and M waveforms, the latter being created by a set of electromagnetic pickups that are placed next to each motor’s rotating inner coils. New in Motor Synth MkII you’ll find separate multimode analogue filters, a redesigned modulation section, an additional digital voice equipped with a separate envelope, a portamento section, and a digital multimode filter. There are two separate Motor voices with four electro-motor oscillators each, with each voice capable of…

We’re used to seeing Eventide announcing plugins and guitar pedals, but Misha is something else. Set for release in the summer, what we have here is a Eurorack-compatible interval-based instrument and sequencer that promises nothing less than “a new way to make music”. Misha is designed to be played like a keyboard instrument, but the ‘interval’ angle and demo video above indicate that there’s something else going on, too. You can make sound via MIDI, control voltage or outputting waveforms with the audio jack, and there are external control templates for MIDI and QWERTY keyboards. 100 scales are standard, with slots for up to 100 user/custom scales. Scala support is here, too. The tone row-based sequencer is inspired by the compositional technique used in serial music, and you can control…

Not to be confused with electro house, which is a four-to-thefloor derivative, classic electro (sometimes called electro funk) developed in the early 1980s in parallel with hip-hop. Producers such as Arthur Baker and artists such as Cybotron were heavily influenced by both early hip hop and German pioneers Kraftwerk to create a hybrid genre that was both funky and techy. Despite having been around for ages, classic electro continues to re-emerge and reinvent itself with labels such as Transparent Sound and Underground Resistance and DJ/artists such as Helena Hauff all flying the classic electro flag in one way or another. Rhythmically the core beat works around a traditional alternating kick and snare pattern and thus has more in common with breakbeat and hip-hop than it does with house. From a…

Big beat music got mainstream in the late 1990s/early 2000s, with artists like The Chemical Brothers, Junkie XL, The Crystal Method, and of course Fatboy Slim – the genre is even named after a Brighton club night that he used to run. Big beat producers made full use of contemporary sampling technology, with breaks and other loops (often contained within an Akai S-series hardware sampler) playing alongside sampled vocals, and programmed beats, such as might be created on a Roland TR-909. As with hip-hop music previously, sample selection was everything, especially with the all-important breaks or beats that were the foundations of these new productions, and no vinyl stone was left unturned in the search, sometimes using quite unexpected material – see Fatboy Slim’s use of Ashes The Rain And…

Your track is finished, the I’s have been dotted and the T’s have been crossed. The mastering engineer has done their thing, and you’ve even changed the track’s name from “Crazy Idea 8”. Your piece of sonic art is nearly ready to be flung out to an unsuspecting public, but hang on, is it really so simple? Of course not. Here, another huge job is starting–and it’s not one about dynamic range compression, EQ or synth programming; it’s one about sample clearance, artist bios and press kits. Without the proper packaging and marketing groundwork, your unsuspecting public might be so unsuspecting that they miss you entirely. So what on earth should you do now? Or in other words, what should you have started in the days and weeks prior to…

>When social media platforms are used well, they can provide simple, powerful ways to network and engage with current and potential audiences for your music. The internet moves fast, so you should have a well-thought-out social media strategy with engaging, on-brand posts that keeps your music visible during the crucial weeks before and after the release. Choose the right platform Each social media platform has its own demographic, or at least its own approach, and you should take this into account when deciding where and how to promote your music once it’s been released. When it comes to reaching new fans, we think that currently the best platforms are TikTok and Instagram. TikTok is designed specifically to provide content to users from creators they don’t follow, but whom the TikTok…

>Britain’s leading Indian arts development trust, Milapfest, links with Loopmasters to present a sample set celebrating Indian music heritage and the players that keep it alive. The 295MB of content, pulled from the Instruments INDIA archive, covers a thrilling range of string playing, guitar sounds, sitars, flute riffs, lead loops, vocal phrases, and soft sampler patches. It also includes a wealth of other complementary recordings, taking in the sound of rhythmic bells, reed organs, hand drums, traditional bowed pieces, and other rare and classical instruments from across many regions and eras. The high-quality loops start at 70bpm and head right up into the 180s, so everything in this epic sounding collection can kit out hip-hop to house, and anything in-between. Roy Spencer loopmasters.com VERDICT 9.0 Splice–MJ Cole’s House & Garage…

Polyend Play $799 Full Review: FM384 | Play’s capabilities aren’t quite ‘DAW-replacement’ level, but the sequencing workflow and live performance tools are some of the best going. Polyend Tracker £449 Full Review: FM357 Less esoteric than it first appears, this is a well-designed sampler that’s both fun and inspiring. Worth a look whether you’re experienced with trackers or not. Akai MPC Live II £1,040 Full Review: FM358 A truly go-anywhere production experience – and now better equipped than ever. The Live II remains the high point of the current MPC range. Roland MC-707 $999 Review: FM349 It lags behind some rivals on the sampling front, but on the whole the 707 is a powerful and well-designed groovebox. A welcome return for the company’s MC line. NI Maschine+ £1,099 Review: FM363…

ASM Hydrasynth Deluxe £1,560 Full Review: FM383 | The Deluxe is a great-sounding, flexible polysynth, ideal as a performance-led keyboard that can reach a wide range tones and textures. Korg Modwave £699 Review FM373 Modwave is far from the only wavetable game in town, but it sets itself apart with unique tools and a few added gimmicks. Korg Wavestate £699 Review FM353 Wavestate walks the line perfectly between paying tribute to a ’90s classic and offering cutting-edge tools. A fantastic update to a much-loved synth line. Waldorf Quantum £3,500 Review: FM336 A stunning piece of hybrid synth design – setting a new benchmark for features, interface and sonics. It’s expensive, but a synth that you’ll find inspiring for many years. Korg Opsix £699 Review: FM365 Opsix is packed with unique…

Sequential Take 5 £1,229 Full Review: FM382 | More than just a more affordable Prophet, Take 5 is its own, distinctive synth with a fantastic sound. UDO Super 6 £2,195 Full Review: FM367 The Super 6 is an impressive machine; even more so for being a first release. Intuitive, super-versatile, totally unique sounding… a pleasure to get lost in! Arturia PolyBrute £2,299 Full Review: FM362 Arturia’s first polysynth is packed with unique features and has bags of character. A worthy flagship for the Brute range and a top-tier poly. Moog Matriarch £1,979 Review: FM355 The Matriarch is very inspiring. It’s well built, has the classic Moog Modular sound and it’s complex yet intuitive. This is a future classic! Sequential Prophet-5 £3,000 Review: FM374 An excellent sounding poly paired with a…

It feels like barely any time has passed since we were last in Berlin’s FEZ centre for Superbooth 2021. With much of Europe under some form of lockdown for much of 2021, last year’s event ended up delayed from its usual pre-summer slot to mid-September, leaving us with a wait of only eight months between that last ’Booth and this one. In fact, with such a shortened gap between events, coupled with supply chain issues, several ’21 highlights are yet to actually hit the market as 2022’s show rolled around (we’re looking at you here, PWM Malevolent and Erica Synths Perkons). You might think all this would lead to a lack of surprises for 2022, but thankfully the ’Booth has delivered the goods – and then some. From synths to…

It’s good news all round from Erica Synths, as they announce two new products and a positive update on one of its previously announced ones.The biggest ‘unveil’ is the Syntrx II, a spruced-up version of the original Syntrx that landed in 2020. This takes inspiration from the classic Synthi AKS synth, but is a “reimagination” rather than a direct clone. The original Syntrx was good enough to get the thumbs-up from Synthi’s Peter Zinovieff, who died last year, but its successor promises to be even better. Based on lessons learned during development of the first version, Syntrx II is said to represent “the culmination of Erica Synths’ analogue sound design circuits”, and features two main oscillators with waveshapers, a multimode filter, external instrument inputs with an envelope follower, a ring…

Arturia’s V Collection is now firmly established as the go-to software bundle for lovers of classic synths and keyboards, and with the launch of version 9, it’s getting even bigger. The most eye-catching addition is an emulation of Korg’s classic MS-20. Interestingly, the interface for this one actually bears the Korg logo; given that the company already has its own MS-20 plugin, this comes as something of a surprise. MS-20 V looks just like the original, as you’d expect, and promises to recreate the hardware’s semi-modular architecture and classic analogue sound. Next up there’s the SQ80 V, a reboot of the Ensoniq crosswave synth of the same name. We’ve seen this one in standalone form already, of course; if you like the gritty sound of early digital synths, you’ll love…

Imaginary Friend is a new experimentally-minded synth module from Error Instruments. According to its creators, it can do anything from rhythmic patterns to drones, be aggressive, minimal and everything in between. The module combines three sound sources – ashapeable wave output, a sine sub oscillator and a resonator output. These come accompanied by a low-pass gate, as well as a flexible-looking LFO, clock divider, dual attenuator and a joystick controller. Imaginary Friend is available for order now priced at €550.…

Sound design is one of the trickiest stages of music production and creating unique sounds can be a challenge. Using Ableton Live 11’s new Spectral Time device, we can create unique and interesting drone and pad sounds to use in our productions. Spectral Time seems like a complex effect at first glance, but it’s relatively simple once you get the hang of it. The effect works by capturing short snippets of the spectral (frequency) content of the input signal and transforming them in interesting ways. We’ll make use of Spectral Time’s Freezer section to ‘freeze’ moments of the input signal, extending them into ghostly, spectral pads and drones that we can resample. We’ll start by configuring the basic settings needed for this technique before experimenting with some of the controls…

Techno h as been the dominant force in electronic music since the 1980s, from the clubs in Detroit and Berlin. The faces and gear have changed but the basic style is the same. Juan Atkins was there at the beginning, then artists like Richie Hawtin, and more recently Ben Klock keeps the flag flying. Techno evolved with the hardware of the day – Roland machines such as the TR-808 and 909 drum machines. These days you’re more likely to encounter modern day clones of these, or plugins running inside Ableton Live or Native Instruments software. Typically, techno is very grid-based and not much focused on swing or other variations, although sometimes this applies to samples or other material overlaid on top of the beats. The art of composition in this…

>Releasing music is fun, but there’s a serious side to it too. Music law is a dense area that’s full of potential pitfalls, so although it might seem boring, don’t release anything until you’ve made sure you’re not stepping on any copyrighted toes. Sample clearance While sampling has become a widely used technique in music production since its tape-based beginnings in the 1940s, the law around the practice is still often misunderstood. The bottom line is this: if you intend to distribute and make money from music which contains other people’s music, you must first gain written consent from the relative rights holders. This is usually the owner of the copyright of the song and/or the owner of the master recording. Getting the correct approval is known as sample clearance,…

>The time period after your release is all about staying visible, both to the people who know about your track and those who don’t. Any basking in your own success should be done on your social media, which at this stage should be reflecting any positive feedback you’ve received, and signposting fans to the accolades that are no doubt rolling in. By accolades we mean features, playlist spots or reviews–the promotional showcasing that you’ve worked hard to get in the lead up to your release. You should also be continuing to push your music out to people and publications in the hope of gaining further coverage. One avenue to consider is influencer marketing, whereby an individual with a large social media following would share your music in some form. On…

CONTACT WHO: Polyend WEB: polyend.com KEY FEATURES Sample and MIDI groovebox I/O: USB (for power/MIDI), MIDI in and out (via included adapters), 3.5mm stereo main out (stereo splitter included), SD card Although it might be a bit premature to call something released just two years ago a cult classic, Polyend’s esoteric Tracker is certainly on course to earn the title.Taking cues from software trackers, Polyend’s performance sampler is a bit of an oddity, but if the legions of enthusiastic YouTube videos and forum comments are anything to go by it’s certainly found a dedicated following. Play, the company’s keenly awaited follow-up, is more of a conventional device than Tracker–for one thing its sequencer runs from left to right, rather than top to bottom –but it still inherits a healthy portion…

>The Dunlop Univibe sparked off not just some of the best rock music, but one of the coolest-sounding arms races in the world of effects technology. Blue Cat’s PolyVibe takes the recipe for the Univibe, as well as some ingredients from later tributes to the original sound, and puts them all into a single plugin. With exact control over the filter shapes and LFO properties, as well as the ability to choose between three algorithms determining the process behind the actual effect, PolyVibe lets you dial in a wide variety of classic rotary, Univibe, chorus and flanger effects. A free demo is available, so you can easily check out whether it gives you the right vibes before buying. VIBES, TREMOLO, MODULATION, WAH, WHAT? Although the word ‘vibe’ in music technology…

Korg SQ-64 £269 Full Review: FM367 | An intuitive, nostalgic and very musical bit of gear and one that should stand the test of time. Now, where did we park the Trans-Am? Arturia KeyStep Pro £319 Full Review: FM359 For melodic sequencing duties and flexible hardware control, this is one of the best keyboard devices around. Novation SL MkIII from £540 Full Review: FM338 Well-designed and versatile. For those who work with both hardware and software, this may be the best studio centrepiece on the market. Pioneer DJ Toraiz Squid £467 Review: FM351 Pioneer DJ’s Squid opens the door to a world of bespoke sequencing, with features like Groove Bend and speed modulation putting a new spin on your sequencing moves. Arturia BeatStep Pro £196 Review: FM296 The BeatStep Pro…

Kali Audio LP-6 £147 These two-way speakers from relative newcomers Kali Audio offer exceptional sound quality at a very reasonable price. An excellent home studio option. M-Audio BX3 & BX4 from £85 Full Review: FM369 Compact and convenient, M-Audio’s new BX monitors expand the appeal of the range and do so at an incredible price. Adam Audio T5V £133 Full Review: FM335 The T5V delivers plenty of clarity, decent imaging and volume from a pretty compact footprint. A tidy package, all at a good price point. KRK Rokit G4 from £133 Full Review: FM348 With punchy delivery and an abundance of EQ options, these are the best Rokits yet, offering power at an accessible price. Yamaha HS5 £155 High-quality, accurate studio monitors offering solid power, imaging and detail at a…

Korg Minilogue £399 Full Review: FM302 Six years on and despite the existence of the XD follow-up, for our money there is still no better bang-for-your-buck analogue deal than Korg’s modern classic 4-voice poly. IK UNO Synth Pro from £399 Full Review: FM371 The UNO Synth Pro shames some much more expensive instruments, with a whole raft of functions and features you’d expect to pay twice as much for. Behringer TD-3 £95 Say what you want about Behringer and their run of unofficial ‘tributes’, but this little acid box does a convincing 303 impression for less than £100, which is hard to argue with. Moog DFAM £510 The compact semi-modulars of Moog’s Mother series are all winners, but this oddball two-oscillator percussion instrument remains a favourite of the range. Erica…

It’s official: Oberheim are back and are releasing a new version of the OB-X synth for the 21st century. The OB-X8 takes the best bits of the OB-X, OB-Xa and OB-8 – manufactured between 1979 and 1985 – and packs them into a new eight-voice analogue synth. You also get all the presets from those OB classics but – as company founder Tom Oberheim explains – the OB-X8 is more than just the sum of these excellent parts. “I wanted to come back strong with a new design that brings together the sounds of the greatest instruments from across the OB range, together with the distinctive sound and styling of those synths,” he says. “But we took it even further. You can now combine the various OB voice architectures in…

Roland’s Aira instrument range is being expanded once again with the launch of three ‘Compact’ instruments that draw on the company’s rich heritage: the T-8 Beat Machine; J-6 Chord Synthesiser; and E-4 Voice Tweaker. It can be difficult to work out what distinguishes an Aira product from a standard Roland one – the Aira microsite features the TR-8S drum machine but not the TR-6S, its slimmed-down cousin – but it’s pretty clear what the Compact range is all about. These are “fun, affordable, and easy to learn” boxes that are designed to be used individually or together, in a similar way to Korg’s Volcas. This being Roland though, everything is completely digital. Once again, Roland’s Analog Circuit Behaviour (ACB) technology is in play, and each model comes with a built-in…

Tracktion Software are serving up Chop Suey, a new kick drum designer plugin from the creative minds of mathematician and AI specialist Peter V (Aka Dawesome) and German techno artist Björn Torwellen. Whereas many kick instruments enable you to layer sounds, Chop Suey eschews this approach and lets you sequence them instead. The theory is that this will eliminate any potential phasing issues and ‘muddiness’. In fact, we’re assured that you’ll be able to create combined kicks that “maintain the crisp transient, the punch of the body and the characteristic tail”. You can shape your kick on the visual interface by creating and editing curves. This is done individually for the transient, punch and tail, so any edits made to one element won’t affect the others. Chop Suey’s filter, meanwhile,…

Bitwig loves a point release update, and its latest – Bitwig Studio 4.3 – duly includes a couple of new headlinegrabbing effects. Convolution is, as you’d expect, a convolution processor. It comes with 270 impulse responses that are designed to recreate a wide variety of spaces – from 12th-century cathedrals to studio effects and more abstract environments. There’s more to Convolution than reverb, we’re assured: you can adjust the colour and tone, or draw your own envelope to reshape the impulse itself. You can also drop any audio in and use that as an impulse. Moving on, Delay+ is described as a ‘boutique’ audio effect that combines familiar controls and a few new ones. There are ‘Blur’ options that range from light, animated feedback to full-on reverb, and a Ducking…

Dreadbox has captured the spirit of Superbooth with Dysmetria, a build-it-yourself analogue groove synthesiser. Designed for creating rhythms and basslines, it can be used on your desktop or in your Eurorack rig, and it's said to be ideal for any inexperienced DIYers. This is a 42HP device that offers two analogue oscillators, a voltagecontrolled mixer, a noise generator and a voltage-controlled FM section. You’ll also find a 2-pole resonant filter with low-pass and band-pass outputs, plus two decay envelopes. The 32-step sequencer offers three modes (Play, Live and Rec) and step-by-step recording. There are 16 user presets and 15 patch points. A limited number of Dysmetria kits will be released, and everything you need to build it is included in the box. It’ll cost you €200 (plus VAT).…

Reggaeton is a contemporary rhythm that first appeared in the 1990s and in recent years has become one of the primary music styles in the Spanish speaking Caribbean. Key artists such as Don Omar and Ivy Queen paved the way for more mainstream acceptance and crossover to the US and Europe. Massive hits such as Despacito, which features a guest contribution from reggaeton’s biggest star, Puerto Rica’s Daddy Yankee, helped cement the style as a global phenomenon. Reggaeton’s appeal is its simplicity, with the lilting core beat providing an ideal backdrop for the combination of singing, rap and instrumentation that’s popular in Latin music. The beat itself is a variant of the Jamaican Dembow rhythm and tempos are typically between 85 and 100bpm, however there are contemporary tracks where the…

House music comes in many shapes and sizes, but underpinning it is a driving four-to-the-floor groove between 115 and 130bpm that’s stayed pretty consistent since its first appearance in Chicago in the mid 1980s. There’s an abundance of DJs, labels and artists to reference and multiple sub genres to align to. Here we’re keeping it mainstream and looking at the sort of groove you’ll get on UK labels such as Defected or Toolroom and supported by DJs such as Dennis Ferrer. House started out using the classic drum machine sounds of the time, particularly Roland 909 kicks, hats and snares. Nevertheless, over time more blended sounds have become the norm. To produce convincing house beats you need to use the sounds that are currently popular, so in addition to referencing…

>You can divide hip-hop beat production into two major trends: the MPC-powered beat chopping of ’90s beatmakers like DJ Premier, and the spacious 808 beats of the trap style that developed in the ’90s and ’00s in Southern US cities like Atlanta. These two styles are not entirely independent of each other however, and many modern hip-hop artists incorporate elements of both. Our beat fits somewhere between the two – it’s powered by spacious 808 bass and includes a hint of trap’s signature triplet hi-hats, but our snare and clap are treated with a little lo-fi crunch emulating the sampling techniques of the ’90s. We’re also taking a little influence from the woozy, lo-fi sound of cloud rap. The overall effect is channelling adventurous modern artists like Tyler, the Creator…

INCLUDES VIDEO 01 > The first step is to comp vocal takes. Josh does this in Logic Pro, selecting the best moments of each take. Next he applies Auto-Tune. “I don’t record with Auto-Tune active,” he explains. “I like to have a bit more control to take it off afterwards.” 02 > “We record all of our vocals two semitones above the track’s pitch,” Josh explains. “We then pitch it down with [SoundToys] Little AlterBoy.” Josh uses both the formant and pitchshift parameters to capture their signature tone. “It can be long and very confusing, but that’s how we like to do it,” Ethan adds. 03 > That lead vocal is then processed using iZotope Nectar. “If you don’t really know what you’re doing with vocals, like me, this is…

Crack a bottle of your favourite tipple and raise a glass to yourself for turning a musical idea into a fully-fledged release. Now, back to work! Even though your music is now out in the world, you still have to make sure you’re maximising its potential. Your main job today is to promote the hell out of your release on all possible platforms and social media channels. Any page that’s got your artist name on it should be updated accordingly, with links to the streaming platforms where your devoted fan base can find it. It can be helpful to collate these links into a smart link page, so that you can direct people towards a central destination rather than multiple ones. If you’ve uploaded your music to alternative music platforms…

>The expansion of the UVI universe appears to have no let up. Like previous sound packs Soul Drums is hosted within their free Workstation software (in both standalone and plugin form), but can also be employed within Falcon, their premium all-singing hybrid software synth. Interestingly, this appears to be the first UVI instrument to focus on a live, band-based, drum kit–the earlier Drum Designer and BeatBox Anthology were geared towards more electronic production styles. As the name suggests, Soul Drums appears to be aimed at a specific set ofstyles, though UVI make great play in suggesting that they are taking a determinedly modern approach that embraces some authentic retro sounds. The clearest functional clue to this is the fact that real kit recordings can be combined with extra add-on sample…

CONTACT WHO: Arturia WEB: arturia.com KEY FEATURES Mono/4-voice paraphonic synthesiser combining 18-mode digital oscillator, 12dB SEM-style analogue filter, flexible mod matrix, sequencer and arpeggiator Arturia have an impressive track record for being ahead of the curve when it comes to synth trends.Back in 2012, the French brand’s MiniBrute played a key role in ushering in the wave of affordable, all-analogue instruments that has dominated the market for much of the past decade. While MicroFreak was by no means the only compact digital synth on the market when it arrived in 2019, it’s notable how many similarly-pitched instruments have appeared in its wake, such as Korg’s all-digital Modwave/Opsix/ Wavestate trio and a variety of pint-sized wavetable machines from Modal. Even though its corner of the market is a little more crowded…

Bitwig Studio 4 $399 Full Review: FM383 (Bitwig 4.2) Bitwig’s excellent ‘point’ updates continue. As of v4.3 we’ve had new effects, MIDI tool and expanded modular capabilities–all gems. Steinberg Cubase 12 £497 Full Review: FM382 Version 12 is a solid and dependable update to Cubase, and offers some excellent new features and small, but important, update to others. Ableton Live 11 Suite £539 Review: FM368 Not an essential upgrade for everyone, but new additions, including comping, MPE and linked tracks, have been smartly done. Live retains its place at the cutting edge. Tracktion Waveform Pro from $119 Review: FM345 Waveform is now friendlier, contains more creative tools and brings workflow ideas you’ll have missed from other DAWs. Apple Logic Pro $199 Review: FM361 Still no Logic 11, but seeing as…

Korg Collection 3 $399 Full Review: FM376 | Abroad, varied package that combines some of the most iconic synths of all time with a few more esoteric, characterful oddities. Arturia V Collection 8 €599 While Arturia’s synth emulation bundle doesn’t have the ‘official’ clout of Roland or Korg’s there’s arguably no better rounded softsynth package on the market. Roland Cloud From $99 per year If you’re happy to accept the subscription model, then Roland’s Cloud service offers access to official recreations of the most iconic instruments of all time. Native Instruments Komplete 11 £539 Komplete isn’t purely synth-focused, but the likes of Massive X, FM8, Monark and Reaktor are undoubted highlights. U-he All Synths Bundle €780 With just six instruments included, this isn’t the best value you’ll find, pound-for-pound. But…