Blue2 - Rob Papen

Another top notch Vst from Rob Papen. The sounds from this thing can be huge and iv'e found it to be particularly nice for evolving pads / strings/ choirs etc.As usual with all Papens Vst's there is an easy page which gathers together the most essential parameters for you to modulate and tweak. CPU friendly and comes with a ton of excellent presets too.

First released in 2005 BLUE already reflected Rob Papen’s cutting-edge, creative, and — most importantly — musical approach towards developing virtual instruments by first delivering FM and subtractive synthesis, then duly adding Phase Distortion and wave shaping synthesis into the highly creative mix to create one seriously creative combination.

Today BLUE-II remains true to that ethos with even more sound dimensions and features to its extended name, starting with six oscillators beating at its musically creative heart. These can be connected in various ways, together with two analogue-style modelled stereo filters with 27 different filter types, an enormous range of processing and modulation options, sequencer, and an incredibly powerful arpeggiator. A new range of specially selected waveforms based on samples have been meticulously fashioned for creating new and fresh-sounding synth sounds, so don’t go expecting acoustic pianos galore here. However, since choirs and strings are an excellent basis for so many synth sounds BLUE-II has them in abundance — with much more besides!

Moreover, BLUE-II takes the useful XY pad features from its popular virtual instrument sibling Blade — a cutting-edge additive synthesis powerhouse with a human touch — and transplants them into its own equally extraordinary workflow… perfect for time-based sound movements and vector pad-type sounds. Complemented by four top-quality FX processors, each offering 35 FX types, BLUE-II is a phenomenally powerful virtual instrument to behold.

But BLUE-II is also easy to use, thanks to its user-friendly user interface and an innovative Easy Edit page for speedy sound changes, while the Bank Manager allows whistle-stop navigation through thousands of inspirational Rob Papen presets and artist sound banks covering a wide range of musical styles.

BLUE-II represents an amazing journey into ‘Cross-fusion synthesis’ and, quite simply, sounds stunning!

Poyplex- Native Instruments

Another fantastic drum/synth machine. Apart from the excellent sound quality and FX one can add to your drum sounds, this is amazing at randomization. Click the dice icons which are peppered everywhere in Polyplex and one can come up with new drum sound variations in seconds.The posiblities are infinite here! Along with Rob Rapens 'Punch' this is another must have and these two plugins are probably my own personal favourites when it comes to drums.

NI’s Battery has been its go-to drum sampler for quite some time, and of course the company also makes Maschine, though both are geared primarily towards the sequencing of relatively conventional kinds of beats. The many drummer series hosted inside Kontakt are also mostly recreations of real drum kits.
Polyplex is something quite different: an “experimental drum designer” with an emphasis on randomization of many parameters to create new and unique kits. Designed by the team at Twisted Tools, it runs in Reaktor 5 or Reaktor 5 Player and weighs in at a modest 200MB. The idea is to make a smaller amount of content go much further.

The Layout
There are eight sound slots in Polyplex and each one can hold four separate samples. Each sample forms one layer of a drum sound and for each sound slot you can specify a layer type and a subtype, choosing between kicks, snares, hi-hats and so on. The slots are colour coded for easier recognition across the interface and they also tie in with the new Light Guide features of NI’s Komplete Kontrol keyboard.
There are then a range of controls for each one, helpfully arranged in layers across the edit section so you can trace the layer across and see each of its settings easily. Layers can be modified individually or linked together. The edit section starts with Samples and lets you control which sample to play back for each layer, defined as a MIDI value between 0 and 127.
If you choose User here you can add your own samples, though this means accessing Reaktor’s Sample Map Editor, which requires a bit of research if you’re new to the software. Then there are pitch, start position and pan controls each with min / max parameter range sliders, and finally a volume section so you can balance the layers’ levels.

Taking Effect
There are 18 effects onboard and up to four can be used at once, ranging from reverb, compression, glitch and autopanning to stutter, stretch, frequency and pitch effects. Each has its own controls and can be switched on or off for each slot, and you can set up MIDI modulation of effects as well as using LFO, envelope and velocity to control the parameters mentioned previously such as pitch, pan, volume and so on. This also applies to the two further sub-pages, Envelope and EQ, that are used to shape the sound.

All of this is great, but it’s not the main focus of Polyplex: that comes when you start to randomize parameters. Sound tweaking is nothing new but the ability to endlessly come up with new variations and, crucially, really usable variations is somewhat more unique.
By clicking on the Master Randomizer button at the top (these buttons all have dice icons) you can instantly randomize the way the layers behave, completely changing their sound but within boundaries that keep them usable. What we mean by this is that it’s not going to randomize things so much that you end up with a bunch of bleeps and white noise that don’t play nicely together.
Going Further
In addition you can choose to randomize each individual sound slot in different ways. Click the button for a slot and its parameters are randomized but the other slots are not. Go into the parameter section and you can randomize just one thing at once, such as pitch, but leave everything else the same.
You can even lock a layer to make sure it’s not changed and also deselect any randomizable section so that it is not included while everything around it is. There are seven kit slots and you can copy and paste settings between them to create up to seven variations on your kit and flip between them easily.Polyplex sounds incredibly cool, as a listen to the audio demos will reveal.
The sounds it can make are cutting edge and amazingly useful for all kinds of electronic music. This is thanks to the amount of organic stuff that’s going on with modulation of parameters and effects meaning that sounds twist, echo and morph in very desirable ways.

Although you can manually tweak everything, the randomizers do their job of coming up with endless variations supremely well and the results are stunning. That the onboard effects are so much better than the usual delay / reverb / compression toolkit is a factor as well. You will need to add few, if any, external effects to the sound because the processing inside the instrument is first class. As a quick solution to drum sound design, Polyplex is a winner. Review from 'Musictech'

Punch - Rob Papen

Wonderful drum synth with lots of modern up to date drum sounds. Quite different to others in that you can customize the 8 drum sequences to the keys on your keyboard and then add other sounds. An incredible amount of options here from fine tuning your drum sounds to adding FX. A definite go to drum machine!! I particularly like the 'Ian Boddy' presets which goes to show how more cinematic oriented this plug in is!

Based around the BD module of the multi award winning Punch virtual drum synth, Rob Papen delivers a creative module to help you to produce the fattest sounding bass drums for your music.

Stacking bass drums is a popular technique used by today's music producers and Punch-BD gives you the ability to stack up to 6 in total. Divide the 6 BD pads over the keyboard or use them 'stacked' in tuned mode to produce creative new BD sounds for all styles of contemporary music.

Punch-BD delivers synthesized drums in the finest audio quality or you can choose to load in your own samples for complete flexibility. Each pad has its own distortion module with several distortion types as well as its own 3 band graphic EQ. What's more, each individual pad also has its own preset section next to the overall 'BD kit'.

Like its big brother, Punch-BD features four FX units each with many 31 types of top quality FX plus further filters, envelopes, modulation routings and more for crafting your own unique sound.

From Electronic Dance and Hip Hop to Soundtrack projects, Punch-BD provides a solid speaker-busting sound for your productions.

Predator 2 - Rob Papen

The original Predator was a classic and this just expands upon the features, making it even better and more user friendly.The X Y Pads and morphing between waveforms are excellent not to mention a slew of presets which are very up to date.  Rob Papens plugins are all superb, no less so here!

 Predator 2 is the successor of a legendary synthesizer that has inspired many artists/composers and appears on countless music tracks! As before it combines inspiring presets and cutting edge features to make this your ‘go-to’ synth for contemporary music production.
The user interface has again been designed so that almost all main controls are visible on screen, making it fun and incredibly easy-to-use.

With Predator 2 and all its many cool features, we have also included an ‘Easy Page’ for the users that don’t like too many controls. The ‘Easy Page’ offers you the most important parameters if you want to change a sound quickly or just want to use the handy ‘preset variation’ function, which is an intelligent randomizer.

Predator 2 is packed with new powerful features such as: ‘Waveform morphing’, ‘Waveform drawing’, “WaveSet playmode’, XY pad, new EQ, and new voice level distortion.... and so much more!

Shipped with inspirational presets, Predator 2 is a unique synthesizer concept which combines ‘User Friendliness’ and ‘Packed Features’ in one amazing product.

Bitwig Studio 2.2

Great DAW which not only looks good visually but is also very powerful and a must for anyone who loves Ableton with the similar workflow.


Today it’s possible to make music with any DAW. What sets each one apart is workflow, how quickly you can realize your ideas, and the freedom to choose how you produce and perform.
Bitwig Studio is dynamic software for creation and performance of your musical ideas on stage or in the studio.

Discover the new standard in customized workflow. Bitwig Studio inspires you to take greater control of your music, giving you access to every aspect of your production. Streamline your creative process and quickly evolve your ideas into complete songs, tracks and compositions. Record and arrange, improvise and perform, or do it all at once. Welcome to the next generation of music creation and performance software for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
Bitwig Studio comes loaded with industry-standard to industry-leading features, designed to meet the demands of present day musicians, producers and sound designers.

Monique - Monoplugs

Interesting new monophonic synth particularly adept at bass lines and leads. Cool morphing feature too!

The unique Bass and Lead Synth Plugin

Powerful sound and a smart morphing feature — perfectly suited for live performances, jam sessions, and studio productions.

Cool Sound with cool Controls — not just another Synth!

Monique can be a peaceful girl, but her real power is aggressive leads and deep bold basses.

Her unique Morphing Feature

Incredibly Flexible — designed for live performance, jamming, and studio recording.

Up to 8 different programs in one, mix it like a DJ

Evolute the sound and keep the root to find the way back

Automate each group of parameters by an own LFO

An extensive Sound Engine

A bunch of routing options let you feel free.

3x Morphable oscillators are free routable through 3x3 filter tracks

4x distortions destroying the signal to get her distinctive roughness

A loop effect, a delay, a chorus and a reverb refine the sound

Z3TA - Cakewalk

Another classic great sounding synth!!

Waveshaping Synthesis:

Ultimate waveshaping control with dozens of sonic tools

Intuitive and graphically responsive interface

2,000+ professionally crafted presets

Built-in fully customizable studio quality FX.

Oscillators Section:

32-bit wavetable synthesis with three interpolation modes (DRAFT, NQ, HQ).

Full Stereo processing.

6 Oscillators, 60 built-in waveforms, 10 user loadable waveforms, PWM capable in all oscillators with any waveform.

Loadable Wavetable Sets: Programs using different wavetable sets can be mixed in a bank. z3ta+ will find and load the appropriate wavetable set when the program is selected on-the-fly.

Loadable Oscillator USER Waveforms: z3ta+ can load the USER oscillator waveforms 1 to 6 from standard wave files (.wav). Up to six individual waveforms can be loaded per program, and then transformed by using the shaper as the internal waveform set. It is possible to load different waveforms in each preset. z3ta+ will find and reload the used waveforms when the program is selected on-the-fly. The wave files must be mono, up to 64k samples, in any samplerate.

64 voice polyphonic (CPU dependant) with polyphony limiter and Intelligent Voice Allocation (no clicks when maximum polyphony is exceeded).

Full Stereo processing.

6 Oscillators, 60 built-in waveforms, 10 user loadable waveforms, PWM capable in all oscillators with any waveform.

Independent Waveshaper for each oscillator with 14 wave transformations: WARP, TWIST, MULTIPOINT, WAVE, SYMMETRY, DRIVE, WAVE, OFFSET, SHRINK, SELFSYNC, BIT REDUCTION, HIPASS and LOWPASS filters, , DC-OFFSET and WINDOW, all fully band limited and real-time capable.

Full Legato mode when operation is monophonic.

Circular inter-oscillator modulation.

Ring modulation, Hard Sync, PM and FM modes for any oscillator.

MULTI mode for any oscillator, which turns any oscillator in 8 oscillators (4 stereo oscillators) with adjustable detune.

Octave (-5 to +5 oct), Transpose (-12 to +12 semi), Detune (-50 to +50 cent) and Phase (0 to 360 deg) controls for each oscillator.

Key sync and Free Running, Normal or Inverted, with or without keyboard tracking modes for any oscillator.

Main Transpose, Main Tune controls.

Oscillator random tune control with per-oscillator generator.

Adjustable Punch control (drum machine-like DC burst).

Individual settings for Pitch Bend Up and Down (-12 to +12 semi).

4 Pitch Bend modes: Normal, Up, Down and Hold notes.

4 monophonic/polyphonic Portamento modes: Normal and Fingered, Fixed and Variable time.

Two mixing busses for oscillators outputs.

Individual Level/Modulation amount control.