For a very long time I have been whining about filters. For no good reason they are very often neglected in synthesis in favour of oscillators. Even worse – it’s not just neglect – it’s often some sort of cargo cult built around (everybody get their mouth full of spittle) things that are ‘legendary’ (ptooie!) like the fucking ladder filter. O boy here’s another ladder filter. Oh look fifty more of them.
So I appreciate when somebody actually dips their toe into the water. Most are additive synths that have spectral filters but U-He have been good enough to make a VA version of their Filterscape effect – and to upgrade it recently to the higher status of their instruments. All the U-He stuff is pretty good, Zebra is better than most (due to additive features) but Filterscape is the one that works for me.
It’s simple. A two oscillator virtual analogue, but alongside the standard filter is an EQ section. Four control points on that EQ can be modulated by your synthesis sources. You can for example make a peak, tighten the Q, patch it to an envelope and get a very satisfying ‘filter’ sweep. But also make a filter trough that sweeps back from the low end, causing an extra satisfying whoop-de-doop in the middle.
This was once the province of E-Mu hardware and their sadly neglected software sampler that no longer works on recent operating systems. The mysterious Z-plane filter is here remade large, obvious and easy to use. This is just as important as the unbundling of wavetables from the old PPG hardware to software such as Vital. (Of course that was oscillators so everyone noticed). Get this thing. Get those filters whoop-de-dooping. You will soon find living textures.
The rest of the synthesiser is quite nice, with multiple oscillator types, various filters and animation. Nothing too complicated. You don’t have to go crazy with the EQ to get a good sound. But it sure helps.