Partials & Discrepancies 1.5.0 brings new ways to shape sound, with extra oscillator tricks and a fresh filter. Unusable Engineering's additive synth can play eight voices, each with as many as 128 partials. An eight-slot sequencer handles sound changes, while each voice can vary in pitch, pan, filter tone, and slot placement.
First up, the detune feature makes two copies of the additive oscillator and shifts their pitch apart. Each slot keeps its detune value, which can react to note velocity, sequence steps, or voice position. That gives users a fair bit of control over how the voices differ.
Another new feature, Smear, runs the oscillator through a delay pitched an octave lower. Short settings can blur the tone, while other values make notes ring out or give them a plucked string sound.
And the old bit crusher has a new option. Users can swap it for ring modulation, with a separate oscillator that can stay at one pitch or track notes on the keyboard.
Filter fans get East, a new model that can self-oscillate. Its design takes loose cues from a Soviet filter circuit that used programmable op amps. The synth's first state-variable filter stays in place but has been renamed West.
Mod Osc v2 gets a few neat changes as well. It can sync with the host tempo and reset its phase on a key press. When Noise runs with Key Track turned on, the noise gets a pitched tone rather than its old behavior.
Glide and legato are here as well. Portamento lets notes slide in pitch, and the poly legato mode picks the nearest held note as the start of each glide. That should give players more ways to shape how notes flow into each other.
Preset fans get 42 fresh patches in a bank named v150-Factory. The separate bank makes the new sounds easy to pick out in the browser.
Visually, the synth has had a full color change. Gone is the red look, replaced by dark blue and gray with more contrast. The oscillator slot knobs sit along the lower edge, while red tracks mark controls that sit in the audio path.
There are two small catches for older patches. A change to voice stealing helps cut clicks when notes take over active voices, but it may affect how some sounds play. Patches that use pitched noise may differ as well. Switching off Key Track brings back the old noise response.
First up, the detune feature makes two copies of the additive oscillator and shifts their pitch apart. Each slot keeps its detune value, which can react to note velocity, sequence steps, or voice position. That gives users a fair bit of control over how the voices differ.
Another new feature, Smear, runs the oscillator through a delay pitched an octave lower. Short settings can blur the tone, while other values make notes ring out or give them a plucked string sound.
And the old bit crusher has a new option. Users can swap it for ring modulation, with a separate oscillator that can stay at one pitch or track notes on the keyboard.
Filter fans get East, a new model that can self-oscillate. Its design takes loose cues from a Soviet filter circuit that used programmable op amps. The synth's first state-variable filter stays in place but has been renamed West.
Mod Osc v2 gets a few neat changes as well. It can sync with the host tempo and reset its phase on a key press. When Noise runs with Key Track turned on, the noise gets a pitched tone rather than its old behavior.
Glide and legato are here as well. Portamento lets notes slide in pitch, and the poly legato mode picks the nearest held note as the start of each glide. That should give players more ways to shape how notes flow into each other.
Preset fans get 42 fresh patches in a bank named v150-Factory. The separate bank makes the new sounds easy to pick out in the browser.
Visually, the synth has had a full color change. Gone is the red look, replaced by dark blue and gray with more contrast. The oscillator slot knobs sit along the lower edge, while red tracks mark controls that sit in the audio path.
There are two small catches for older patches. A change to voice stealing helps cut clicks when notes take over active voices, but it may affect how some sounds play. Patches that use pitched noise may differ as well. Switching off Key Track brings back the old noise response.
