Recording - January 2012 - 62

Tempo Rubato NLog Synth PRO
$14.99; www.temporubato.com

Tempo Rubato’s NLog Synth is one of the grand old men of iOS synthesis, with a wide following... and for very good reason. It is available in a variety of formats—in addition to the iPad version reviewed here (NLog Synth PRO), there is NLog MIDI Synth for the iPhone and iPod touch for $4.99, and the Mac App Store sells a standalone/Audio Units plug-in version for the Mac for $24.99. All three versions share the same audio engine and almost the same parameter tweaks.

Once you start playing with NLog Synth PRO, you realize that while there are now a lot of synth apps out there that are visually striking and may offer unusual keyboard/playing surface options, this app’s relatively conventional looks don’t obscure its exceptionally powerful sound engine’s capabilities. Above the virtual keyboard, pitch/mod wheels, and XY modulation touchpad is a synth engine with no fewer than six tabbed pages of synth and accessory parameters! Four oscillators per voice with multiple waveforms, pulse width modulation, FM and ring modulation, a noise generator, dual multimode filters with envelope, keytrack, and velocity modulation, four LFOs, four envelopes, multiple user-assignable modulation routings plus a host of prewired ones, and a full-on multieffects processor with delay, reverb, dual eq, and more. There’s even a built-in WAV audio recorder and a powerful arpeggiator with a variety of programmable parameters. All this adds up to a rich, powerful sound from a synth interface that will quickly be familiar to anyone who’s worked with an analog synth before. NLog Synth PRO also plays well with others; it can play in the background and be controlled by other apps such as Audanika SoundPrism Pro (reviewed in our December 2011 issue), sync to MIDI Clocks and be controlled by external MIDI devices attached to the iPad with the Camera Connection Kit’s USB port, and use Korg’s WIST protocol to sync with apps on other iPads using Bluetooth. Combined with the app’s fantastic sound engine, the result is arguably the most powerful implementation of a straightforward analog-modeling keyboard synth out there right now. If you want an analog synth you can wrap your head around immediately and whose sound will blow you away, NLog Synth PRO is a top contender.

VirSyn iSyn Poly
$9.99; www.virsyn.net

iSyn Poly is more than just a polyphonic analog synth for the iPad, it’s a complete “virtual music studio” that takes great advantage of the iPad’s large display to provide a clear, easy-to-use interface for composing and performing. (There’s also a $4.99 version of iSyn for the iPhone and iPod touch that I didn’t get to review.) The app features three analog synths (two monophonic and one polyphonic) plus a drum machine and a piano-roll sequencer for all tracks. The three synths have identical voice structures: three multiplewaveform oscillators plus noise source, resonant lowpass ladder-style filter with overdrive, one LFO, two envelopes, amp/ distortion (overdrive/“crush”), and effects processor (chorus/ delay/cross delay). They have a good meaty sound and a fair

bit of tonal flexibility, aided by a good set of performance controls: a an XY pad with assignable axes and accelerometer control, changing the timbre as you tilt the iPad. The keyboard itself is interesting, in that you can bend pitch (or create a glissando if the Quantize button is on, with your choice of scale) by sliding from side to side, but the finger that controls bend and the finger that determines initial pitch aren’t necessarily the same, letting you do some fun pedal-steel effects. The drum machine has nine pads and a nine-channel mixer with individual controls for level, pitch, decay time, and pan; interestingly, the sampled kits only have eight sounds each, so the ninth channel is empty (room for future expansion, perhaps?). The drum sounds can be controlled in real time with the

62

RECORDING JANUARY 2012
http://www.temporubato.com http://www.virsyn.net
Recording - January 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - January 2012
