Recording - June 2019 - 42

a controller with some sort of XY pad
to take direct control of the BioTek ring,
but with that in hand, there's a whole
world-well, two worlds, I guess-of
sounds to discover.
Price: $199
More from: Tracktion, tracktion.com

Rob Papen Go2

many others, and Taiho Yamada, the
creator of MOK Waverazor (a powerful
wave-mangling synth sold by Tracktion,
that's worth checking out if you want
something truly gnarly in your mixes!).
We start with four Oscillators, each of
which can have a variety of sound generation possibilities: analog waveforms,
sample playback, granular synthesis, or
the Spinal Saw (which layers up to 11
sawtooth waves for massive sounds).
Note that these Oscillators can act as
operators in classic Yamaha DX 4-operator
FM synthesis, complete with feedback
and assorted algorithms linking carriers
and modulators. The Granular option
combines with conventional sample
playback (with easy user sample import)
to massively increase the sonic potential
of the engine.
Next come two multimode filters in series
with a Drive stage between them, a 4-band
fully parametric EQ, and an effects system
with four user-selectable slots that can
hold one of nine included processes, from
distortion to nonlinear reverb.
Control of this basic architecture
comes from four 32-stage envelopes
42 RECORDING June 2019

with looping, eight LFOs (each of which
has eight different settings that you can
morph through!), a modulation matrix
with up to 200 possible routings, and
mathematical modifiers for complex control functions. All of this together can be
a complete sound (an Instrument) on its
own, or you can stack them as Sound
Layers within an Instrument.
The Wild Page covers an entire
Instrument's controls, with a simple
mixer for Layers, six user-definable
modulation sections with controls you
choose and name (so recalling a patch
instantly reminds you of what you
were thinking when you created it!),
and two Flow LFO sections offering a
quickly accessible overview of the first
two LFOs (complete with their eight different snapshot settings).
Because BioTek is based on a 1 GB library of environmental sounds, some recorded in nature and some in an industrial setting, there's a ton of raw material
to build sounds that are evocative and
beautiful. Everything from rich tonal textures to tribal rhythms can be teased out
of BioTek and played with. You'll want

Rob Papen has been producing some
of the electronic music world's most
iconic virtual instruments for many years
now, from the classic BLUE and Predator to modern offerings like Blade and
Vecto. All of these instruments have one
thing in common: lots and lots and lots
of features!
I'm a huge fan of Rob's virtual instruments, and have been using them in my
own music for nearly a decade now.
Even so, I wouldn't call myself an expert at programming any of them. With
tabbed and detailed interfaces that cry
out for a huge display, and literally hundreds of parameters per patch, these instruments are all about giving you everything-and it's up to you to climb their
steep learning curve.
With all that power and complexity as
pretty much a given, Go2 has stunned
a lot of folks since its introduction last
year. Its whole intent is to go in the
opposite direction from all of Rob's
other virtual instruments, by providing a
beautiful-sounding and fun synthesizer with every single parameter on one
easy-to-read screen.
The real power of Go2 is in its Osc/
XY section. The Morph Oscillator lets
you select two different Waves from a
menu of 128 standard analog shapes
and digital waveform spectra, then
blend them in straightforward or unusual
ways in real time. There's simple volume
mixing, ring modulation, and FM, but
also Morph (which mixes harmonics of
the two waves), Inter (where two wavetables are mixed), and Range (which
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Recording - June 2019

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