Recording - December 2014 - 48

...where we bring you follow-up articles
with application hints and upgrade news
about gear already reviewed in Recording

&
GForce impOSCar2
An authentic emulation takes on new
life with vastly expanded features
by Mike Metlay

Way back in our January 2005 issue, I fell in love with the original version of impOSCar and it became one of my go-to virtual instruments for beautiful analog-modeled synth sounds. Modeled after the
OSCar, a duophonic analog/digital hybrid synth sold between 1983
and 1986 by the British firm Oxford Synthesizer Company (OSC),
impOSCar captured the quirky operation and highly expressive
sound of the original hardware in digital form. It was one of the very
first truly successful emulations, and over the past ten years it's
appeared on countless hits and continued to be popular even as successive generations of new virtual instruments have come and gone.

When the time came to consider developing a version 2 of
impOSCar, the programmers at GForce decided, as they did with
their Mellotron emulation M-Tron Pro, to carefully preserve the sonic
character of the original while greatly expanding its feature set.
GForce elected to set aside 100% vintage authenticity in favor of
turning impOSCar into a very powerful analog modeling synth, surrounding the basic OSCar sound with tons of new features.
The result is impOSCar2, which plays well with all modern DAWs,
whether 32- or 64-bit, and expands upon the original hardware's
architecture with new signal routings and modulation possibilities,
as well as adding a slew of user-interface and convenience features
that users have been requesting for years. It starts off sounding like
the original impOSCar (and GForce provides a way to accurately
import old patches), but quickly takes a giant leap beyond.
Getting started
impOSCar2 is a plug-in for Windows XP SP2 or better (VST) or for
Mac OS X 10.6 or better (VST, RTAS, AU). It's also available as a
standalone instrument for both platforms. Installation is trivially easy;
copy protection is via watermarking of the original downloaded
installer, which is purchased from the GForce web site after registering
and providing contact information. A large PDF manual downloads
with the application and there are a number of very good online tutorial videos to help you learn your way around.
impOSCar2 actually installs as two different plug-ins: impOSCar2, a
playable virtual instrument, and impOSCar2FX, an effects processor version that allows external audio signals to be fed through its architecture
in place of the instrument's two oscillators. The external audio routing
capability is only the first of the many new features in impOSCar2!
Looking around
As you can see from the screenshots, most of impOSCar2's architecture is presented on a single front panel divided into different control
blocks. (On the original OSCar synth, these blocks were literally divided by short padded walls!) Two oscillators with a variety of different
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RECORDING December 2014

waveforms feed a filter that's set up, as the original was, as
two separate filters whose circuitry can be combined in series
or parallel. After the filter there's an amplifier with overdrive
and a chorus/delay processor.
Controls and processors include two envelopes, one standard ADSR for amplitude and one DADSR for filter control;
two multi-waveform synchronizable LFOs (up from only one
in the original); a wide variety of glide (portamento) options;
a ring modulator (also new on impOSCar2); controls for
bend, modulation, velocity, aftertouch (channel and polyphonic, a huge win for the new version), and an entirely new
Aux Mod section which can route one envelope and one LFO
to any one of a selection of destinations, with the envelope
and LFO influencing one another in different ways. To the
right of the keyboard are two new global Controllers, which
let you route the mod wheel, aftertouch, expression pedal, or
velocity to one of seven destinations in addition to everything
else the synth is doing.
There are no fewer than six different polyphony modes,
from monophonic and duophonic (one oscillator per voice)
to 16-note polyphony with up to eight voices stackable on
each note in Unison mode (yes, that's 128 voices) and usercontrollable voice panning and stereo spread. impOSCar2
tops off with a multimode polyphonic arpeggiator with a
variety of play order and octave shift options, and a Chord
Hold mode inspired by the Oberheim OB8 (so much for
strict authenticity!).

Digging deeper
A number of extra features are hidden from view until needed. To the left of the keyboard, a turn of the Edit Mode knob
reveals a User Wave display. This was a feature of the original OSCar, a way to create a custom waveform through additive synthesis. Each User Wave has a set of 24 sine-wave harmonics that you can select and set at different volume levels,
creating your own unique waveforms that can then be stored
in each patch; it comes with a nice library of presets to get
you started. impOSCar2 uses these waves to beautiful effect
in chiming and clangorous bell tones that can be used on their
own or blended with other waveforms.
Clicking to open the panel with the plug-in's logo, to the
right of the main control array, reveals in-depth controls for
the built-in effects processor. There's a MIDI synchronizable
delay with cross-modulation options and a multimode chorus for thickening up sounds without using extra voices.
Finally, and perhaps most significantly for dedicated programmers who have struggled for years with impOSCar's lessthan-perfect patch recall system, clicking the Browser button
brings up a column-based patch browser with user-definable
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