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Rob Papen/LinPlug Albino

28-Mar-2024

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Rob Papen/LinPlug Albino



Category:  Products / music software / software instruments

Added: 08-Jul-03  |  Author: admin

New price: £132.95 UKP - 199 euros - $199 USD  |   S/H price: Not listed


Rob Papen/LinPlug Albino

ALBINO is a new 4 oscillator, dual filter, software synth which should, (based on the pedigree of it's creators), offer up something rather special!

ALBINO's creating collaborators are:

Rob Papen - Who has designed sounds for the likes of E-mu Orbit-3 & the ubiquitous Access Virus...

Peter Linsener - The whole synth engine & interface is built by Peter Linsener of Linplug fame... Linplug already have build a solid reputation over the last few years since Peter first appeared on the scene offering his excellent freebie drumbox VSTi which turned people on to his software.

This doesn't mean that ALBINO is simply a Linplug synth with some presets designed by Rob Papen... Rather, ALBINO was a joint project with the Linplug engine and layout/design being co-operatively designed to suit the intended sound design, so it's completely new & purpose designed to realise the audio idea's of the sound designer..... ALBINO is currently available as PC VSTi, Mac OS9 VSTi or Mac OSX VSTi & rrp's at around $199.00 USD for the Box version or 199 Euro's... (an RTAS and AU version will be available very soon according to the Rob Papen site)





INTRO....



Well, the box arrived badly crushed courtesy of the couriers!... grrrrr!.... I have to say it, although it's really irrelevent to the ALBINO product.... I don't like the box!... I have seen other companies like Native-Instruments try some of these 'fits-together' boxes which offer some sort of internal 'formed' cardboard 'packaging' which slots together, and frankly I prefer a simple box with a lid, into which I can EASILY slip the disc & manual or take it out again!... it should be simple right!?..... Well this 'new-style' box, whilst very cool & pretty on the outside with nice graphics etc, is useless.... some newfangled thing which looks like it was made by an origami black-belt, and which turns a simple procedure like 'Getting the CD out of' (or in to) the box into a task not too far in difficulty from wrestling a giant octopus or trying to get your furious claw-weilding cat into a cat-basket to take it to the vet!... Anyways, it's a pet gripe cos I'm a bit of a Luddite, but the box was crushed, and now because of that complicated internal 'formed' bit being squashed out of shape somewhat, none of the internal 'bits' fit together, and you have to remove the box 'internals' everytime you want to take out or put back the disk or booklets etc.... I'd prefer a simple BOX... with a normal lid which opens and you just drop stuff into it, and shut the lid... simple!

Oooer!... (you might be thinking)... That's not a good start for a product review... But let me say first off the bat.. The CONTENTS of the dreaded 'box' are very very cool indeed!... I've had ALBINO around the studio for about 4 weeks now, and it's becoming a regularly used old freind!



First off, the sounds, layout, quality and overall vibe of ALBINO is definately to place it into a 'pro' quality product bracket... and to boot, a 'bracket' we don't see too often in s/w synthesisers.... ALBINO is like a sort of Kurzweil or E-mu synth in sound... some of the presets are right out of those types of synth's genre of sounds... lush, almost rompler-like detailed pads and atmospheres, but with the added bonus of being a good all round VA style synth too!... (did I say it does GREAT drumsounds?... it does those too!)

In my own studio, we would tend to use s/w synths for VA tasks even though we have several quality VA hardware synths in the rack; but for the bigger lush sounds for pads and atmosphere's etc we'd tend to 'plumb in' an outboard hardware unit from Kurzweil or Korg or E-mu etc... The arrival of ALBINO has changed that to a certain extent. Whilst I'm not about to abandon my favourite hardware romplers, ALBINO has found a niche for itself in our studio production work by way of it's cool sounds and ability to pull sounds out of it's hat which easily rival those top-end romplers & digital synths... So It's a synth I'd check regularly for sounds and put into the pot with those other quality names basicaly!...

ALBINO does the business for those digital soundscape style sounds, but also offers a great VA sound which is far more 'analog' sounding than an actual rompler... So in a nutshell, ALBINO does synth strings, pads, atmosphere's & evolving sounds, arp percussive sounds, bell & glassy sounds, drumsounds, etc etc... I've even managed to programme some very DX or 80's Ensoniq sounding FM gong/bell type sounds using it's FM abilities... It's basicaly a quality VA/Digital synth offering quality sounds, all contained within a really nice user interface which is easy to get to grips with when programming or tweaking sounds..... Let's take a look at the interface screen and check out it's individual sections and how they all link-up and interact....






The ALBINO interface screen

Here's ALBINO's main screen... There are no 'sub-screens' which open or anything like that... You work always within this single page environment and skipping around the interface is very easy & logical.... The screen is devided into the various synth sections... (it even looks a bit 'e-mu-ey' doesn't it!)



a is the OSCILLATOR section.
b is the FILTER section.
c is the ENVELOPE section.
d is the MOD MATRIX & QUAD LFO section.
e is the DUAL EFFECTS section.
f is the MASTER section.




Let's checkout each section in detail....








OSCILLATOR SECTION - 'ANALOG OSCILLATORS'

ALBINO offers 4 oscillators per voice for your sound creations... To the left of the Osc' section you can see the 'OSC SELECT' buttons labelled: 01 02 | 03 04.... You select oscillators in pairs for display in the Osc' section, and the display shows either: Osc's 1 & 2, or Osc's 3 & 4 - Those Oscillators can be either: ANALOG, DIGITAL or NOISE generators and any of the 4 can be freely assigned to any of those 3 Osc' types by clicking on the RED text box above each Osc' section where it says 'Analog' (next to the on/off switch.)



Above in the image is OSC' 1 & 2 - both set to 'ANALOG' style oscillators.... Two main controls can be seen: WAVEFORM can be used to morph between SAW & SQUARE wave shaping and the outputted waveform can be further modified by using the second control: SYMMETRY

SYMMETRY - The overall effect of tweaking these two controls is to offer up the basic outputted 'ANALOG' waveform anywhere between Sawtooth & Square wave with further variations which alter the 'Fatness' or 'Thin-ness' of the waveform....

Here's an image of two waveforms taken from Wavelab...

The top one is the ALBINO basic single 'analog' sawtooth Osc' with the SYMMETRY setting at it's 'thinest' setting (full left)...




The lower image is of the ALBINO basic single 'analog' sawtooth Osc' with the SYMMETRY setting at it's 'fattest' setting (full right)...

You can see the difference, and the two sound different, the first being thinner in sound 'width'...









Checking out the other parameters available to the oscillator section, you can see there is a button marked 'TRACK'... This control switches on/off pitch tracking. Switch this button OFF, and all notes played offer the same fixed pitch based on the Osc's set/original pitch....



Below that button you have 3 Tuning settings for: OCT +/- (Octave), SEMI +/- (Semitone), and the fine tuning 'CENT', to create slight or large offset detuning variations between multiple oscillators to fatten up sounds...

On the right of the OSC' section is the routing Output & Osc' 1/2 Blend & Volume settings... VOL is used to adjust the output of the Osc' -

The 1 BAL 2 control below that offers a 'blend' balance between Filter 1/2 routing if routing to both filters is enabled (Routing F1+F2 button is lit).... The other button options you can see are:


F1
F2
F1+2
FM
AM


  • Selecting F1 or F2 sends the Oscillator output to either FILTER 1 (F1) or FILTER 2 (F2)

  • Selecting F1+2 sends the Oscillator output to BOTH Filter 1 & 2 - You can assign them independently to serial or parallel.

  • Selecting FM allows Osc' 1 to Frequency-mod Osc' 2 - (or Osc' 3 to Frequency-mod Osc' 4 when working with Osc's 3 & 4)

  • Selecting AM allows Osc' 1 to Amplitude mod' Osc' 2 (or Osc' 3 to Amplitude mod' Osc' 4 when working with Osc's 3 & 4)






OSCILLATOR SECTION - 'DIGITAL OSCILLATORS'



This is Oscillators 1 & 2 again - This time they are both set to 'DIGITAL' style oscillators.... Remember, EITHER pair of Oscillators can be EITHER 'Analog' or 'Digital' or 'Noise'... Oscillators are not fixed therefore, ANY oscillator can be freely assigned to any Osc' type in any order which makes for some very interesting versatility on the sound creation front!



Blending between two digital osc' shapes allows morphing a wave-shape anywhere between, (in this example), a pure SINE and TRIANGLE waves



Starting with the Osc' blend slider on the far LEFT, the Digital wave is only SINE content...




Moving the Osc' blend slider across to the RIGHT starts to change the waveform shape, distorting the SINE wave...




Now the Osc' blend slider is about center, and you can see the waveform is now a blend of SINE & TRIANGLE wave shape...




Finaly with the Osc' blend slider full across to the RIGHT, we have a TRIANGLE wave only in the window....



So as you can see, the DIGITAL oscillators offer a large variety of additional waveforms just by using two oscillators each assigned to a pair of standard waveforms....

Blending these together in 2 or 4 osc combinations yeilds a rich pallette of available raw waveforms to create & play with!...

However, ALBINO offers a large selection of waveforms to load, further enhancing it's sonic variety!...

DIGITAL oscillators can have a variety of wave types assigned to them, and either side of a single Dig' Osc' can have ANY of the available wave types assigned to mix any available wave type together!....

Here's the list which opens when you click on the Osc wave box in 'DIGITAL' osc' mode...
You can see the list in this image ends at a wave called: VECTRA17 - The actual list scrolls on a bit further to end with VECTRA25.








OSCILLATOR SECTION - 'NOISE OSCILLATORS'

The final Oscillator type you can select is NOISE.... Here's one of the Oscillators set to the NOISE selection which as you can see offfers White, Pink and Brown noise settings. Use this for adding 'swish', 'hiss' & 'rumble' to sounds...












FILTERS SECTION

Once the raw sounds leave the oscillator section, they go to the FILTER section... According to their assigned destination, the oscillators can be routed to either FILTER-1 or FILTER-2, or FILTER 1 & 2 in series....



Two types of filter can be selected - CREAM or SILK.... The 'CREAM' filter offers LO-PASS, HI-PASS, BAND-PASS or NOTCH filters..... FILTER 1 can be assigned to FILTER 2 (F2 button select on top-right) or to E1 / E2 which routes to either Effect 1 or Effect 2..... Filter 2 can be assigned to either E1 / E2 which routes to either Effect 1 or Effect 2

Either filter can have added SATURATION, PAN, and there is an overall Filter 'BALANCE' control












ENVELOPE SECTION

The Envelope section offers a choice for each envelope of either a straight ADSFR Envelope or '5 Stage' Envelope which gives a time & level setting for each envelope stage....

Each individual Oscillator has it's own dedicated Envelope



Osc' 1 envelope...




Osc' 2 envelope...




Osc' 3 envelope...




Osc' 4 envelope...








Further to these Oscillator envelopes, the Envelope section offers also a MOD' envelope, and FILTER 1 & 2 envelopes, as well as an overall AMP' envelope...




Filter 1 envelope...




Filter 2 envelope...





And last on the list, the AMP' envelope....






VELOCITY & PITCH SCALING



ALL envelopes have controls for VELOCITY & PITCH scaling...

PITCH Scaling allows ALBINO to adjust envelope +/- time according to incoming note pitch... By dialing in Positive numbers, you can force the envelope speed to increase as incoming MIDI note pitch rises... So higher notes get progressivly shorter envelope times..... Of course, you can dial negative numbers to get the reverse effect...

Same for VELOCITY Scaling.... set this to force the envelope to adjust +/- times for higher velocity values...








ADSFR or 5-STAGE ENVELOPE CHOICE!

Now in the images of the selectable envelopes above, each one is assigned to the default ADSFR envelope...



This is the basic Attack, Decay, Sustain, Fade, and Release envelope as can be seen by the accompanying graphic display below the controls...

However... ANY of those Envelopes can be switched to be the more advanced 5-STAGE Envelope!...





Here's the 5-STAGE Envelope assigned as the FILTER-1 (F1) envelope.... As you can see, you now get a 5 stage envelope, but each stage/section has both TIME & LEVEL controls, so you can assign more drastic or odd or wierd or simply more controlled envelope power to your sound creations...

The LOOP on/off button below the Pitch & Velocity Scaling controls allows the user to switch IN/OUT the Envelope Loop.... When switched ON, this forces the sound to cycle back to STAGE-1 of the envelope once it reaches STAGE-4... So if you hold down a long note, once the envelope reaches STAGE-4 it'll cycle back to Stage-1 again....

Here's a single Oscillator 'Analog' sawtooth, playing a single sustained note, with the AMP envelope set to the 5-STAGE envelope, with the LOOP control switched ON....

albino_loop_amp_envelope.mp3

I've set a reasonably short DECAY & SUSTAIN section and you can hear the single sustained note cycling round and round the envelope as it reaches the 4th STAGE and cycles back to the ATTACK section again creating a swelling/pulsing cycling sound... Ideal for your 'whuuumping' throbbing basslines or whatever!











QUAD LFO & MOD' MATRIX SECTION

Ok, this section of ALBINO is dual purpose, and displays either the settings for any of the 4 LFO's, or it displays the Modulation Matrix...


The Matrix allows you to assign sources to control destinations, and these can be either other parts of the synth interface, such as allowing any of the 4 LFO's to modulate the filter cutoff for example, or you can assign Mod' Wheel, or a selection of Midi CC numbers... Remember that ALBINO allows any control on-screen to be easily assigned to a MIDI controller, (more on that later), so combine that with the Mod' Matrix and you get alot of power.... Mod' Matrix's are nothing new, but it's nice to see it....



On the LEFT of the MATRIX screen is a list of available 'Slots' which can be assigned to Controllers/modulators sources.... On the RIGHT of the MATRIX screen is a list of available 'Slots' which can be assigned to whatever section of ALBINO you wish to control.... In the middle is the 'Amount' setting which you can increment/decrement with the mouse...

So you choose a Mod' controller such as LFO-1 or MIDI CC16, or perhaps the 'Modulation Wheel'... You then go to the Right-side of the section and choose the destination which is to be controlled, which might be the Filter-1 Cutoff or Resonance or perhaps the Filter-1 panning speed etc....

In the MOD' MATRIX image above, LFO1 is assigned to control the speed of FILTER 1 & FILTER 2 panning....

One nice feature I liked was that if you use the SHIFT key and click on the center numerical value it defaults back to zero... That goes for all ALBINO's interface which is a Godsend for setting a zero value where required!






Here's the list of assignable controllers/modulators you get in the drop-down list which appear when you click on any 'row' on the Left-side of the Matrix....








And here's the drop-down list of possible destinations those controllers/modulators can control/modify... Again, the destination list appears when you click on any 'row' on the Right-side of the Matrix...









The MODULATION-MATRIX/QUAD-LFO Section can be switched to display any of the 4 available LFO settings....

You get 4 seperate LFO's, each with sync and 6 basic waveshapes as well as delay, attack and other tweak settings...













Here you can see the SYNC selections on offer when you click on the SYNC setting button... This will clock your selected LFO to your incoming MIDI clock from your sequencer...












EFFECTS SECTION



Hmm.... Useful FX overall, especialy the Chorus which finds its way into alot of presets as do the delays, and both of those can be used to good effect (hur hur) to add width and depth to sounds... even the reverb is pretty good... & of course, using ALBINO in any contemporary audio/midi sequencer will allow the user to add much higher quality reverb where required as either an insert or send effect...

FX are selectable, and you can run the two slots with the same fx in, or different... and of course the parameter controls of these FX can be controlled easily using ALBINO's ECS system, so that worth thinking about... In practice there's quite interesting effects you can get using synth & FX control in tandem.










MASTER SECTION



Here's the bottom master section of ALBINO... Here we have tings like Final Master Volume out, polyphony settings, 'quality' settings, 'Slide' settings, a switch on/off for 'learn controller' etc... Let's look at the controls & step thru them one by one....





VOLUME control of course is the final Master-Volume.... The rest of the MASTER SECTION isa devided into sub-sections...



Starting with the top-left PRESET section.... Here is where you load & save presets using the LOAD & SAVE buttons, and step thru the ones which are loaded already by using the NEXT & PREV buttons..... ALBINO has an odd way of loading Banks of presets which as far as I can see from this version is a bit of a problem and most likely will be changed in a future version. The thing is this...

When you click on LOAD, you can step into wherever the ALBINO presets are stored on your drive, and when you arrive at the folder, you can see all the presets by name in the folder.... Like this....



Ok... you can see here for example all the presets in the folder called DANCE LEADS.... BUT, there is no seperate LOAD for BANK or PRESET.... so you can't load any ONE sound from that folder of DANCE LEADS into an already loaded bank of sounds as far as I can see.

At first I was confused because, I couldn't see any BANKS to load and there is no choice when loading for file-type apart from the standard: VSTi standard FXP format for individual sounds or fx-settings.... You just see a folder full of individual presets. I called up the distributors and it was explained to me that by selecting and loading ANY of the INDIVIDUAL Presets in a folder, you in fact load ALL the presets in that folder when you select any ONE of the individual presets!!.... er... But, there's no way I can see to load just ONE preset into a already loaded bank of sounds.... This is a problem because say you create a sound, unless you save that created Preset into a folder with the other sounds that you want to load all together as a bank, then there is no way to load ONE sound into an already loaded ALBINO bank, making it impossible to add ONE created preset toan already loaded Bank of sounds.

In practice this isn't too much of an issue because you can run multiple ALBINO's in your host sequencer of course, and load LEAD sounds into one ALBINO, and BASS sounds into another etc... ALBINO is not multi-timbrel, so you cannot actualy PLAY or sequence two different sounds at once from one loaded ALBINO... However, I just think some users would mebbe want to be able to add individual sounds to already-loaded Banks!.... You might be working on choosing a bass sound and want to load & flip thru the bank of Bass presets from one folder, but also add some self-created Bass sounds to that loaded bank so they can be included for audition as you step thru the sounds searching for one which fits well..... Of course, you could remedy this situation by juggling folders & presets... You could save your bass sounds into a folder and manualy copy the ones you want to load from your created sounds and preset sounds into one NEW folder and load the whole contents of that new folder... but it's a bit longwinded.

This is one of the only issues I found with what is otherwise a flawless software. The other issue is that currently with this Version you cannot step thru the sounds using your master keyboard patch UP/DOWN controls, although apparently that's already been updated... Sadly, you have to use the mouse to select and click on the NEXT or PREV buttons once your Bank of sounds is loaded. This of course is far from ideal when working away in your studio at the master keyboard... You want to be able to play away on the keyboard and just step thru the sounds from there as you audition sounds and try ideas as each one loads... Apparently this issue will be updated in a forthcoming version according to the distributors.





ACT is simply a Midi receive indicator lamp which usefully displays midi input...

SINGLE-TRIGGER control allows you to overide envelope triggering for Legato style notes... This means for newbies that if you switch Single-Trigger ON, then when you play notes which over-lap each other (one note is not released until AFTER the next note is struck), then the envelopes are not re-triggered when you strike the next note... if however, you play a note, release that note and then press another, the envelope is triggered as normal.



VOICES - ALBINO can run with full polyphony (ALL = 32 note polyphonic) or you can select a reduced voicing which is selectable between 8 notes down to MONO mode.. Use the up/down buttons here to select polyphony then.





PRECISION - Next to Voices we have 'Precision' which apparently does the following: You use it to set the accuracy of ALBINO's signal-generation... When 'Precision' control is set to less than 100%, small innacuracies are introduced into the waveform at various points along the signal path which according to the manual is 'useful if you're trying to replicate the warmth of an old analog synth'







GLIDE

1 To the right of the Preset section is the section for GLIDE, or rather portamento.. Glide/Portamento for newbies?... Well you should learn about it, but it's basicaly the slurring of one note into another by pitch... Portamento or GLIDE is what makes one note slur up or down in pitch to meet the next note.

The GLIDE button has 4 settings:

  • ON.... er... it's switched on...
  • OFF... um.. it's switched off...
  • HELD... If notes overlap then glide is applied, if not then glide is not applied.
  • BEND... Allows a fixed amount of pitch-bend to be applied to each note. The range is +48 to -48 semi-tones which you can select in the small readout display under-neath


TIME button determines the glide-time between notes... this allows you to adjust the speed it takes for one note to GLIDE up or down to the pitch of the next note...



In this example setting the pitch would bend Up from the negative octave value (-12) and would take the amount of time to reach the correct pitch as set with the TIME control.





GEN & ECS



this bit is great as so easy to use... I'll start with the ECS which stands for: Easy Controller Setup ... and it's a doddle - You just switch it ON by clicking on the 'ECS' button, and then click on any part of the synth controls/pots and move you're hardware controller and it's picked up and mapped.... It's a bit un-nerving because there's no dialog boxes or anything, but it picks up the incloming midi and you soon learn to trust it, although on the downside, there's no way to check assigned controllers by ALBINO control-pot as far as I can see.

ECS controller setups can be saved and loaded via the panel... Here's an image (below) of a saved Yamaha DX 'style' Temple-Bell type sound controller-parameters I made... To load and save, you just click on... LOAD & SAVE, (using the buttons indicated by the arrows)... This is very useful to quickly load commonly required control presets which match various items of hardware you have in your studio.









Last bit of the master section is GEN, which I guess stands for 'Generate' because clicking on the GEN button causes ALBINO to load a sort of random Generation setting based on the currently-loaded preset/patch... it doesn't drasticaly switch the sound that is loaded tho, but rather it subtly changes elements within the overall with tweaks so each fresh click of the GEN button results in the loaded preset/patch being 'morphed' to a new variation.... Some envelope parameters for example might shift, as well as filter and some subtle change of the osc' Symmetry might occur.... but basicaly, clicking on GEN each time, causes some the sound parameters to shift slightly resulting in a variation of that loaded sound...

THIS GEN CONTROL IS A SUPERB FEATURE!!... You can click away and be presented with endless random variations on the current loaded theme... a fresh 'idea' with each click!!... This gives you infinate fresh ideas & variations based on the type of sound you have loaded, which of course can be manualy tweaked further and then saved!... excellent!!






Round the back of ALBINO is some further Master-settings of the type you change very occasionally.... This caused me a bit of headscratching actualy, because when I first booted ALBINO, it was all there, and yet no sound was produced... I hadn't RTFM either of course... Anyways, it took me a serious while to discover that you have to add-in your serial number FIRST before ALBINO will spit some sound out!

So you click on the front-panel 'Rob papen' signature and the back-panel flips to face you... Add in the serial here and ALBINO is ready to rock...






Other settings as can be seen on the reverse panel are Bend-Range, Master-tune, and 'GEN' value - Setting this 'GEN' higher, increases the range that the ALBINO parameters will shift when clicking on the GEN button to step thru random regenrations of the currently loaded patch as described earlier.

Apart from your Version number, all else on the rear is the DIAL MODE which can be slipped between LIN (LINear) - & CIR (CIRcular) - This choose wether the mouse rotates the ALBINO pots by vertical Up/DOWN moves or by actualy rotating the pointer in a circular motion around the graphic pot which is a nice useful touch...






Summing Up

ALBINO comes over as a 'proper' instrument, and after-all, it is a retail synth and at 179.00 $US it should be of quality... So often as I perhaps mentioned already, ALBINO reminds me of playing an E-mu or Kurzweil unit, and it can touch on the pallette of DX and ESQ style synths of yore as well as doing fine lashings of 'ye analog fayre' sauce!...

Basicaly it's a SUPERB all-rounder synth, and you should think of it as something between one of those posh romplers/digital synths and something like a Supernova... Once you sit down for an hour and get to know it's interface, ALBINO's nice and intuitive and features don't seem to leave you thinking anything is illogical... ALBINO is different in sound & character to other similarly targetted or priced s/w synths and also retains that quality-feel of using a bit of hardware as do other quality retail s/w's... Both in it's design of interface, and the included palette of very acceptable pro-sounding patches it offers a 'quality' vibe & establishes itself as an instrument of real character... It's new but somehow familiar.... What I REALLY liked about ALBINO is that, sure, you can see lots of 4 osc' synths around, some of them even freeware, and some are very good, but with ALBINO (like with a really good hardware synth), you grab a pair of oscillators, add some filter... just basic stuff, and it sounds GREAT!... warm, fat & lush... Great sound, great filters, and great easy control too!

There's nothing on ALBINO I could fault really apart from the lack of patch-change via a controller at this review version (THIS IS NOW IMPLEMENTED ON LATEST VERSION i WAS TOLD THIS MORNING).... & the box (*cough*)... All I can say is, I really enjoy playing with ALBINO, I always come up with a nice patch each time I play with it... I am already using it alot as a firmly established 'regular' in the studio.

If you are the sort of person who buys s/w synths because you like a wide selection then you'll snap ALBINO up... ALBINO compliments any quality studio because it's a great little pad machine, does some very nice variations on trance themes as well as wandering into 80's techno & house territory via it's digital waves side, for example offering lots of 'hoover' style/related sounds... Lush haunting e-mu style pads, malette/arps & other percussive styles including REALLY SUPERB analog drums!! .... You get a folder of drumsounds included, and it covers everything from REALLY thumpingly deep and big sounding kiks & blips, thru a selection of claps & hats and all sorts of synth-drums from toms & conga-type sounds to snares... plenty of starting points for GEN or manual edits also therefore & a godsend for people who like to programme their own drums & drum-fx sounds!!.... it really is a very good VA analog imo!... I can spend hours playing with ALBINO!...


Lots of sounds...

If you like to create sounds you'll REALLY like this synth, and if you like to have good presets then you'll REALLY like this synth!.... If you want LOTS of sounds & sound ideas to step thru, then you'll really like this synth because the previously-mentioned GEN button allows you to step thru variations morphing away from the original patch a bit each time.... As I said already, load a patch/preset and click away on the GEN button and watch as each click alters the parameters and some of the pots shift a bit.... THIS feature is great because it's like dialing up a patch you like, then having an 'invisible assistant' who clicks away and makes little changes each time to the sound for you to audition while you just relax and listen!... So by using the GEN button it is possible to just click and click and each time you hear a new change and a new variation on the original sound.... Keep clicking enuff and eventualy the sound will move away from anything resembling the starting patch and you can go on and on.... This feature I REALLY REALLY liked! (which is why I mention it twice!)... It gives you so much idea's if you like to get inspired by tweaks to classic patch 'types'.... manualy tweaking & saving those variations is a snip too!...

ALBINO offers a 'quality hardware' synth sound with a superbly easy to use interface & is capable of providing every type of sound including drums for all styles of contemporary or classic dance & electronic music, and would be superb for film score & other such duties!.... At 179.00 US$ with the 650 included SUPERB sounds (PLUS another 101 extra sounds if you buy the boxed version) it's going to sell quite a few units I'd say!... A very cool, very swanky sounding, easy to use & robust synth... ALBINO's got that rare quality in a s/w product...CHARACTER!... With the pallete of included sounds and the GEN variations as well as a great interface & easy hassle-free control, ALBINO will suit both experienced tweakers and people who just want to have alot of presets and easy click-by-click variations till the cows come home!.... this synth can make some VERY hypnotic sounds is all I can say, I genuinely have taken to it!... excellent filters, hugely varied sound potential & gorgeous drums too!... Add it all up and ALBINO is definately destined to become a 'classic' software synth!













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Currently: 4.0/5 | 80%

Total stars: 8  |  Total votes: 2

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