Uber Synth 4+

I really like the sound and modulation concept of the synth. However, there are few things about the app that annoy me. One thing is that the blend modes can be confusing. Although the manual is explicit about them. The blend mode for layering synths seems confusing. It seems that the right of the blend knob is synth 1 and not 2. The second annoying thing is the poor preset system. The app claims that there are 32 user presets, but there are only 18. Not only I can't see all of the presets in the list at once, but there is no way to save or initialize without copying and pasting. Often, the saved patches duplicate themselves or disappear. The third annoying thing is that there is no option for linear knobs. The developer also has no idea what multitimbral means. It means that each patch should be assigned to a midi channel or keyzone, not layering sounds. Overall, this app has useful potential, but needs to be less confusing.

I have often considered buying this developers other synth app, xMod, but just never got around to it. But, when I saw that he released this new synth, I figured I would take the chance and give it a whirl.

I would say I am pretty impressed so far with this app. There are a couple of things here and there that I would like to see added, such as an on-key pitch mod feature, and maybe some UI enhancements. But I am able to overlook those things, because one, the price is low, and two, the sounds are crazy in this app. Sometimes I don't feel like my key hits always register, too. But the sounds, well, let me just say that you would feel right at home using this synthesizer to create a score for a science-fiction movie or video game.

I didn't understand at first how to access the presets, but figured out that you just hit the "Sound Map" button and click on the little "Z's" on said map to change the presets. There is an in-app tutorial it looked like too, which you access by pressing the "i" button in the top right, but I have not had time to read through it yet. But even without fully understanding the app, I can already think of the possibilities of using this app for all kinds of out there, bizarre songs and other projects. I am glad I took the chance with this app, but I do hope a pitch modulation wheel or on-key feature gets added please, thanks.

Hate to be critical when someone's taken the time to actually to create and put something out there (where's the synth app that *I* made at, right?) but having had this for a while now I wanted to give it a chance so circled back and am sad to say; it just doesn't cut it.

~ First of all pretty much all the sounds seem to suffer from ringy artifacts - possibly from comb filtering of some sort - that make eq'ing much more challenging than it needs to be.

~The modulation capabilities are extremely limited to put it mildly. There's no way to get under the hood and tweak things... Leading me to wonder if this isn't just a rompler or something with a couple dozen soundfonts stuffed inside. If you're hoping for arps and LFOs and stuff this is not the synth you're looking for.

~ Random crashing where there's never any particular chain of events or type of use case that triggers it; it just happens. Actually, entering and exiting the Info panel is pretty reliable at crashing it now that I try.

~ Might've accidentally discovered how to save a modified patch once, but might've been hallucinating that one because there's nothing approaching what I saw (or dreamt I saw).

~The sounds are nothing special at all. There's not even one patch I can say HAD to be captured before deleting it...

...which is ultimately what I went ahead and did.

Considering how many amazing sounding synths there are out there for free at this point (Alchemy - which also has limited user control in the free version but sounds ridiculously good) not to mention what a mere $2.99 will buy you (Magellan Jr. with it's amazing fx rack and works as both input and fx unit in Audiobus) that there's no reason to keep this one around just because your Audiobus available input list looks so short. ;)