EastWest Announces Blue

Aug 29, 2005 1:27 PM

           
 

EastWest has announced Blue (Mac/Win; $199), a feature-rich virtual synth (VST 2.0 and Audio Units) created by Rob Papen and Jon Ayres. Blue has six oscillators that can be configured in a variety of ways, two analogue-modeled stereo filters, nine effects, and several sequencers. The synthesis methods include FM, phase distortion, wave shaping, and subtractive. The multimode filters include 6 dB lowpass and highpass; 12 dB and 24 dB lowpass, highpass, bandpass, and notch; as well as ring, comb, and formant.

The synthesizer has nine AHDSFR envelopes, four multi-envelopes, and 10 LFOs that can sync to MIDI. The three modulation step-sequencers have Poly, Mono, and Free Play modes, as well as speed controls and a step-smooth function. Blue also includes a 32-step mono sequencer, with control over sequencer length, speed, slide amount, swing amount, and volume smoothing. The Modulation Matrix offers 2 pages of 10 slots.

Blue is 16-voice polyphonic and has an Adjustable Precision setting for each oscillator to simulate the instability of vintage analog synthesizers. The synth's two effects-blocks have serial and parallel modes. The nine effects include Mono Delay, Stereo Delay, Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Distortion, Low Fi, Stereo Widener, and Reverb. MIDI tempo-based settings are available for the delays, Phaser, and Flanger. The sound banks include 32 presets. For more information, visit soundsonline.com.