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Back in 2023, Song Athletics teamed up with Grammy-nominated composer Max Richter for a software instrument  that captured the sounds of Richter’s Steinway D SPIRIO | r grand piano, before releasing the free Dark Mode  plugin late last year.

This week, the British company, headed up by former Spitfire Audio CEO Will Evans, has released another Kontakt instrument developed in collaboration with Richter under the SRM Sounds banner. Valley Forge is a sci-fi inspired virtual instrument and “celestial toolkit” based on the sounds of a 15-piece timpani ensemble, an original Minimoog and an array of analogue effects processors.

Recorded at Richter’s personal studio, Studio Richter Mahr, the timpani recordings were made using a number of different microphone types and placements that can be be blended together on Valley Forge’s interface. The timpani library features hits, rolls, and clusters performed with a variety of mallets and percussive objects.

Those recordings were run through a selection of Richter’s analogue effects to produce cinematic and textural drones, while his own Minimoog Model D has been sampled and included as a synth accompaniment. There are also a range of built-in effects onboard for further processing, including delay, chorus, phaser, saturation and tape emulation.

Here’s the video walkthrough:

Key Features

• 8 instruments total ~9.7GB
• 6 timpani instruments
• Drone instrument
• Analogue synthesizer instrument
• Multi-effects (also linked to keyswitches)
• Custom effects and controls per instrument
• Kontakt Player library (Version 6.8.0 or higher required)
• NKS compatible

“Valley Forge is a place of sonic exploration,” Richter says of the instrument. “Like all musical instruments, it’s an act of the imagination. And in this case, it’s a place where these strange sounds exist.

“Named after the spaceship in Douglas Trumbull’s prescient 1972 sci-fi eco-parable “Silent Running”, these sounds are evocative of a spaciousness, with a darkness about them. There’s resonance and memory, and a sort of alien warmth in this material. And that comes from the fact that it has mostly organic origins. In a way Valley Forge is a kind of ode to an imaginary spaceship. And this is what it would sound like.”

Valley Forge is available now with an intro price of £99 (normally £129).

Reader Visa-Pekka Oskari Mertanen let us know about their 2025 doctoral Thesis, defended on Jan 31st, Perspectives on Jazz Synthesizer Improvisation.

Mertanen analyzes jazz synthesizer improvisation through five recorded solos, by Jan Hammer, Joe Zawinul, George Duke, Chick Corea, and Michael Brecker:

• Celestial Terrestrial Commuters, from the Mahvishnu Orchestra album Birds of Fire (1973);
• Black Market, from the Weather Report album of the same name (1976);
• Brazilian Sugar, from the George Duke album Brazilian Love Affair (1980);
• Got A Match?, from the album Chick Corea Electric Band (1986); and
• Gossip, from the album Michael Brecker Band Live (1993).

The analysis includes a look at the role of synthesizers in jazz fusion, from the 1960s to the 1980s; a discussion of some of the key synthesizers used on these recordings; and transcriptions and analysis of each of the five works.

The transcription analysis includes scale choices, note choices, patterns, nuancing, timbral qualities, form, and tension control:

Mertanen also provides a chart of each of the musician’s personal data, song information, improvisational concepts, synthesizer setups, solo sound characters and realtime controllers.

“The findings show that the critical elements in jazz synthesizer soloing are mastering the improvisatory languages of the jazz tradition and adjusting the playing style to each sound’s acoustic character,” notes Mertanen. “The studied solos demonstrate different ways of nuancing the notes with continuous controllers and manipulating the sound’s timbral qualities to keep the synthesizer sound expressive and exciting.”

Perspectives on Jazz Synthesizer Improvisation is available now as a free download.

Xfer Records has released Serum 2, a major update to their popular wavetable synthesizer Serum for Mac & Windows.

After more than a decade of anticipation, Xfer Records has finally dropped the sequel to its wildly popular synth plugin Serum, transforming this already-formidable wavetable synth into something much more versatile and powerful – and if you already own Serum, you can download Serum 2 right now for free.

Serum 2 vastly expands the capabilities of its predecessor with new spectral, granular and sample-based oscillators, enhanced effects, expanded modulation options, an updated interface, clip editor and built-in arpeggiator, along with a host of minor improvements. This is a colossal update that makes Serum 2 a serious rival to powerhouse hybrid synth plugins like Arturia Pigments 6 and Kilohearts Phase Plant.

Serum’s arsenal of oscillators has been expanded to include a total of five oscillator types, and the OG wavetable oscillator has been upgraded with dual warping, a new smooth interpolation mode and a raft of extra warp modes, including true FM and phase distortion. Three primary oscillators can now be utilized in a single patch, opening up a wide range of possibilities for experimentation with FM routing.

Two sample-based oscillators turn Serum 2 into a flexible sampler and multisampler equipped with a library of stock samples that spans orchestras, keys, guitars and more, and you can load in your own .sfz files. The new granular oscillator can create complex and evolving textures by breaking down samples into tiny grains of audio, while the spectral oscillator conjures up new sounds by harmonically resynthesizing imported samples, wavetables or even image files in real time.

Serum 2’s dual filter section has been bolstered with eleven new filter types, including emulations of classic ladder filters and a disperser-style “diffuser” filter, while the effects section has been overhauled with new flexible routing and several new processors, including an analogue-style frequency shifter and convolution reverb, and new signal splitter modules can be used to get deep into multi-band and mid/side processing.

The synth’s modulation capabilities have also been improved, with the number of available LFOs taken from four to ten, and an additional envelope bringing the total to four. Any oscillator or filter can now act as a modulation source, and LFO modes have been expanded with two chaos modes, an S&H generator, and a Path LFO mode for vector-based modulation that follows a path drawn on an XY grid.

If as if that wasn’t quite enough for you, Serum 2 has also been equipped with an enhanced mod matrix, new mixer panel, multimode arpeggiator and a sophisticated clip sequencer and MIDI editor with automation and probabilistic sequencing. The plugin’s revamped preset browser can be used to preview, categorize and tag its 626 factory presets, and long-time users will be pleased to know that Serum 2 is backwards-compatible with existing presets for its predecessor.

Features:

• Multiple Oscillator Types:
• Wavetable Oscillator with smooth interpolation, new warp modes
• Multisample Oscillator for replicating real instruments
• Sample Oscillator with looping, slicing, and rate modulation
• Granular Oscillator
• Spectral Oscillator for harmonic resynthesis
• Workflow enhancements: Flexible effect routing, arpeggiator, clip sequencer and more
• 626+ presets and 288 wavetables.

An example of Serum 2 in action, via synthesist and sound designer Richard Devine:

Serum 2 is available now with an intro price of $189 (normally $249) until June 1st. It’s a free upgrade for existing Serum owners.