Sampleson has introduced Twinkle, a virtual instrument for macOS & Windows that turns gestures into short, orchestrated musical phrases.
Twinkle is designed to create cinematic musical passages by just dragging your mouse. It generates short, fast, and decorative phrases — arpeggios, trills, runs, and sparkling bursts of notes.
Twinkle features 32 modes, each with its own unique set of ornaments. You can choose from a wide range of scales and root notes to craft the emotional tone of your gestures.
Features:
Generate expressive musical ornaments with a single gesture.
Interactive canvas for intuitive phrase creation.
Two independently assignable scales and root notes.
Developer Jacob Vosmaer shared this demo of a free set of utilities for working with the vintage Casio FZ-1 sampling synthesizer.
The utilities enable you create empty FZ-1 disk images, store files onto an image, convert a .wav file to .fzv and more.
The free Casio FZ-1 utilities include:
akwf-fzv: converts an AKWF 600-sample mono waveform into a Casio FZ-1 wave synth voice
fzformat: creates an empty FZ-1 disk image
fzputfile: stores a given file onto an FZ-1 disk image file
fzbuildfull: assemble FZV voice files into an FZF full data dump
wav2fzv: convert a WAV file to an FZV
The free utilities are available now from Voxmaer’s Github site.
Cherry Audio revives the cult classic Crumar Spirit in its latest plugin
Cherry Audio has introduced Crumar Spirit, a virtual instrument based on the classic hardware synth of the same name from 1983.
Cherry Audio is renowned for its software recreations of vintage synthesizers, having captured the spirit of legendary names such as the Roland Juno-106, ARP 2600 and Prophet-10 in plugin form, along with instrument like the Novachord.
Cherry Audio’s latest synth sights is the Crumar Spirit, an Italian analogue monosynth released in late 1983 that’s considered something of a cult classic. Designed by none other than Bob Moog (in collaboration with Tom Rhea, Jim Scott and Sante Crucianelli) the Spirit is known for its complexity and sonic versatility, along with its ultra-rare status: fewer than 100 units were manufactured before Crumar folded in 1986.
Fast forward to 2008, and the Italian company VMConnection acquired the Crumar brand before relaunching a modernized version of the Spirit in 2023. Cherry Audio’s software emulation has been developed in collaboration with Crumar, replicating the innovative design of the original instrument while bringing increased polyphony, enhanced modulation capabilities and a handful of useful new features.
“Spirit is a gateway to sonic experimentation, whether you are after wild, unpredictable timbres or warm, analogue tones” reads a statement from Cherry Audio. “It is not a polite instrument. Nor is it clean, safe, or obvious. However, twist a few knobs and it will reward you with some of the most colorful sounds you have ever heard from a virtual analogue software synthesizer.”
Like the original, Cherry Audio’s Crumar Spirit is a two-oscillator synth with saw, triangle and square waveforms (the latter with variable pulse width) and its oscillators are somewhat unusually routed through two distinct signal paths.
The first path runs through Spirit’s dual resonant filters – one low-pass filter and and a second state-variable filter with high-pass, band-pass and overdrive modes, switchable filter slopes of either 12dB or 24dB and a formant mode for adding vocal-like colour – and its VCA section. The other is routed through a second mixer for blending in ring modulation and a noise generator controlled by Spirit’s Shaper Y envelope.
Along with EGs for both filter and amp envelope, Spirit’s modulation comes courtesy of two LFOs found in the Mod X and Shaper Y sections, which have been joined in Cherry Audio’s software emulation by a new Matrix Z section, a four-slot modulation matrix with 25 sources and 45 destinations.
In addition, Cherry Audio have upgraded Spirit’s multi-mode arpeggiator with swing, humanization and probabilistic sequencing, and introduced a suite of effects that includes distortion, chorus, flanger, delay and reverb.
Voice modes now include monophonic, unison and a cyclic mode that adds per-note variation, along with a polyphonic mode with up to 16 voices, and the synth has been brought into the 21st century with velocity and polyphonic aftertouch.
Features:
Based on the original synthesizer and circuit designs of Robert A. Moog, Tom Rhea, Jim Scott, and Crumar’s Sante Crucianelli
Expanded functionality and modulation options
Monophonic, unison, polyphonic (4, 8, or 16 voices), and cycle voice modes
Multi voice modes for unison, poly, and cycle that add per-note variation by adding three additional “mini synth” panels, each with their own pitch, pan, filter frequency, VCA Envelope Attack, and VCA Envelope Release settings
Quick-access Multi voice panel presets such as Hard Panned, Slightly Detuned, Well Worn, and more to simulate subtle or extreme variations between voices
Over 430 presets in a dozen categories
Two oscillators with master tune, octave, waveshape, and oscillator sync
Oscillator B features modes to create a fixed frequency in two ranges – Bass and Wide – for drones, audio-rate modulation, or an additional LFO
Dedicated Upper low pass filter and multimode Lower filter
Flexible filter section with keyboard tracking, a fixed formant option for the Lower filter (to add vocal-like color), and low pass slope options
Two ADSR envelopes with velocity for filter and amp
Extensive modulation options in Mod X and Shaper Y sections, each routable to dedicated mod wheels
Mod X modulation sources: Triangle, Square, Random (Sample & Hold), Shaper Y, Red Noise, Oscillator B. Sync or retrig
Mod X destinations: Oscillator A + B, Oscillator A, Oscillator A rectangular width modulation (RWM), Filter Upper + Lower, Upper Filter
Shaper Y modes: Free Run (extra LFO), KB Hold, Run, Reset (Envelope and Filter Effects). Sync or loop.
Shaper Y destinations: Oscillator A + B, Oscillator B, Oscillator B RWM, LFO Rate, Lower Filter
Cherry Audio’s “Matrix Z” four-slot mod matrix with four independent pathways to send modulation from one of 25 sources to any of 45 destinations, each with its own amount knob
Multiple gate options for ADSRs allow for complex triggering
Two independent mixers and signal paths for Shaper Y and Filter/ADSR with independent outputs
Glide and pitch bend controls
Dynamic arpeggiator with three modes – Ripple, Arp, and Leap – with Swing, Chance, and Feel to add degrees of randomness to arpeggiated patterns
Two independent chains of studio-quality integrated effects with a global effect modulator:
Filter/ADSR Effects: Distortion, Flanger & Chorus, Echo, and Reverb
Shaper Y Effects: Envelope Filter, Dual Phaser, Flanger & Chorus, and Echo
Standalone virtual instrument and plug-in versions included
DAW sync
User-adjustable oversampling control
Complete MIDI control and DAW automation for all controls, with MIDI learn and mapping (Preset and Global)
Cherry Audio’s Focus zoom-in feature, as well as standard UI zoom and resize via drag
Complete documentation available directly online from the instrument or in downloadable PDF format
Cherry Audio’s Crumar Spirit is available now for macOS & Windows for $59.
