Well, after a few posts of looking at and celebrating cross-platform plugins, I’m going to whip the wheel back and bring up a Windows-only environment that I think has some pretty brilliant moments, thanks to a few individuals.

I speak of course of SynthEdit, the loved/hated/bashed/celebrated plugin development environment. It’s hard not to get into the pro/con argument even though it’s really fuckin’ tiresome. It’s easy enough to bash considering some of the crap it’s spawned – a vast field of gewgaws that is distracting to the uninitiated, many of which are barely indistinguishable, as well as the occasional dodgy developer who uses it for some sort of VST Three-card Monte. The latest round of bluster has to with the well-documented and over-discussed multi-core bug (multiple instances of the same plug will take down its host). And I suppose it could shoulder some blame for the user who thinks that DSP development is as easy opening an object-oriented software program. But every time I’m fully over it I am reminded of some of the brilliant things some people can do with it. Because so much of the environment is open to raw DSP coding, in the right hands, even imperfect as it may be, it can be truly inspiring.

First up, developer Ugo has released a few new goodies that promise to be as good to look at as they are fun to play – I say without having actually played any of them. No demos, you ask? I don’t download demos any more unless it’s something I might be able to afford. So when I’m skint why torture myself, or why try something just because? If it endures and it’s something I might use when I have the funds then I’ll download the demo… But I digress. I’m not sure which of these I’ll eventually buy because they all look so unique and interesting. M-Theory, the 2nd coming of his popular String Theory synth, promises to be gorgeous and useful. But the loop mangler Disturbance is really unlike anything I’ve seen produced with SynthEdit, and looks like it would fuck shit up but good. And the beefed up Ironhead looks tempting, better sound, more control. Additionally, we Metallurgy users got a nice update on that as well, though to be honest I haven’t really used my Metallurgy all that much. (Note to self…)

Also on my radar is KvR favorite xoxos who has a great imagination when it comes to synth design. His new CIRCUIT plugin, “probability based MIDI sequencer that joins short phrases together to create natural feeling rhythms” looks especially clever. I love tools that generate MIDI data you can throw at tracks to, create sounds you wouldn’t otherwise come up with bashing on the keys and tweaking the filter. This looks to be a very nice addition to energyXT.

And I would be remiss when talking about commercial SynthEdit creations not to mention ChordSpacePlaya. Have I written about it before? Who knows. Nevertheless, it’s a brilliant piece of programming. I use it mostly as to develop melodic ideas. And for strings and pads it’s dead useful. And it’s author, or at least his/her public KvR persona, is one entertaining mofo. I don’t use it often but when I do it always helps me come up with things I’m too feeble to do on my own.

What have I missed?