Audiaire has introduced Zone, described as an ‘advanced parameter sequencer synth’, for Mac & Windows.
At the heart of Zone is a powerful parameter sequencer that allows virtually every control to be assigned to and modified by its own independent sequencer lane, with unlimited lanes, each running at their own unique rate and number of steps.
Zone can be played in three distinct modes:
- As a feature rich synth with a host of filters, 151 wavetable oscillators with user import, 20 insert FX, powerful mod matrix and much more.
- With a 32 step note sequencer – allowing pitch, velocity, gate, probability and +/- swing at a variety of rates.
- Or with infinite note and parameter sequencer lanes, with complex tools and presets for modifying lane behavior.
Pricing and Availability:
Zone is available now with an intro price of £99/$139. An iLok account or dongle is required authorize Zone. A demo version is also available.
iLok or Dongle?? That’s a no-go for me. I don’t need that for any of the other plug-ins I use, some of which are really big names.
Its not really a big deal, Its a free service that allows you to back up and store product keys. Lots of software’s use this.
It is a really hig deal considering issues over the years.
U-he, FXPansion and others can do it without dongels or additional software.
I’ve never had an issue with iLok.
Until i had to swap the motherboard out of my main PC.
To un-activate/free up the license that was activate to previous setup… I had to email/open a support ticket to every vendor I had in the list. No not that hard just time consuming and delay & getting back to up & running.
Fxpansions ridiculous bloatware app is no better than iLok
Even companies that use it don’t like, I was talking to a employee at soundtoys and they hate it and are hoping to move to their own system of protection. DRM is never a good thing.
Do we know how long the introductory price is going on for?
Again.I thought this was hardware initially. The render was impressive.Would love if this site had a software and hardware section so those of us into hardware would not be fooled by the initial advertising.
There are existing pages for hardware synths vs software synths in the ‘Topic’ list on the right of each page.
Each Topic page only shows news items related to that topic.
Hardware synths will show up in these topics: Synthesizers (hardware synth modules); Keyboard Synthesizers; and Modular Synthesizers.
Software will show up under Software Synthesizers & Samplers.
Gratuitously sexy 3d renderings of virtual instruments have been around a long time. We wrote about them back in 2009, and could probably revisit this:
https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2009/10/26/the-2009-sexy-3d-ad-for-a-virtual-instrument-hall-of-shame/
I thought that too, it’d be a lovely thing…
You honestly thought this thing, with a couple of dozen LCD displays, was an actual piece of hardware?
That sounds like a smart new tool to me. Its a lot more accessible on the fly than other things that operate in that general loop-ish area, but the creators of iLok should be killed by 30 angry winged monkeys on crack. I took a run at iLok and its was a burning tire fire to manage. YMMV, of course.
Had a chance to demo it today… its ok. There’s a couple of things I wasn’t a fan of:
– Unscalable gui… the fonts used for labeling in some sections are very small and difficult to read. My initial reaction was to look for a scaling option and was disappointed. This should be standard on all vst in my opinion.
– The sound… it’s kinda meh to be honest. Presets were a bit uninspired and even building sounds from scratch didn’t really blow me away. Sound wise, I feel it doesn’t bring anything new to the table.
– FX section… definitely not a fan. The built in effects are nothing to write home about and the reverb that comes bundled definitely needs some help.
Now for some praise:
– Sequencer panel… I love that every control option has its own sequencer panel. Its absolutely awesome and left me wondering why this hasn’t been implemented as a standard on other virtual synths.
Overall, its an ok synth. At the end of the day, for me it’s all about how a synth sounds. These days we’re so spoiled by choice and there are an insane amount of synths competing for our attention. At that price point you’re starting to compete with developers like U-he who make some of if not the best sounding virtual instruments on the market. Personally, sound wise it just misses the mark. However, there are some great ideas here and definitely room for improvement and develop things further.
The GUI is scalable to 200% and its a front panel control!!
You left this same exact comment, word for word if I’m not mistaken on the comment section for the new voltage modular synth.
It looks pretty flexible and full of features, but the sound of it just didn’t do it for me.
What i see after seeing the X thousand synth that does “something new” :
Bla bla bla bla very good, bla bla high tech superb idea, bla bla advanced features bla bla and 139 dollars “introductory” offer . What a bargain! And later it will cost only one gazillion bezillion dollars.
This is something great, I wont listen to the disinfo and hate. I dont understand why the best is downed and disinfoed. Maybe because some know that pro productions can come out of it and they are not happy when this is made accessible to the common folks.
Hes using a Komplete Kontrol Keyboard is this synth NKS compatible?
I’ve officially blacklisted any company who advertise 3D renderings of their plugins trying to create hype through us “maybe thinking it’s hardware”. With other products, most instances of advertising something like that would be considered spam
..not sure why all the hate on iLok, Arturia’s and many other proprietary systems suck way harder than iLok. I’ve downloaded the trial, it’s a little hard on the learning curve – but for sure but absolutely blazing sounds, particularly the pads which weirdly don’t really use the sequencer grid. and the GUI is scalable up to 200% – it’s right next to the unison knob.
I really don’t understand these kind of designs.. why mimic the hardware ? please it was a thing in 2000.. we are on computer, make simple but effective interfaces
This uses a hideous amount of resource, i have a 2012 12 core 3.33ghz mac and it pushes it over the edge with just one sound, this recored was previously revered for reactor, no multi core support, other synths i have do not do this(Lush 101 cough,cough). the sequencing page/space is so fiddly, why! you have a whole screen to play with, na doesn’t really cut it for me!
what are you using? a 2008 Dell lol? I’m running fine on a 2013 Macbook Pro and not seeing CPU go above 25%, which is better than Serum for comparable patches. Comparing Lush 101 to Zone is like comparing the fuel efficiency of a Nissan Micra to a Porsche 911 GT3 btw. Run multiple instances of automation on Lush 101 and see how it deals with it